STEM and Me: My experiences with intersectionality and identity | Normandy Filcek | TEDxYorkSchool

Summary

The speaker shares their personal journey of navigating their identity as a STEM enthusiast who also embraces femininity and other interests. They reflect on societal pressures and the internal conflict of balancing seemingly contradictory aspects of their identity, such as being passionate about science and technology while expressing traditionally 'girly' traits. Through self-discovery, therapy, and mindfulness techniques like dialectical thinking and radical acceptance, they learn to embrace their multifaceted identity. The speaker encourages the audience to celebrate their own contradictions and see the beauty in them, just as they have learned to do.

Takeaways

• 👗 The speaker has always been conscious of their fashion choices but struggles to find a style that reflects their multifaceted personality.
• 🧑‍🔬 They are passionate about STEM but find that their love for traditionally feminine clothing doesn’t align with practical work environments, such as robotics labs.
• 👩‍🔧 Mythbusters, especially Carrie Byron, served as a significant inspiration for the speaker’s interest in STEM from an early age.
• 📊 Gender disparity in STEM fields is highlighted, with only 35 women for every 100 STEM positions, affecting young girls' interest in math and science early on.
• 🧠 Middle school was a challenging period of self-discovery for the speaker, where they grappled with their identity as queer, neurodivergent, and dealing with mental health issues.
• 🌈 The speaker reflects on how media and societal portrayals of STEM often exclude women and other underrepresented groups, shaping perceptions that limit personal expression.
• 🤖 They share their struggle of trying to fit into the stereotypical STEM mold, feeling the need to downplay their femininity and personality to succeed in the field.
• 🧘‍♀️ Therapy taught the speaker two essential skills: dialectical thinking (accepting contradictory realities) and radical acceptance (acknowledging what is and isn’t within one’s control).
• 💪 The speaker encourages embracing all aspects of one’s identity, even when they seem contradictory, and celebrates the uniqueness that comes from these paradoxes.
• 🧩 The closing message is an invitation to reflect on seemingly contradictory parts of one’s identity and embrace how they enhance each other, advocating for self-acceptance and breaking societal expectations.

Q & A

What is the speaker's early relationship with fashion like?

As a child, the speaker was allowed to dress themselves, which often resulted in outfits they now consider mismatched. However, as they grew older, they became more concerned about their style, wanting it to reflect their personality while still feeling insecure about how others perceive them.

Why does the speaker feel conflicted about their fashion choices in relation to their STEM career?

The speaker loves wearing flowing dresses and floral patterns, but these outfits are impractical for working in STEM environments, such as robotics or chemistry labs. This creates a conflict between their feminine fashion sense and their practical needs in STEM.

Who was the speaker's role model in STEM growing up and why?

The speaker's role model was Carrie Byron from 'Mythbusters.' They admired her for being a successful woman in STEM who conducted cool experiments, especially involving explosions. Carrie Byron stood out to the speaker because she was often the only female host on the show.

How does the speaker describe the representation of women in STEM?

The speaker highlights that women are significantly underrepresented in STEM, with only 35 women for every 100 STEM positions. This gender disparity often starts in childhood, where girls are discouraged from math and science as early as second grade.

What challenges did the speaker face in middle school regarding their identity and interests?

In middle school, the speaker struggled with their interest in STEM, their emerging queer identity, ADHD, depression, anxiety, and insomnia. These discoveries about themselves added complexity to an already difficult period of growing up, particularly during the pandemic.

How does the speaker compare themselves to Leonardo da Vinci?

The speaker relates to Leonardo da Vinci's varied interests, procrastination, and brilliance, especially as he was an unconventional figure. However, they note a significant difference: da Vinci was celebrated for these traits as a man, while the speaker felt criticized for similar qualities as a woman.

What realization did the speaker come to regarding internalized misogyny?

The speaker realized that societal expectations pressured them to suppress parts of their identity, such as their femininity, to fit into STEM. They recognized that this pressure was internalized, and they had to stop pushing themselves to conform to these narrow standards.

What two skills did the speaker's therapist teach them to combat internalized misogyny?

The speaker's therapist taught them dialectical thinking and radical acceptance. Dialectical thinking allows the speaker to hold contradictory ideas simultaneously without invalidating them, while radical acceptance helps them acknowledge what they can and cannot control.

How does the speaker embrace their multifaceted identity?

The speaker embraces their diverse identity by accepting that they can be both a STEM enthusiast and have traditionally feminine interests. They accept that all aspects of their identity, even those that seem contradictory, are valid and part of who they are.

What message does the speaker leave with the audience at the end of the speech?

The speaker encourages the audience to reflect on two aspects of their identity that might seem contradictory and embrace the complexity within themselves. They emphasize the importance of accepting one's own paradoxical nature and celebrating the unique combination of traits that make each person who they are.

Outlines

00:00

👗 Childhood Fashion and Identity

The speaker reflects on their childhood experiences with fashion, humorously noting that they were given the freedom to dress themselves, with less-than-ideal results. Now, they emphasize their evolution in style, while still grappling with concerns about how others perceive them. They share that their wardrobe is eclectic, representing various aspects of their personality. However, their passion for STEM often conflicts with their love for traditionally feminine clothing, as practical needs like working in a lab or with machinery limit their fashion choices.

05:01

👩‍🔬 Passion for STEM and Early Influences

The speaker delves into their deep-rooted love for STEM, tracing it back to childhood influences such as the show *MythBusters*, particularly admiring host Kari Byron. Inspired by Byron’s intellect and experiments, the speaker pursued interests in programming, robotics, and math from a young age. Contrary to stereotypes of STEM prodigies, the speaker's journey was not linear, and they highlight the pressure they felt to fit a certain mold, particularly one that was overwhelmingly male.

10:02

👩‍🎓 Gender Disparities in STEM

The speaker addresses gender imbalances in STEM, illustrated through statistics that show the field is male-dominated. They reflect on how societal biases against girls and math emerge early, with many girls losing interest in STEM during middle school. The speaker candidly shares their struggles during this period, navigating their growing passion for STEM while also grappling with personal challenges such as queerness, ADHD, depression, and anxiety. These internal conflicts were exacerbated by the isolation and confusion of the global pandemic.

🖼️ Discovering Da Vinci and Self-Acceptance

The speaker draws inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci, an iconic Renaissance figure known for his wide-ranging talents and quirks. They saw similarities between themselves and Da Vinci, particularly in their tendency to take on diverse interests and leave projects unfinished. However, the speaker highlights the difference that gender makes, noting that while Da Vinci was celebrated for his eccentricities, they were often told to ‘tone it down.’ The speaker reflects on how societal expectations taught them to suppress their femininity and personality in order to succeed in STEM.

🧠 Overcoming Internalized Misogyny

The speaker recounts how growing up, they internalized the idea that to be successful in STEM, they had to apologize for being different—especially for being a girl. They discuss how supportive teachers and family shielded them from some of the blatant misogyny, but subtle instances of exclusion in male-dominated STEM environments still impacted them deeply. Over time, with the help of a therapist, the speaker learned two key skills: dialectical thinking and radical acceptance. These techniques helped them reconcile the contradictions in their identity and combat internalized misogyny.

🌈 Embracing Identity Paradoxes

The speaker embraces the paradoxes within their identity, such as being both interested in STEM and in ‘girly’ things, or being queer while enjoying traditionally feminine self-expression. They emphasize that these contradictions are natural and do not diminish their individuality. Through personal growth and therapy, they’ve learned to celebrate all aspects of their identity rather than suppress them. The speaker concludes by encouraging the audience to reflect on and embrace their own identity paradoxes, rejecting the notion that anyone should apologize for who they are.

Keywords

💡STEM

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, representing fields traditionally dominated by men. The speaker discusses how their love for STEM was challenged by societal norms, particularly the gender gap in these fields, illustrated by the statistic that only 35 women hold STEM positions for every 100 men. This gap and the stereotypes surrounding it are central to the speaker's experiences and struggles.

💡Misogyny

Misogyny refers to the prejudice against women, a recurring theme in the speaker's narrative. They share their realization of the misogynistic attitudes they faced, both overtly and subtly, as they pursued STEM. The speaker reflects on how societal expectations of women, especially in male-dominated fields like STEM, shaped their identity and self-perception.

💡Radical Acceptance

Radical acceptance is a therapeutic concept introduced by the speaker's therapist, involving accepting situations or emotions without judgment. It plays a crucial role in the speaker's journey to reconciling conflicting aspects of their identity. The speaker uses this concept to combat internalized misogyny, accepting their interests in both STEM and femininity without feeling the need to apologize or change.

💡Dialectical Thinking

Dialectical thinking is the ability to hold multiple, often contradictory, ideas without invalidating any of them. In the video, the speaker applies this to embrace different aspects of their personality, such as their love for STEM and traditionally feminine interests, helping them balance conflicting feelings and identities in a way that strengthens their sense of self.

💡Internalized Misogyny

Internalized misogyny refers to the acceptance of sexist ideas about women by women themselves. The speaker discusses how they unconsciously absorbed societal messages that femininity and STEM do not mix. Over time, they began to challenge these beliefs through self-awareness and therapy, learning to embrace their full identity without conforming to societal pressures.

💡Identity

Identity in the context of this video refers to the speaker's struggle to reconcile various aspects of who they are, such as being a woman in STEM, their femininity, and their mental health challenges. The speaker illustrates how societal expectations forced them to compartmentalize their identity, and their journey towards embracing the complexity of being 'a million different things.'

💡Queer

Queer is used by the speaker to describe their sexual identity. As they navigate their identity within STEM, they also grapple with their queerness, which adds another layer of complexity to their experiences of exclusion and self-expression. The speaker highlights how being queer intersected with other aspects of their identity, influencing their self-acceptance process.

💡Femininity

Femininity in this context refers to the speaker's personal style and interests that are traditionally seen as 'girly,' such as wearing floral blouses and long dresses. They explain how societal expectations made them feel they had to hide or abandon their femininity to succeed in STEM, a field typically associated with masculine traits.

💡Role Models

Role models, particularly female figures like Carrie Byron from Mythbusters, play a significant role in the speaker's STEM journey. Growing up, Carrie Byron was a rare example of a woman excelling in science and technology. This influenced the speaker's perception of what was possible for women in STEM, highlighting the importance of visible role models in underrepresented fields.

💡Mental Health

Mental health issues such as ADHD, depression, anxiety, and insomnia are key factors in the speaker's story. They describe how these conditions complicated their personal and academic life, especially during the pandemic. The speaker's candid discussion of mental health reflects broader themes of self-acceptance and overcoming societal and internal pressures.

Highlights

Childhood fashion struggles led to a complex adult fashion sense.

The desire to dress in a way that reflects one's personality is a lifelong pursuit.

A love for STEM and fashion does not have to be mutually exclusive.

The speaker's fashion sense was influenced by a need to be practical in a robotics and chemistry lab.

The importance of role models in STEM, exemplified by Kari Byron of Mythbusters.

Early engagement in STEM activities, such as math competitions and programming.

The realization that the media often portrays STEM enthusiasts in a narrow, gendered way.

Gender disparity in STEM fields starts as early as second grade.

Middle school is a critical time when many girls lose interest in STEM.

Personal struggles with identity during middle school, including discovering queerness and mental health issues.

The inspiration drawn from Leonardo da Vinci's multifaceted personality and work.

The internalized belief that certain traits, like femininity, need to be suppressed for success in STEM.

The experience of misogyny and the pressure to conform to gender norms in STEM communities.

The importance of dialectical thinking and radical acceptance in combating internalized misogyny.

The need to break down the boxes that society constructs around identity and personality.

An invitation to the audience to embrace the paradoxical beauty within themselves.

The call to celebrate the diversity within one's own identity.

Transcripts

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all right

as a child I was always allowed to dress

myself in the morning and as you can see

it went horribly from the start

nowadays I like to think I'm a better

stylist but I still have my issues I'm

the kind of person who worries a lot

about what I wear

not that I only wear name brand clothes

just that I can't help considering what

others will think of me

people do judge a book by its cover and

I'd like that cover to at least somewhat

reflect what the actual contents of my

personality are clearly as a

seven-year-old this is what I thought

that meant

the problem is I don't have one style

that really reflects my whole

personality so my closet is all over the

place with different looks

a lot of these clothes are very

conventionally feminine I love my long

flowing dresses and Floral Pattern

blouses

but I can't wear most of this on a daily

basis because unfortunately long flowing

skirts are a hazard when you're working

with gears and chains in robotics and I

don't want to spill bleach on my

favorite blouse in a chem lab

much to my dismay my fashion sense and

love of stem do not mesh neatly with one

another

stem has been a passion of mine for as

long as I can remember by a show of

hands how many of you have seen the show

Mythbusters

all right you all pass

that was my favorite show growing up and

I would watch it basically every day and

Carrie Byron in the center there was my

absolute favorite she's pretty with

Gorgeous red hair killer intellect and

most importantly conducted cool

experiments involving explosions

in retrospect I probably attached to her

because she was frequently the only

female host but regardless she was my

idol and I wanted to be just like

so I played with puzzles on

understanding basic mechanics I attended

coder Dojo at Hartnell College to learn

programming

I volunteered for a company that made

little programmable robots for kids when

I was still a kid myself that's what I

was holding in that first photo

I did math competitions for fun like I

would actually skip PE to sit in the

corner of a room and do more math

weird right

now I bet you're starting to get an idea

of what I was like that I was always

holed up inside tinkering on some

scientific kit

that I was fluent in Java by age 10 a

prodigy

that as soon as I fell in love with stem

I concerned myself with nothing else

from that day forth

that's how a lot of media portrays

people in stem and that's how I imagine

someone in stem for the longest time

in particular my idea was almost

exclusively overwhelmingly male

this isn't necessarily wrong given

gender statistics

as we can see from this infographic from

the stem woman organization there are

only 35 women for every 100 stem

positions

that's almost twice as many men

this disparity starts early research

shows that by second grade the kids are

forming negative associations between

girls and math

that means there are eight-year-old kids

out there who are already making these

associations

Middle School is one of the biggest

leaks in the stem pipeline where girls

lose the most interest

I was very close to being one of those

girls who lost in and well everything

once Middle School hit

it was an incredibly difficult time for

me as it was a time of great discovery

or in other words great confusion

I was discovering things about the world

and more distressingly about myself

for example I discovered that I wanted

to pursue a career in stem among the

slew of interests I held but I was also

discovering that I was queer

that I was incredibly affected by my

ADHD

that I suffered from chronic depression

and generalized anxiety all with a

dollop of insomnia on top

keep in mind this was a mountain of

internal searching diagnosis and

Discovery I ran into headlong in the

midst of a global pandemic

in middle school was when we had our

first block on the Renaissance and that

was when I really learned about Leonardo

da Vinci Beyond just the name

A man also incredibly all over the place

inventor engineer artist genius massive

procrastinator who frequently abandoned

projects right before finishing them

also fun fact a gay man

Da Vinci Renaissance Man The Sensational

intellect with a strong personality I

wanted to be that

and I was inspired that the quirks of

this great historical figure quirks I

saw in myself never hindered his career

but there's one gram difference between

Da Vinci and me

he was a man and I am very much not

and because of this simple difference

all of the traits Da Vinci flourished

for transformed curiously into things

the world said were wrong with me

some things were told to me outright

that I needed to focus more or tone it

down a little

but other things no one had to tell me

because I taught myself through

observation

through what I saw in the world on TV or

what I read in books

from the few female role models I saw

and connected with I learned that if I

wanted to make it to prove myself to the

world of stem I had to throw everything

else out

including my femininity and my

personality

again no one had to tell me this because

I absorbed the knowledge simply by

existing in the world

I don't doubt that many many other girls

have come to the same conclusion based

off the way media portrays the stem

field and women in stem

that you need to work twice as hard to

adopt for being a girl or that you need

to apologize for this difference you

were born with

the world loves to tell people Everyone

that there are aspects of your identity

that despite being inherent and

unchangeable you will spend your whole

life apologizing for

because of how supportive my family and

teachers were growing up it wasn't until

I was older coming out of the pandemic

that I began to really notice the daily

moments of misogyny and the world around

me

I was crushed

I was shocked

I was ashamed

and then I was shocked that I felt

ashamed

I wasn't the wrong other people were

making assumptions about me that I

needed an explanation for something I

already knew or that I wouldn't care

about the things they encouraged my male

classmates to do

once I noticed the blatant I became more

in tune with the subtle

in the small stem communities I did have

access to were largely male and in that

way largely unaccepting of anyone else

it was an unspoken rule but I felt it in

the friend groups and conversations like

somehow my inability to make smart talk

about sports or cars made me unfit to be

in stem

regardless I persisted

and as I processed these events and

processed my reactions to them I came to

a realization

there will always be people who exclude

against or judge us for aspects of our

identity that we can't change

and they are the ones in the wrong

but it was me myself my own brain that

was responsible for the way I

internalized their reactions

more than anyone else I was the one

pushing myself to fit into the small box

of what I thought was correct

okay I say I came to this realization

but it was really with the help of my

therapist and in response she armed me

with two of them important and in my

opinion most difficult to master skills

first dialectical thinking and second

radical acceptance

dialectical thinking is the ability to

acknowledge all sides of a scenario and

allow contradicting ideas facts or

realities to exist without one

invalidating another and without trying

to find some blurry Middle Ground

radical acceptance is the ability to

come to terms with the extremes of a

situation by acknowledging what you do

or do not have control over

these two mindfulness techniques go hand

in hand

dialectical thinking says you can have a

million different feelings in response

to something all at once and radical

acceptance says that all of them are

okay

now why was my therapist bringing this

up when I was talking about internalized

misogyny

because this is how it would combat it

by saying yes

yes I like math engineering and physics

and I have other girly interests yes I'm

queer and I still like to present myself

in ways that are typically feminine

yes I value my liveliness and love of

learning as core aspects of my identity

even when I'm too depressed to engage

with them

I can give myself permission to be a

million different things and acknowledge

that I am still one single beautiful

unique person

the world will at one point or another

try to tell everyone that there is

something about themselves that they

should apologize for

that should make them feel ashamed

that there are aspects of your identity

that don't fit together and it's your

responsibility to make yourself more

palatable

when it's just one thing it feels easy

to turn around into something excusable

within the context of a larger

personality but when it feels like

everything you've built yourself on

defies what is expected of you any sense

of personal security is shaky at best

it is a terrifyingly thin line between

apologizing for being a girl

for being gay for being this ethnicity

or having that disability and then

having to apologize just for being alive

why are some of us told we are too much

is it fair to limit someone to one side

of a whole personality

did anyone tell Leonardo da Vinci he

needed to tone it down a little

if they did I'm sure they feel silly now

seeing how we Revere him and all his

variety

the boxes we put ourselves in are made

of cardboard not set in stone

they can be and should be broken down

it is difficult to deconstruct the shame

we direct onto ourselves

difficult to master radical acceptance

of the radically different people within

one person

but the first step to being able to

recognize the paradoxical Beauty in the

world and in others is to be able to

celebrate it within ourselves

and so tonight I invite you to think

about two aspects of your identity that

don't seem to fit together

or that might contradict each other a

bit

hold them next to each other

and see the ways they interact

consider how the contrast between these

two aspects interests or labels enhance

one another

now this Paradox you hold within

yourself

embrace it

thank you

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