issue Community Health 2025

The X Factor: Investigating Gender Roles in STEM

By Judy Masterson

The 9th annual Women in Science & Healthcare (WiSH) Symposium, held Sept. 26, 2024, investigated how deeply ingrained gender roles and expectations keep women from achieving their full potential.

“We’ve all been socialized into the same system,” said keynote speaker and author Amy Diehl, PhD, who listed barriers including male privilege, insufficient support, devaluation, hostility and exclusion.

“At the root of all these barriers are outdated gender roles,” said Dr. Diehl, who advocates for systemic changes, such as including unpaid caregiving in GDP calculations and credits for Social Security, as well as mandating paid family leave at the federal level.

WiSH Co-Chair Kristine Jennings Burgess Reflects on Caregiving, Service and FMLA

Kristine Jennings Burgess, MS, PA-C, CLC, attended the symposium with her seven-year-old daughter. An assistant professor and director of didactic education for Physician Assistant Practice, she also volunteers as a practitioner in the Pelvic Health Clinic at RFU’s Interprofessional Community Clinic, which offers care to the uninsured.

Helix: What’s been your experience of barriers rooted in workplace gender bias?

KJB: Two of the biggest barriers for women in medicine and science, and the workforce in general, are the lack of fair and equitable paid family leave and support for lactating people. The university offers both paid parental and family leave. But about 44% of U.S. employees are not eligible for the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which offers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year. The lack of paid leave also harms the ability to breastfeed/chest feed because it takes time to develop that relationship.

Helix: That goes to the devaluation of caregiving, right? Dr. Diehl said that if caregiving were well-paid, more men would be incentivized to take those roles in health care, social work, and early childhood and elementary education.

KJB: There are just two male teachers in my daughter’s elementary school. It’s sad, because so many men are good caregivers. Putting value on caregiving can draw more men into that crucial work, allowing them to serve as role models for young boys.

Helix: WiSH founder Lise Eliot, PhD, talked about “the powerful implicit roles that we learn early in life and their impact on our personal and professional endeavors throughout life.”

KJB: I’m an elder millennial, born in the late 1980s, and I think my generation, where so many partners work full time, is much better at co-parenting and sharing household responsibilities. But grandparents may have a different view: Why does their poor son have to work so hard at both work and then at home? They often object to the idea of him staying home with the new baby, for example.

Helix: And on the professional side?

KJB: During the symposium, someone brought up how women shoulder more service and committee work. I do think women in medicine, science and academia take on a lot more roles in service. And while service is an expectation for faculty, it’s not always valued as much as scholarship or research. I think service, which is harder to quantify, should be valued on an equal footing.

Judy Masterson is a staff writer with RFU’s Division of Marketing and Brand Management.