Everyday Activism: Gender-Based Service in Stem

Abstract

There has been and continues to be a substantial amount of work done to encourage, support, and retain women in mathematics. However, very little has been written about the faculty leading these gender-based initiatives, most of whom are women. This dynamic—women advocating on behalf of other women—is connected to identity-based activist movements. In the following, I describe how I have started to see gender-based work in STEM as a form of institutional activism. I then describe how this change of conceptualization led me to rethink the landscape of gender-based work in STEM. I reflect on literature from institutional activism and describe how that literature has changed my own engagement in gender-based service. My goal in this article is to provide math practitioners with some ideas for reflecting on their own actions in contesting historical forms of sexism. As we begin to understand the rules, norms, and cultures that constrain us, we will be better equipped to strategically contest them and create the sorts of institutional change that we want to see. I conclude the article with a series of questions to challenge all of us to think strategically about the future of our work supporting women in STEM.

Keywords:

• Institutional activism
• faculty service
• gender-based service
• grassroots leadership
• STEM
• women

1. INTRODUCTION

There has been and continues to be a lot of work done to encourage, support, and retain women in mathematics and STEM, as evidenced in this special issue.¹ What I was surprised to find when I first began reading about initiatives for women in STEM was that very little had been written about the faculty leading these initiatives. Its clear faculty are intimately involved in this work, but very little research describes their motivations, experiences, trials, or growth. It is clear that most of the faculty involved in diversity and inclusion work are “non-white” and “non-male” [17, p. 1030]. While women are well-positioned to be leading the way in combating the history of sexism in mathematics, I do wonder what this dynamic means for widespread institutional change. Is it possible to change university culture if only women faculty are showing up to help other women?

This dynamic—women advocating on behalf of themselves and other women—is exactly the sort of dynamic that occurs in identity-based activist movements. In the following, I describe how I have started to see gender-based work in STEM as a form of institutional activism. I then describe how this change of conceptualization has led me to rethink the landscape of gender-based work in STEM and my own engagement in it. These reflections are centered on my own commitments to see real institutional change in STEM. Women in STEM continue to be marginalized because of the low level of institutionalization of gender-based work. Our work, while thoughtful, organized, and impassioned, continues to meet systemic barriers which need to be addressed. Many of us are familiar with this feeling, that the work we are doing, while amazing, feels somehow like “not enough” compared to the challenges we know women in STEM face. We want our initiatives to be bigger, have more impact, and reach women that we still have not reached. We would like to feel less alone in the work we are doing and to feel less like we are fighting an uphill battle. These are all goals for institutional change.

I hope to provide math practitioners with some critical distance about their own actions in contesting historic institutional structures [25,37]. One of the ways we begin to understand the rules, norms, and cultures that constrain us is to name them, acknowledge them, and then reflect on how to strategically dismantle them [25,37]. I position this work broadly in STEM, instead of purely mathematics, because the dynamics are similar and because I believe we will need cross-disciplinary coalitions to really change STEM culture.

1.1. Who I Am

I am a queer, cisgender woman who has been teaching mathematics at George Mason University, a public, four-year, east coast university, for about nine years. I am also a Ph.D. candidate in Math Education. I am currently writing a dissertation that focuses on gender-based service in STEM departments. I use an intersectional critical feminist lens in my work and consider myself part of a loosely connected group of faculty who are engaged in gender-based service, mentorship, or leadership. Because I identify as part of that group and write this article for faculty engaged in or curious about participating in gender-based work, I use the words we and us to refer to the group of faculty engaged in gender-based work. My hope is that this work is helpful for faculty in thinking about themselves and their own goals and aims for the initiatives they are involved in. I also hope this article is informative for faculty who are not yet significantly engaged in gender-based work in STEM to help them rethink their commitment to enact change in their own departments.

2. HOW IS GENDER-BASED SERVICE IN STEM RELATED TO ACTIVISM IN OTHER CONTEXTS?

Gender-based service includes any type of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) service that faculty are doing to encourage, retain, and support women in STEM. Gender-based service is similar to race-based service and service to queer students. While I do not discuss those other types of DEI service here, they likely have similar, though not identical, dynamics to gender-based service.² I use the broadest possible conceptualization of service: “Service is the catchall name for everything that is neither teaching, research, nor scholarship” which is still generally relevant for promotion, tenure, or evaluation [2, p. 22]. Gender-based service can include running bridge programs, volunteering as the faculty advisor for the Association of Women in Mathematics (AWM) groups, mentorship, and undertaking pedagogical or professional development that facilitates knowledge around supporting women in STEM. Faculty perform this service on behalf of K–12 students, undergraduate students, graduate students, and other faculty. The ideas presented in this article are most applicable to service that faculty engage in agentically or proactively so it may include or exclude service assignments such as being assigned to be the “diversity representative” on hiring committees depending on the amount of faculty agency involved. Gender-based service, which is not agentic, is still very valuable but likely differs significantly from the dynamics I review and needs to be understood through a different lens.

There are a few important things to note about gender-based service which illuminate the landscape of this type of service:

1. Equity service can be a burden for faculty. Padilla first named DEI service that faculty of color³ perform a “cultural tax” levied against underrepresented faculty, which the university benefits from [28]. Service, while required, can take time away from research and teaching – both of which are more highly valued in university reward structures [26]. Gender-based service can be emotionally taxing as well because of its connection to our own personal identities [11,13]. Jasper uses the phrase “moral batteries” to describe pairs of contrasting emotions that keep this work going: pride and shame, love and hate, anger at injustice and belief things can get better [15, p. 291]. This service is different from other forms of service particularly because of the heightened emotional and relational component.

2. This type of service can be incredibly fulfilling. Baez contested the idea that equity service was always a burden, arguing instead that faculty engage in DEI service as a way of agentically changing the university into a more just place [1]. University practices and norms need faculty to re-enact them in order to remain powerful and relevant [37]. When faculty use the freedom and agency that is built into their positions to contest sexist university norms, they build new norms and a more supportive university for women [37]. Faculty describe equity service as a way they can give back to their students, but it is also clear that engagement in this work provides a support structure for faculty as well [12,18,34,38].

3. Gender-based DEI service is a form of activism based in identity, like gender, sexuality, or race. Identity-based activist movements, similar to gender-based work in STEM, are interested in advocating for a more just society, but one of their fundamental functions is simply to support the people who are involved (in this case, faculty and students) [23]. An example of a similar activist movement of this type is the feminist movement of the 1970s and 1980s, which advocated for material changes (better pay, or job opportunities, for example) but also simply supported the idea that women were valuable in their own regard. Because very little is known about gender-based service in STEM from the perspective of the faculty involved, I review dynamics that are present in other institutional activist work.

Once I began to see the similarities between gender-based service and identity-based activism, I started to conceptualize gender-based service that faculty undertake as a form of activism inside universities, or “institutional activism” [29, p. 499]. A DEI institutional activist: (1) engages in forms of agentic and proactive work that overlaps with the aims and work of one or more activist movements outside the institution; (2) has access to institutional resources and may be able to impact decision-making or policy-making processes within the institution; (3) does not directly coordinate activity with an outside activist movement; and (4) feels primarily accountable to the institution in at least one dimension (financial, organizational, or discursive) and also feels accountable to a broader activist movement in at least one of the dimensions of accountability (financial, organizational, or discursive) [16, p. 9].

I know that using the word “activist” may be controversial. I think of myself as an activist for a few reasons. First, this work is connected to a long line of activism outside university structures. Gender-based service in STEM is connected to feminist movements that want to access jobs historically out of reach to women. Similarly, much of the scholarship on the service that Black and Latina female faculty perform is situated in Critical Race or Latcrit scholarship and connected to the associated activist movements. Feminist and race activism has diffused into a sort of activism “by any other name” [20, p. 20]. I follow Katzenstein's example when I “talk generically of [activists] …because of the work all activists do in challenging at least some aspect of a system of institutional inequality” [20, p. 21].

Further, even some deeply engaged activists may refrain from calling themselves activists because they do not feel that they live up to some hypothetical activist standard [3]. Within organizations, activist ideals are diffused and moderated by membership in the organization [9], but imperfect forms of activism are still activism. In fact, adhering to any sense of activist perfection may cause us as a community to be missing some of the fundamental forms of activism that women, and especially Black, Latina, Asian, Indigenous, multiracial, queer, and trans women in STEM have been doing for a long time: holding space for themselves and other women like them. Holding space is foundational to changing the culture and norms of institutions and creating room for others who come after us [24].

3. RETHINKING THE LANDSCAPE OF GENDER-BASED SERVICE IN STEM

All activists have a sense of the landscape of the work they are engaged in. Melucci called this sense of the landscape the “cognitive definitions” that activists hold about their activism [23, p. 70]. Cognitive definitions encompass our understandings of (1) the environment; (2) the aims; and (3) the means of the activist work [23]. A sense of the environment includes our knowledge of the universities where we work, the challenges that still face women in those universities, and the dynamics, relationships, and systems we need to navigate in order to support women. Aims are simply the goals for our work, so these might include enrolling more women in STEM majors, retaining the women who do enroll, encouraging high school students to consider STEM, or cultivating research opportunities for women. Finally, the means are the practices that we engage in to accomplish our aims. This can include starting an initiative for high school women to provide exposure to more advanced mathematics, choosing to actively mentor undergraduate women in STEM, or advocating for more funding for women graduate students. These cognitive definitions ground our day-to-day activities and give us a sense of what work needs to be done.

When our cognitive definitions are inaccurate because of misperceptions we hold about gender-based initiatives, it constrains our ability to enact change [24]. Inaccurate understandings of the environment, aims, and means of our work can lead us to fail to ask universities for the support we need. We sometimes seek small incremental change, not because of real constraints on resources, but because we inaccurately perceive resource or personnel constraints that are not present. This sort of misperception of what our organization will allow slows progress and, again, constrains activist work. Understanding the landscape of our work and our own departments' and universities' tolerance for change is essential for institutional change.⁴

In the next three subsections, I review literature that has changed my perception of the environment, aims, and means of gender-based service. As my perceptions have changed, my own approach to gender-based service has shifted. I describe that shift in myself, and I pose reflective questions for readers to think about their own sense of the landscape. I intentionally refrain from reviewing literature that demonstrates racism and sexism still detrimentally impact women in STEM fields, even though that literature forms a major part of my understanding of the environment of gender-based service. Reviews of the challenges that women face in STEM are widely available [14,19,27,39]. I also write from an intersectional perspective and assume my readers are committed to the well-being and success of women of all races, another major part of my understanding of the environment. Readings that explain how racism, sexism, homophobia, and other systems of oppression impact women of different identities are also widely available [5–8,35]. We will need coalitional, intersectional approaches to create institutional change.

3.1. The Constraining Environment of Gender-Based Work in STEM

3.1.1. Motivation

Institutional change is constrained by the way gender-based initiatives are institutionally structured. Some of the questions that motivate this section include: Why are gender-based initiatives operating as perpetually small initiatives with barely enough funding to operate and with a minimal number of faculty to keep the initiative afloat? Why do the same faculty keep showing up again and again? Why is our work structured as small side initiatives in the first place? Women make up almost 40% of undergraduate mathematics students: Is this all that we can do?

Prior to reading this literature, I confess I had never thought about the structure of gender-based initiatives. When starting my Ph.D., I was interested in the question of sexism in STEM. The ideas of organizational structure were foreign to me. I review work in this section that has radically changed my understanding of the environment. I encourage readers to reflect with me on the ways that gender-based initiatives are structured, both locally and nationally and consider how we can start to ask for more institutional buy-in for our work. I am tired of feeling like I am working against my university when I advocate for women. I would like to feel like my university is fully partnering with me in this work.

3.1.2. Institutional Marginalization

Gender-based initiatives and efforts in STEM are constrained by institutional marginalization. Marginalization occurs in institutions that are not “friendly” to activist aims [32, p. 150]. Roth wrote, “resistance within institutions coupled with a grudging acceptance of internal feminist insurgency can lead to the provision of a token space purportedly aimed at inclusion, but actually created to marginalize feminists and feminist issues” [32, p. 153]. When activist work is marginalized in universities, the university (intentionally or unintentionally) silos the activism either outside explicit university structure or within a bounded sub-space inside the university. Universities routinely engage in this sort of siloing, which allows the formation of activist spaces but only within organizationally defined boundaries. Marginalization serves as a way to delay real institutional change because universities can claim they are engaged in equity work (in the siloed space) without having to allocate real resources to systemic change.

An example of institutional marginalization can be seen in feminist activism in the U.S. Catholic Church [20,32]. Because of internal church dynamics, one Catholic feminist group felt stifled inside of the church hierarchy, so they formed a parachurch organization called “women-church.” While women-church had more room to operate, they were located completely outside the church as an organization which limited its access to institutional power [20,32]. A slightly different form of marginalization occurred in the U.S. military where, during the 1970s and 80s, any issues involving women in the military were funneled into a specific committee on women, which was siloed inside the organization [20,32]. This form of marginalization siloed women's issues into an institutionally defined subspace, limiting the power of the committee on women but still giving the appearance of institutional progress.

Marginalization can be seen in gender-based DEI service in STEM in the way that the national Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is currently structured relative to universities. AWM is located outside university hierarchy which gives AWM some freedom to operate but also limits the impact it can have within universities. For example, AWM can suggest policies for equitable hiring procedures but cannot actually implement those policies at the local level. Similarly, funding sources for gender-based initiatives (NSF Advance, NSF Includes, MAA Tensor) are located outside the university financial structure. This funding structure allows some freedom, but it also constrains the level of local impact those resources can enact, in particular, because the funding is not ongoing. These programs and funding opportunities are all valuable but also are all forms of activist marginalization. The work of supporting women in STEM has been forced into siloed spaces. Many of the local initiatives we see for women in STEM are more similar to the type of marginalization seen in the U.S. military. Local initiatives reside inside universities but outside normal departmental channels. These gender-based initiatives are highly dependent on one or two faculty and may not continue if the faculty retired, left the university, or needed to prioritize other work. Local gender-based initiatives are structured in a way that assumes a lack of institutional commitment.

Marginalized programs and funders are not problematic in and of themselves. In fact, they provide essential support for women who still face hostile environments at their local universities. These dedicated spaces are necessary for activist organizing [20]. Marginalized programs also support the STEM identities of female faculty and participants [13,18]. But the current state of affairs – the way these initiatives are funded, the way they fit (or don't fit) into university organizational structure, the way things are – is what I want to call into question.

3.1.3. Reflecting on My Perception of the Environment of Gender-Based Work in STEM

This literature initiated a substantial shift in my thinking about the environment of gender-based work. I now think institutional marginalization is one of the biggest challenges we face. In no way do I intend to minimize the negative impacts of sexism and racism in universities, but institutional marginalization allows universities to delay institutional change by creating the illusion of commitment to equity without real institutional investment. This literature has motivated me to encourage my own department to engage seriously in equity work and to more fully embed that work in the institutional structure of my department. In the last couple of years, I have taken on the role of associate chair. Since I was the first non-tenure-track faculty member to have this role in a while, I suggested the title of “Associate Chair of Teaching and Equity” as a way of encouraging us to focus on equity more explicitly. The title also granted me some flexibility to advocate on behalf of equity in the department (At least, I felt more free to do so). In the Spring of 2021, I organized a series of teaching conversations for my department. I invited researchers and practitioners to speak with our faculty about equity in teaching mathematics and asked that the department pay the honorariums (this was a request for institutional funding). Becoming aware of the propensity for institutions to marginalize gender-based work, I have changed some of my own engagement in the space. I have started to ask for more from my department; I have begun to cultivate relationships where I can speak openly about my aspirations and goals for institutional change; and I have stopped censoring my thoughts as much. I am lucky to work in a department that has valued my contributions.

3.2. The Aims of Gender-Based Work in STEM

3.2.1. Motivation

Activist goal setting is routinely divided into questions of immediacy. We need initiatives that support women in STEM now, and we also need to work on strategic, long-term changes that will create institutional change. Some of the questions that motivate this section include: What should our aims be for our gender-based work? How can we strategically interact with power dynamics in our universities? If we understand a major challenge we face is power structures in universities, what should our response be as a coalitional group?

Prior to reading this literature, I was aware that navigating and deconstructing power dynamics was a major goal of feminist activism. I also knew networks and coalitions were important in activist work, but I did not understand how coalitions related to navigating power dynamics. In this section, I encourage readers to reflect on the role networks play in helping us navigate institutional power structures. After understanding how important networks are for institutional change, I also suggest readers consider setting new goals: to intentionally cultivate coalitional networks and to invite more faculty into this work. I review work here by Kezar and Lester on activism inside universities, or what they called “grassroots leadership,” and how university faculty leveraged networks to navigate power dynamics [21, p. 8].

3.2.2. The Power of Activist Networks

In universities, we routinely think of power as situated within the administrative structure. So “powerful” people may be our provosts, deans, or our department chairs. This conception of power is an example of “power over,” the type of power that has control over material and personnel resources [33, p. 13]. But “power over” is only one of many types of power in the world, and as anyone who has studied faculty resistance knows, administrative “power over” has its own limits. We, as individuals and as coalitional groups, have the power to contest university and departmental norms around gender and to enact strategies of change [1,37]. As we seek to broaden our impact to larger groups of people, we need coalitional power, or “power with” others to engage in that work [33, p. 13].

In their work on grassroots activism in universities, Kezar and Lester studied how faculty engaged with power dynamics to reach activist goals [21]. The most successful group saw power as multi-locational. They had no goal to confront administrators in powerful positions but instead sought to persuade people with power to support activist work. These faculty built networks, sought out influential positions, and cultivated relationships to bring about change at their universities. They also intentionally mapped power structures in order to engage with them strategically [21]. This is coalitional power.

Cultivating and engaging with networks of people is integral to institutional change. Networks of support are important in getting people “on our side” so we have access to the resources we need to pursue initiatives, but they also are important mechanisms for recruiting other activists [23]. While some alignment of beliefs is necessary for people to join activist groups, people largely join activist coalitions based on existing friendships, family connections, and other social relationships [23]. Cultural diffusion happens when we bring more and more people into these activist networks, and they become committed to the work as we are [30].

In STEM, Smith and Thomas wrote about their work creating an alliance of women to enact change in five Florida universities [36]. This is an example of an interinstitutional coalition designed to create institutional change. The primary objectives of the coalition were to recruit, retain, and promote women in Chemistry and Engineering [10]. This alliance arose out of previous collegial relationships as is common in coalition creation. The group took the approach of “power with” others in the project. They held four interinstitutional workshops for alliance members on recruitment, mentoring, using strategic persuasion, and the “uses of influence, power, and conflict resolution in negotiation” [10, p. 13]. They engaged with power dynamics strategically and cultivated administrator and faculty buy-in through networking and educational workshops. While the project involved an interinstitutional coalition of faculty, each institution also had its own coalitional group that supported the project. Faculty involved in the interinstitutional training took back what they learned to their individual universities and trained other faculty and administrators. The project required dedication and intentionality to build a collaborative coalition [36].

3.2.3. Reflecting on My Aims for Gender-Based Work in STEM

Reflecting on the literature has solidified new goals for me: to cultivate relationships with other like-minded faculty, to encourage others who may be neutral bystanders to get involved in the work of supporting women in STEM, and to talk freely about my goals of making my own department and STEM more equitable. In the past, I have felt uncomfortable with the idea of networking, thinking of the relationships as disingenuous and manipulative (I think they can be), but as I have changed my practices, I have found my own relationships to be incredibly fulfilling friendships formed around common commitments to equity and social justice. It has been a real joy to find allies and fellow activists who are equally committed to gender equity. My dissertation seeks to understand how white men become fully committed to gender-based equity work. Writing that dissertation, I have been thinking about how I can invite men in my department to support gender-based work, and I wonder if failing to invite men hampers and constrains my own goals for equity. These are complex issues. Building intentional coalitions is challenging, especially across difference, because of the ways that racial, gender, and institutional power dynamics intersect in universities. Real coalitions will require our energy, our time, and our commitment to act in solidarity with all people who have been historically excluded from STEM fields [16].

3.3. The Many Means of Gender-Based Work in STEM

3.3.1. Motivation

Rethinking the environment and aims of my own feminist activism, I also wanted to understand the different types of feminist activism that were occurring in STEM fields. This was more difficult to find in the literature because so much gender-based service occurs as invisible labor. It is a service we do in addition to all the other service that we are responsible for (the non-feminist service – the service that counts). Some of this gender-based service is not currently recognized as service: it is extra labor women need to perform in order to exist in STEM spaces. Some of the questions that motivate this section include: Why do I feel like I am not doing enough gender service while simultaneously feeling like I'm overworking myself by taking on gender-based service? Why does it feel so scary to even mention equity in certain spaces much less do anything? For faculty who want to get involved but don't want to start an entire initiative for women: What can we do to enact change where we are and emphasizing the strengths we have?

Prior to reading this literature, I was familiar with some forms of activist work in STEM, in particular, the work women faculty perform when they organize gender-based initiatives. I had not, however, connected that work with smaller forms of activism like the work of staying true to ourselves in STEM spaces or the work women do to counter microaggressions. In the following section, I review Debra Meyerson's phenomenal book on institutional activism in corporate America [24]. In that work, she identified five forms of institutional activism. After describing each type of activism, I give examples of each type in STEM fields and then ask readers to expand what we mean when we think about DEI service. Specifically, I ask readers how we can start drawing attention to the many forms of invisible labor that women are doing already.

3.3.2. Different Forms of Activism

The first type of activism that Meyerson identified is “staying true to self” [24, p. 8]. In this form of activism, individuals seek to authentically be themselves in the organization, to resist changing who they are because of perceived or real differences between themselves and their work environment. One way women in STEM stay true to themselves is by resisting pressure to “cover” our true identities. Black, Latina, Asian, Indigenous, multi-racial, queer, and trans women in STEM experience pressure to change who they are in order to exist in STEM spaces, what Yoshino called the “covering” demand of white, masculine-centric university spaces [41, p. 79]. Black and Latina faculty in STEM described feeling pressured to carefully monitor the ways they dressed, did their hair, wore makeup, and the ways they asserted themselves to avoid being described as “angry” or “emotional” [40]. Asian-American women felt pressured to behave in overly feminine ways and faced negative responses when they were too assertive [40]. Women regularly engage in identity work to avoid having negative identities ascribed to them in STEM spaces. Another way faculty stay true to themselves is by engaging in their normal job duties while keeping activist goals in mind [21]. Choosing to mentor, support, and advocate for other women in STEM is an example of staying true to ourselves because it allows us to engage in normal university practices, like mentoring, while also allowing us to engage in activities that align with our values around gender equity in STEM. Similarly, serving on a hiring committee with the goal of encouraging other committee members to engage in anti-biased hiring practices is another form of staying true to ourselves. Faculty who create networks and relationships with the aim of cultivating broader support for women in STEM is another example. In this type of staying true to ourselves, faculty co-opt normal university processes in pursuit of activist goals.

Second, Meyerson identified that some individuals choose to turn personal threats into opportunities by interrupting an encounter to disrupt its momentum; naming what is happening (especially regarding sexism and racism); correcting false assumptions; or delaying the response to find a better time. In STEM literature, examples of turning personal threats into opportunities exist in research on how faculty respond to microaggressions. These responses include condemning sexist or racist comments when they occur, making sure others understand communication norms after an incident, or taking a pause or using a moment of silence to reset after a sexist or racist comment [22].

Third, some individuals choose to broaden the impact of their activist efforts through negotiation. When faculty broaden through negotiation, they depersonalize the situation and take a more traditional negotiation stance, reflecting on what they want and leveraging a third party to help in achieving their goal. An example of this can be seen in the documentary, Picture a Scientist [4]. That film documents the activist work undertaken by women at MIT to combat sexism in STEM departments. A group of women collected evidence and used that evidence to advocate for gender equity in STEM at MIT. The women used institutionally approved pathways to negotiate for institutional change: they renegotiated salaries, they were awarded more lab space, and they changed the landscape for women at MIT [4].

Fourth, individuals leverage small wins into bigger gains. This is similar to a lot of gender-based work that is currently undertaken by women faculty. Small doable projects with limited personal risk allow faculty to understand the organizational response to the small initiative. Once faculty understand the resources needed for the small project and the impact those resources create, individuals can leverage data from small wins into larger projects. This is the type of activism undertaken when we talk about creating small initiatives and then scaling them up. There are many examples of this type of activism, including bridge programs, REUs, and summer camps for high school students. Many of these start as small initiatives and then scale up to include more participants.

Finally, some individuals engage in institutional activism by organizing collective action. Faculty intentionally create small communities of activists to get things done. In order to facilitate the creation of this community, the group needs to clarify important issues and values, gather as a community, form a leadership structure, and cultivate supportive networks [24]. This is a bigger community, perhaps focused on multiple goals. The group could be involved in one or more initiatives. The group itself also serves as a supportive community for the women involved. Local on-campus groups for women are an excellent example of this type of institutional activism (e.g. local chapters of AWM), though these groups can also be negatively impacted by institutional marginalization. Small communities of activists can increase their impact and contest marginalization by networking with other aligned groups and acting in solidarity with them. For example, at my institution, we have at least four groups for women in STEM, several of which operate independently of each other. Further, groups for women in STEM could reach out to aligned university departments like African-American Studies, Latino/a/x studies, Asian-American studies, queer studies, and women's studies departments to understand how we can work together and how STEM women can be supporting other historically marginalized groups on campus. Group-based networking can be a powerful strategy to contest siloing and marginalization.

3.3.3. Reflecting on My Goals for Gender-Based Work in STEM

Bringing these five forms of activism together under a cohesive framing has allowed me to think more holistically about the gender-based service that women in STEM are performing. When I reflect on these five forms of activism, and especially the first three forms of everyday activism, it has led me to appreciate how much work women (including myself) are already doing in our departments and universities and how much of our work goes unrecognized. In particular, I continue to think about women for whom “staying true to self” or “taking up space” is a significant everyday labor in STEM departments and commit myself to act in solidarity with them. I recognize staying true to self to be a fundamental and transformative form of activism that Black, Latina, Indigenous, Asian, multi-racial, queer, and trans women engage in regularly. I have also thought about the ways I stay true to myself in STEM spaces. For example, I intentionally mentor undergraduate women every semester, as a way of forming connections with other women in STEM, supporting their academic success, and talking explicitly about the challenges women in STEM still face. I know mentorship supports my students, but I have also become more aware of ways that mentorship allows me to remain true to my values and enact them in my day-to-day activities.

I have also been thinking about the difference between scaling up a siloed project and contesting institutional marginalization. Both scaling up and contesting marginalization are necessary for progress for women, but they also require different strategies to achieve. Siloed projects and spaces are essential because they provide space for women to be fully themselves and to gain valuable access to social network knowledge. But we, as a community, also need to be engaged in approaches that contest marginalization. We need our universities to fully support all of our gender-based service. If we had more institutional support and more male faculty engaged in gender-based service, it would create a cultural shift in STEM. Combating marginalization and making gender-based work an everyday form of activism are essential to making universities more just spaces.

4. CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE

In conclusion, I pose a series of questions intended to challenge all of us to think strategically about the future of our work supporting women in STEM. This literature has deeply impacted my own sense of the landscape of gender-based work in STEM, and I hope it will encourage readers to engage in new forms of activism as well.⁵

How is our work currently constrained or siloed by our organizations or by our own perceptions of what is possible? How could we envision more strategic and more counter-institutional goals? How can we continue to cultivate ambitious goals while also accurately understanding what we can achieve and protecting our energy? How should we begin to ask universities to stop tokenizing our efforts and to commit more fully to the success and well-being of women in STEM?

How could we rethink scalability? We think about this in terms of expanding organized initiatives but what would it mean to instead think about expanding our networks and inviting others into this work? What if we thought about scalability in terms of the numbers of faculty who are committed to equity?

How can we be more attentive to power? If we are in positions of power, do we leverage those positions to support other women? How can we increase our commitment to other women who may face different challenges than the ones we face? How can we act in solidarity with women in the LGBTQ+ community? For white women, how can we act in solidarity with Black, Latina, Indigenous, Asian, and multi-racial women?

How can we intentionally develop authentic and meaningful relationships that support us and our work? How can we invite more men to participate in this work with us, and how can we advocate that our universities prepare those men for this work? Jasper wrote that one of the moral batteries that energizes activist work is a combination of moral outrage at current conditions and hope for a better future [15]. I think about that combination in my own work a lot. While my own moral outrage at the institutional failure of universities is legitimate and fuels much of my work, I also wonder how I can embrace more hopefulness in my interactions with others.

How can we begin to hope for more institutional commitment, believe our colleagues to be committed to the success of women in STEM as we are, and ask both our fellow faculty and our institutions to engage in this work with us? This work is hard. We need the community to fuel institutional change.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joanna G. Jauchen

Joanna G. Jauchen is a PhD candidate in Mathematics Education studying the gendered nature of postsecondary STEM education. As a practitioner, she has been teaching mathematics at the college level for almost 20 years and is currently serving as the Associate Chair of Teaching and Equity in her department. She engages in intersectional, critical feminist research that focuses on the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) service that faculty engage in. She frames her research through the lens of institutional activism, interrogating who is involved in DEI service in STEM, who is not involved, and how universities can strategically increase faculty engagement in DEI service while retaining and valuing the leadership of historically excluded faculty in DEI initiatives.

Notes

1 I use the words woman and women to refer to people who gender themselves as women. I reference trans women at multiple points in this paper to draw specific attention to trans women's experiences in universities. Trans women are women.

2 Donna Riley does an excellent job connecting work in Engineering Education with Social Justice movements [31].

3 I use the phrase faculty of color here to remain consistent with Padilla's original wording. In other parts of the article, I use the racial descriptors of Black, Latina, Asian, and Indigenous because they represent the ways that women have been raced in the literature reviewed.

4 I want to differentiate my comments here about misperception of what is possible from sexist tropes that argue women fail to ask for what we want and deserve. Every assertive women knows that you're darned if you do ask and darned if you don't ask. But it is worthwhile to consider how to better understand the real constraints we face as opposed to understanding the constraints we simply intuit. Further, this article is aimed at faculty in STEM. If I were writing an article toward departmental, college, or university leadership, I would argue that the university administration has a responsibility to proactively reach out to women in STEM to offer support and resources. The real institutional failure lies in the university failure to be proactive and this failure is the reason that women need to take on gender-based service in the first place.

5 While I describe dynamics in this article that are applicable across a variety of contexts, we also need to be aware of departmentally specific dynamics that may impact us personally. This work is not without risk. Testing or transgressing the boundaries of what is acceptable can be especially precarious for adjunct faculty, faculty on short contracts, or pre-tenured faculty. When we start talking about work that aligns with our gendered identities, it can activate those identities in the space and expose us to other forms of sexism and racism. I offer these ideas here but ask readers to protect themselves and their careers as they take on this work.