The Perceived Difficulty of College Majors and How Gender Affects This

The podcast discusses the gender disparities in majors at UIUC. The guests, Lauren and Danielle, share their experiences as a chemistry major and an advertising major, respectively. They discuss the unequal gender ratios in their classes and the perception of their majors. They also touch upon the bias favoring male students in STEM fields. The conversation highlights how the dominance of one gender in a major can affect its prestige and salary. The guests express concerns about job prospects and recognition in their respective fields. The discussion concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding the impact of gender on majors and careers. Hi guys, welcome to my podcast. Today I have two very special guests with me and we are going to talk about the gender disparity in majors here at UIUC. If you guys want to introduce yourselves. Hi, I'm Lauren. I'm a chemistry major. Hi, I'm Danielle. I'm an advertising major. Thank you guys for joining me. Today I just want to discuss a female-dominated major versus a male-dominated major and how you guys feel that this affects the skill set deemed worthy or hard enough for your guys' specific major. So Lauren, from research that I found in 2017, over 78% of students majoring in chemistry were male. Has this been an overwhelming experience for you? Have you noticed any disparities because you are a woman? Well, I will say that at the beginning of my college experience, I did notice the gender disparity being more equal. I think that's probably because there were so many foundational courses that everyone has to take. Biology majors, psychology majors, all of the things that maybe aren't necessarily as male-dominated. But as I've progressed and gotten further along in my major, I have noticed that for sure there's far more men in my classes than women. Absolutely. I know you mentioned biology. Do you think a lot of women transferred out? I think as I began to choose more selective classes, like required but elective, but some of my more specific chemistry classes that were just for the chemistry, you definitely saw a decrease in the amount of women. On the flip side, Danielle, you are an advertising major. Almost 70% of students receiving their bachelor's degree were female. Do you notice this in your classes that there's not a lot of guys taking classes? Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. My guess would be about 3-4, so right around that accurate. I had one public relations class last semester. There were like 20-25 of us, and there was only one guy in the class. Do you think that people ever see your major as easier because it's mostly female-dominated? Have people ever made comments about that? I would say sometimes people definitely will say that, especially compared to business here, because advertising to marketing. Do you think people think marketing is inherently harder because more men tend to gravitate towards that than advertising? Yes, fully, I would agree with that. Also, I feel like marketing and advertising, they're not too far different. Advertising is like a subcategory of marketing, so people view marketing as more, I don't know if it's because it's male-dominated, more so with the data and the system. Absolutely, more like the math than creativity. Are there a lot of overlapping classes? Oh, fully. You have fully taken classes with like all of our friends that are business majors. Yeah, because I have a public relations minor and a business minor, so I've seen like fully. Some people view it as more laid back compared to marketing. Oh, really? Do you think that's true at all? No, but I just feel like advertising agencies, like the work environment, is much more welcoming and friendly. Absolutely. So I feel like that might translate to some, especially in the business industry, being laid back. I wonder if the reason that agencies are seen as more welcoming are because they're more female-dominated. Do you think that's true? I don't know, because actually, even though women tend to major in more creative majors like advertising, men still get hired at a much higher rate. So it might just have to do with the creative aspect, but also I think it very well could be that it is a more feminine major. Yeah, it's a very interesting thing to think about. So what I really want to get into, though, is that there was a study done in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, and it said that male or female professors tend to favor male students and see them as smarter, more competent, more hireable. In the study, they found that a male and a female student with equal qualifications, the male was offered a $30,000 starting salary, where the female was only offered a $26,000 starting salary. Do you think that because men are majoring in chemistry more and advertising, women are majoring in advertising more, that they tend to be seen as more prestigious or laid back? Well, what I can speak to in my own experience is that I have found that the men in my classes have been overwhelmingly more outspoken. And someone could argue that that indicates engagement, but I'm not sure I would necessarily agree with that, because not all of the things that they say or comment on are necessarily a reflection of their own competence or intelligence. I think they just feel more comfortable having this blind, confident awareness that they are allowed to exist in this space. And they're allowed to speak up. They're told to. And I feel like even that, going down the line, could lead to more letters of recommendation. Obviously, speaking up more is a good thing, but I think they just feel more comfortable doing that than a lot of the females in our class. And therefore, the professors tend to know them better. They tend to have better relationships. And I think they respect the engagement. Acceptable for them to speak up. When women are socialized, they feel like what they say has to be important to engage in the conversation. Exactly. And so, Danielle, how do you feel about this? Do you think because advertising is more female-dominated, do you think this plays into why it is an industry that is paid less than, say, STEM? I would say definitely. Like, even our classes, people on campus will be like, oh, you don't have finals this week. You're not a business or engineering major. And that doesn't mean I have other assignments. You're working on group projects. I'm not working at all. And I think it's projects, especially I'm assuming a lot of yours are collaborative, like group projects. Oh, group projects. There's a difficulty that comes with that that does not come with just studying for yourself. And you have to learn to delegate. You have to learn to… And also, there's a certain point in an advertising major, there's nothing you can be tested on to that. At a certain point, you're actually doing the work. You're doing the creative concepts and all of the research. Yeah, so I bring this up because, actually, there's research that shows that biology and design first started off as male-dominated industries. And then when women started taking over them, salary dropped greatly. And it's the same on the flip side. Computer engineering and programmers were female-dominated, so it was not a very prestigious or well-paying industry. And now that men are taking most of these jobs, it is one of the highest-paying industries in general. So I'm glad you guys have noticed this, and I think it's very important to understand the importance we put on things because of gender. Do you think because of your major, you'll struggle more to get a job? Do you still think you will be favored less than your male counterparts? You know, maybe it's idealistic to say, like, I really hope not. But I do feel that even if I am not valued less by other people, I think internally I'll still feel a little bad. But I've only had two female chemistry professors in my entire four years of being here. Wow. And I've taken one to two chemistry classes a semester. Yeah. And so I can see that being, you know, industry-related, too, because you get so far into your career. And all of these people have PhDs, are doing research. Why are only two of them women? Absolutely. Danielle, how do you feel about this? I'd say when it comes to finding a job for advertising, that the majority of the interviews that I have done are completed by women. Okay. Which is definitely something that stands out, shows who's working at this company. But also, like, through networking, I've learned that women are a huge support system. Just they know that it is, like, not as easy to get a job as a man sometimes. Absolutely. So seeing their support shows a little bit of what the industry is like. I feel like, and I think this is true for every major. Like, I'm not going to say, you know, you get out of it as much as you put in. So actually, as I was doing my research, it showed that women take criticism a lot harder. And I thought that was interesting because women can take, in my experience, I think women take criticism easier because they're used to it. Where these men in these classes, no one is specifically saying, hey, you, you're bad because you're a man, blah, blah, blah. You're this, you're that. No one's putting them into that category, but they take it personally that they're being attacked. We're trying to learn why female-dominated industries are not seen as prestigious as male-dominated industries. And that's exactly what we're talking about. Well, that actually reminds me of, like, something you said earlier where you were, like, industries that were originally dominated by women. So, like, I think you talked about computer science. Yes. I was thinking, I don't know if this is, like, true, but, like, secretaries, too. Yeah. Like, that seems like where that started a little bit. There used to be male nurses, and then they got promoted to doctors, and therefore women cannot be doctors. Yeah, no, absolutely. And that's all that I wanted to bring this back to. I think there are certain majors that are seen more prestigious because there are men being favored, men being told constantly that they are smart, they're intelligent, they're leading the industry. Whereas for advertising, they're female-dominated. They're not seen as prestigious, as intelligent, anything like chemistry is. It all goes back to how things change when women get involved. So there's a concept called feminization. And we talked about it in one of our readings from class, that when women sort of flock to something, it is automatically deemed, like, silly and unimportant, not as prestigious. And I think it's the same with jobs and majors. Women tend to major in more creative majors. So that's why they're not taken as seriously because of this feminization. Overall, I think we had a really good conversation. So thank you guys for being here to dive a little bit deeper into how gender influences majors and jobs after college.