Women and Stem. Women and Stem. Women and Stem.

Tired of getting beaten over the head with boring rhetoric about how women just can’t get a fair shake in the STEM world? Ready for a success story? We thought so.

Meet Ritu Favre the senior vice president and general manager for the Freescale RF division. Her company’s technologies are the foundation for the innovations that make the world greener, safer, healthier and more connected. She spends her days overseeing all aspects from designing the products, to launching them, to marketing them.

Take these words of advice and begin your career in the exciting world of STEM.

Be inspired by the world around you.
“My dad was a civil engineer and he was a big influence and source of encouragement for me,” says Favre. “When I was pretty young, he would come home from work and talk about the problems he had solved with math and science. I only ever wanted to be an engineer.”

Don’t believe the hype.
For many, hopes and dreams of being a powerhouse in stem are squelched before they even form because of stigmas associated with women. Ritu’s advice?

“Never see being a woman as an obstacle.”

“It comes down to two things for me: acceptance and encouragement. I don’t think that girls are encouraged to go into STEM fields and so they don’t do it. The education system perpetuates an acceptance of this: a girl who is not doing well in math or science is allowed to continue to do so, while a boy is encouraged to work hard and do better. I think if we want to fix both stigmas associated with women in STEM and STEM in general, we have to make it unacceptable for anyone — boy or girl — to not do the best they can in those subjects.”

Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.
“I think the most important skill for women to cultivate in a field like engineering is communication because women who are successful in this field are able to communicate with men on their level. I hope one day there are enough women in this field that men also have to learn how to communicate on our level, but until then, quick, to-the-point communication is an important skill to cultivate.”

Invest in the future.
What better time to teach young girls they can be just as capable in math and science as boys than play time? Goldie Blox, a toy invented by Debra Sterling seeks to do just that. Our expert had this to say:

“My daughter is a little outside of the age group for that, so I’m not terribly familiar, but I’m fully in support of anything that gets that part of kids’ brains working and shows them that those skills can be fun. However, the packaging and design does reinforce some stereotypes about what girls should be playing with, but I also think that’s marketing in all of corporate America and there’s not much you can do about that. My daughter never liked Barbie’s. She wasn’t interested in “girl toys.” She has an older brother, and always wanted to play with his toys. We never really paid attention to what was a girl toy and what was a boy toy. But most marketing does play to those stereotypes and that’s part of the reason why I think lots of TV time for kids isn’t particularly good for them either.”

By Sonya Washington
Photo by Matej Kastelic | Shutterstock