Diversifying Representations of Female Scientists on Social Media: A Case Study From the Women Doing Science Instagram

Abstract

In the absence of real-life role models, women scientists portrayed in the media enable young women to imagine themselves as future scientists. Both traditional media and social media have the potential to provide role models, but their representations of scientists reinforce, rather than challenge, long-standing gendered stereotypes. Women Doing Science, a social media effort, was founded by the authors to address this representation gap by sharing daily photos of diverse women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) with accompanying research descriptions in English and in other languages. To date, Women Doing Science has highlighted over 800 scientists to an audience of ~100,000 followers from around the world, who are primarily women in undergraduate and graduate STEM degree programs. Here, we evaluate the success of the Women Doing Science Instagram page in portraying women scientists with diverse racial and national identities. Furthermore, we explore which aspects of posts drive higher engagement from the audience. We find that our Instagram audience has higher engagement with posts featuring Women of Color, multiple languages, and posts that challenge stereotypes associated with women in STEM. In addition, we find that Women of Color are more likely to include additional aspects of their identity in their biographies, and that a primary reason our audience follows the page is because of the diversity portrayed in the posts. These results imply the powerful potential for social media platforms like Instagram to source diverse role models that expand conventional images of STEM professionals and allow international audiences to develop their STEM identities.

Social Media As A Place Of False Happiness

“…Another case is ourselves, as a generation that has an attachment to social media, the most popular social media today is Instagram (Faber, 2022;Phillips et al, 2022). This is in accordance with Kandari's explanation (2013) that Instagram is a popular social media application because Instagram has many interesting features.…”

The effects of social media on STEM identity in adolescent girls

“…The Instagram page used in this study for the intervention was 'Women Doing Science' (15). This page was chosen because a published content-analysis study about 'Women Doing Science' concluded that the page highlighted diverse and international female scientists (12). From the 'Women Doing Science' Instagram page, 14 Instagram posts were selected that included diverse female scientists from various STEM fields.…”

“…From a young age, girls are exposed to gender inequality, and their representation in STEM continues to decrease as they go through higher education. According to Wells, the ratio of female to male students in 10th-grade academic science classes was 1:1; however, by the time the students graduated with PhDs, the ratio of females to males in STEM-related hashtag usage, such as #STEM (3.7 million posts) and #womeninSTEM (1 million) (12). Social media can be used to reduce stereotypes and assumptions of stigmatized and underrepresented groups through exposure to counter-stereotypical portrayals and role models (6).…”

Invisible women: Gender representation in high school science courses across Australia

“…Women are underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) (Nimmesgern, 2016). This lack of diversity in STEM can have detrimental effects through the reduction of innovation and problem-solving (Bose et al, 2011; Hofstra et al, 2020; Hong & Page, 2004; Medin & Lee, 2012; Phillips et al, 2022; Swartz et al, 2019). In Australia, there has been a decreasing trend for the number of school students enrolling in STEM subjects over the last few decades (Georgiou & Crook, 2018; Kennedy et al, 2014), and girls, in particular, have lower STEM participation rates and lower STEM aspirations in school than boys (Jaremus et al, 2019; Wang & Degol, 2017).…”

“…For children to develop a positive sense of identity and belonging, it is important for them to have access to accurate and authentic role models who share their gender and cultural backgrounds throughout their lives (Adam, 2021; Adam & Barratt-Pugh, 2020; Adam et al, 2021; Derman-Sparks & Task force, 1989; Gollnick et al, 2009; Harlin & Morgan, 2009). For example, exposure to real women in STEM encourages other women to develop their STEM identities and ‘see themselves’ as potential scientists (Phillips et al, 2022; Steinke, 2017).…”