Opinion: Do Women Receive Too Much Support?

Do women receive too much support in STEM fields? This is a question that frequently comes up in the context of equal opportunities offers. In her opinion piece on the topic, author Valerie Lux demonstrates why women are in need of the extra support they get.

For example, only 22.5% of new students in IT are women, according to a statistic she cites from the Federal Statistical Office. And, as IT ethics expert Timo Speith tells the author in an interview, due to the centuries-long exclusion of women from math-based subjects, women are still under the impression that they aren’t well suited to these subjects. Additionally, as Ulrike Struwe (project leader of “Komm, Mach MINT”) told the author in an interview, women will naturally feel less competent in systems that were built around men. This is why there are projects that aim to provide girls with female role models in STEM fields.

And the question of whether equal opportunities measures amount to discrimination against men? This is also addressed in the article. Sneak peak: As Timo Speith says in the article, discrimination against men could only exist if there were already equality between men and women. Men are already hugely supported by the system in its current state.

To read more, check out Lux’s article in German on golem.de.