One day, a substitute teacher conducted a question-and-answer session. Only three or four students, all boys, were able to answer any of the questions. The conversation, instead of being about our performance, shifted to gender. He argued that girls were less suited for physics and mathematics than boys. This argument to me felt more puzzling than offensive. In a class where boys overwhelmingly outnumbered girls, this could have merely been a consequence of numbers.
Ajwa
When I finished class 10 and joined one of the leading coaching centres in Kashmir, I found myself in a classroom where girls were a clear minority. The centre had eleven or twelve sections, but only one was for students studying Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics (PCM). Most of the other sections were either Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Biology (PCMB) or Physics, Chemistry, and Biology (PCB).
In the PCM section, unlike PCB, the gender ratio was heavily skewed toward boys. There were approximately eighty boys and ten girls, including me. This imbalance was noticeable, but it did not surprise me. When I chose mathematics instead of biology, I got told that not many girls opted for the subject. This was said not to criticise or discourage me, but simply stated as a known fact.
Until then, I had never thought of Mathematics or physics being considered as “boy subjects”. Throughout school, most of my teachers were women, including the ones who taught us Physics and mathematics. Toppers from all the sections were girls who would have a perfect score in both Physics and Mathematics. Because of that, the idea that girls might be naturally less capable in these fields felt foreign to me.
It was in that coaching centre that I first encountered this idea.
One day, a substitute teacher conducted a question-and-answer session. The questions asked were from a topic that had not yet been covered in classes. So, most of the questions remained unanswered. Only three or four students, all boys, were able to answer any of the questions. The conversation, instead of being about our performance, shifted to gender. He argued that girls were less suited for physics and mathematics than boys. This argument to me felt more puzzling than offensive. In a class where boys overwhelmingly outnumbered girls, this could have merely been a consequence of numbers. At this point, I more actively participated, shouting answers from the back of the class. There was no indication that he had heard or acknowledged what I said. It is possible that he genuinely did not hear me, but as loud as I was, it seemed more likely that his belief influenced whom he paid attention to.
Years later, I joined Delhi University to pursue a career in Physics, and my understanding of gender in STEM shifted once again.
The gender ratio was still uneven. In my class, there were about fifteen girls compared to seventy or eighty boys. Yet the atmosphere felt very different. Many of my professors were women, unlike in the coaching centre, where all of my teachers had been men. The academic performance of the students also challenged stereotypes. Many of the strongest students were women. Being surrounded by capable female professors and high-achieving female classmates made it difficult to take seriously the idea that girls were somehow less suited to STEM.
Looking back, I realise that my views on gender and science were shaped by people around me and not by statistics. In school, I saw women teaching and excelling. In coaching, I encountered a setting where stereotypes were openly expressed. In college, I once again saw women succeed as students and educators.
Even now, these experiences continue to influence how I interpret situations. Last year, while applying for a summer research project under a professor, I often felt that the professor directed his responses to my male project partner rather than to me. I found myself wondering whether my being a girl had something to do with it. I knew there could be many other explanations. Perhaps I was misreading the situation.
What stuck with me was not whether discrimination had actually occurred, but how my earlier experiences shaped the way I understood the situation. Once we become aware of the bias, we begin looking for it. Sometimes we identify it correctly, and sometimes we may see patterns that are not really there. It is quite a challenge to learn how to hold both possibilities at once.
The question is not whether girls belong in Mathematics and Physics. Every classroom I have been in has already answered that. A more important question is how classrooms, institutions, and everyday interactions shape who feels welcome enough to stay.
aj**@*****oo.com