One of the biggest places where I’ve seen a big feminist perspective is in science and math in schools.  In the Feminist criticism chapter of Critical Theory Today, Tyson focuses heavily on what girls are told they can and cannot do as children. (Tyson 82-83)  Her biggest example is the subject of mathematics and how most girls are told that they will never be good at math and don’t need to study the subject. (Tyson 83)  While this may have been true for Tyson’s childhood, it was certainly not true for mine. 

As I was going through school, I was experiencing the culture shift from pushing girls away from math and sciences to pushing them into it.  Throughout middle and high school, teachers and administrators would push the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) program onto as many students as they could.  My little sister’s class had a huge focus on computer programing.  Our culture seems to have gone through a huge shift in the past few decades, from telling women that their place is in the home and doing domestic work to actively encouraging young girls to seek employment in fields where they would not have been welcome a generation ago.  Many people have criticized the science, engineering, and computer programing fields as being too male dominated and as it being a place that women need to break into.  My school advertise these subjects by telling the female population of the school that they would have more opportunity in those fields because of how male-dominated they were.  My high school specialized in their STEM program and had a focus on ‘getting girls into STEM.’  They would tell girls that they could do STEM related careers just as well as their male counterparts. 

This shift falls under feminist criticism because of the focus on making sure that women in this field are becoming seen, heard, and celebrated.  Women who go into these fields are seen as rebelling against the patriarchy because they are making a space for women in a previously all male space.  This new enthusiasm for women in STEM is also trying to dismantle the sexism that was previously present in these fields, such as Tyson experiencing young girls being told they couldn’t do math.  It is promoting women’s equality by showing that women can excel across a variety of different fields and by creating workspaces that have a more equal division of genders in STEM related fields.  I find this criticism so interesting because of how quickly it took effect.  Just with in the past two generations, it was odd for a woman to have a job that wasn’t nursing or teaching, but now we are heavily encouraging our young girls to pursue as many career paths as are available to them.

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: a User-Friendly Guide. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2015.