IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020 - 12

COMMENTARY

Łukasz Tanaś

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2020.2967485
Date of current version: 2 March 2020

Joanna Roszak

Katarzyna
Potęga vel Żabik

The Anna Karenina
Principle
Females and STEM

one evaluates the current state and
growth prospects of STEM jobs [16].
Importantly for the current article, the
adopted definition of STEM changes
the answer to this question: if we
know that somebody is a female,
does this change the probability of
that person's preference for working
in a STEM-related field? If by STEM
we understand mostly mechanics,
electronics, and engineering then the
answer is: it is a rather safe bet that
she is not interested. Data suggests
that there is about a 76% chance that
a randomly picked male will have a
higher interest in those fields then a
randomly picked female [18]. Putting
it differently, 84% of males declare
higher interest in those fields than the
average female. On the other hand, if
we look at physical sciences, natural
sciences, mathematics, and computer science then the gamble becomes
risky. We drop to a 61% chance of
correctly guessing that an unknown
person will show higher interest in
those fields just because we find out
they are a male. When we turn to
fields such as biological or medical
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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e argue that the Anna
Karenina principle is
a useful metaphor
that captures the reasons behind the gender disparity in the fields of science,
technology, engineering, and math
(STEM). Inspired by a passage from
Leo Tolstoy stating that "all happy
families look alike, each unhappy
family is unhappy in its own way," the
Anna Karenina principle describes
the observation that in many complex systems the best way to look
at reasons behind some effect is to
look at the many necessary conditions that need to be fulfilled, rather
than look for a single, direct cause.
Playing a gender role in a society is
engagement in a complex system
and the list of necessary conditions
for success in STEM is arguably longer for girls than for boys. In the current article we do not aim to make a
comprehensive review of all of them,
rather we wished to propose a snapshot of the matter.
STEM became a popular acronym
in the early years of the twenty-first
century. It originated from the field of
education and describes mathematics, science, engineering, and other
technology-related subjects [10]. The
question of what constitutes a STEM
subject or STEM-related work might
seem unambiguous, but in fact it's
not. Is a social scientist, healthcare
professional, or an architect a STEMrelated job or not? Deciding on this
question markedly changes how

Katarzyna
WinkowskaNowak

Photo of Greta Garbo from the 1935 film
Anna Karenina.
sciences then the choice becomes
a true Casino Royale, with a 50/50
chance of guessing who has higher
interests on the sole basis of gender.
Furthermore when we look at social
sciences and medical services, then
the odds turn around. Now there is a
61% chance that a randomly picked
female will show higher interest
than a randomly picked male.
∕

MARCH 2020

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020

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