The Promise of Inclusion for Female Student Health

Despite extensive inclusion and diversity initiatives, females do not feel valued or included and still report higher stress, discrimination and microaggressions than males. Cumulative effects of social devaluation on health were examined for students at a STEM University. A sample of 292 undergraduates were asked about daily and chronic experiences of inclusion using surveys assessing personal perceived stress and subtle and overt social devaluation. Females reported significantly higher microaggressions and perceived stress, associated with lower physical and mental health. Females in high social devaluation (SD) reported lower total well-being (TWB) across several domains. An exploratory factor analyses examined factor loadings on perceptions of devaluation and extracted three factors; results showed that females and males perceive the poor treatments for markedly different reasons. Stress, low sense of control, objectification, and lack of positive exemplars varied by sex. These data suggest persistent implicit biases remain entrenched for females in STEM. This was unexpected since multiple early inclusion interventions exist. Inclusion initiatives may need to be reviewed specifically to address implicit attitudes and internalized acquiescence, training female students to explicitly interface with such experiences. Most universities are highly invested in increasing diversity and inclusion in STEM fields, although limited information is publicized on specific interventions and practices offered. Most of the interventions support diversity, yet tangible training and dialogue remain vague. The data presented here show that females experience implicit devaluation and future interventions may need to address student’s experiences more explicitly. Statements of commitment to inclusion are common. For example, many universities publish their diversity and inclusion items online, including appointing a chief diversity officer to ensure implementation of practices involving recruitment and retention of students, administrators, and faculty. Administration states it will ensure campus diversity and inclusion plans are in place to meet its commitments and ensure diverse candidate pools. These are laudable aims; however, the implementation of practices and student experiences appear uncoupled. While there are overt statements of support for female and minority students, particularly in STEM fields, whether plan elements effectively address experiences of exclusion/devaluation is not explicit. Interventions to promote equality in STEM are set in place at the federal level, however their effectiveness is also unclear since attrition rates for women in STEM remain high (Xu, 2017). According to Title IX, sex bias prevents girls and women from pursuing a STEM education, although among high schoolers, interest and achievement in STEM are at an all-time high. Initiatives for females in STEM have been increasing in recent years, however there is still discrimination in the workplace. The succeeding initiatives need to be supplemented with outreach and retention programs, family-friendly faculty policies, and strong adherence to and monitoring of regulatory compliance in schools, colleges, and research institutions throughout the country (Women and STEM, 2017). Since Congress enacted Title IX in 1972 to prohibit sex discrimination under any activity or educational program receiving any kind of federal finding, there has been a tenfold increase in women employed in academia for STEM fields. In 2013, women comprised 24% of full professors, 38% of associate professors, and 45% of assistant professors (Women and STEM, 2017). In 2017, a new chapter was included titled “Title IX and STEM,” as well as a chapter on Career and Technical Education (Title IX and STEM, n.d.). Provisions to Title IX include extensive initiatives to continue encouraging equality in STEM by supporting female students, encouraging universities to evaluate admissions to prevent discrimination, and by offering tenure-track eligibility and other options for women with young children. These are only a few of the many initiatives published as part of Title IX (Women and STEM, 2017), yet the translation of legislation to addressing implicit negative biases may not be as effective. Despite women’s increased representation in STEM after the passage of Title IX, information is still lacking about initiatives and interventions to prevent or address unconscious bias. A study conducted at the University of Mississippi found that microaggressions within the college campus commonly occurred in living spaces, Greek organizations, in the classroom, at the student union, and at the recreational center, but the university lacked strategies for preventing this discrimination (Johnson et al., 2018). With the dangerous health implications stemming from subtle social devaluation, it is critical for STEM institutions to formulate more effective ways of helping female students, staff, and faculty handle microaggressions. Microaggressions in STEM “Microaggression” is now a well-known term that is defined as a more subtle form of social devaluation, compared to overt sexism or racism; these negative social interactions have been identified as stressful and associated with several domains of immutable identity including sex, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation (Balsam et al., 2011; Sue, 2007; Smith, Hung, & Franklin, 2011). Microaggressions have been highlighted in the literature and are defined as subtle or ambiguous social devaluing statements that are common to the receiver (Sue, 2007; Nadal, 2011). They can be classified as daily indignities that are difficult to process given ambiguous subtext. Moreover, Wong et al., (2014) suggest that these innocuous or minor interactions may trigger a negative stress reaction, while the perpetrator may perceive these interactions as complimentary (“You are good at math for a female”). Adding to this, the overall negativity and impact on health for the receiver are dismissed as harmless or minimized, or the victim is derogated (e.g., they are being “too sensitive”). While overt discrimination experiences are established as chronic stressors and are considered a major contributor to poor physical and mental health and higher mortality rates for disadvantaged populations (Adler & Rehkopf, 2008; Troxel, et al., 2003; O’Brien, Meyer, Tronick, & Moore, 2017), not yet explicated is the cumulative psychological stress for recipients experiencing subtle sexist and perhaps chronic devaluing interactions on overall health and functioning. Growing evidence suggests that social devaluation can have cumulative negative effects for certain individuals (Sue, 2007; Nadal, 2011). Numerous studies have investigated overt discrimination as physiological acute or chronic stressors (e.g., O’Brien, Meyer, Tronick, & Moore, 2017) that may also be tapping into global experiences of social devaluation, particularly for social identity features which are immutable. Moreover, overt discrimination and perceived expectations associated with negative stereotypes are well-known to induce subjective stress for the recipient (e.g., stereotype threat). The present study assessed devaluation-related stress on health outcomes across several domains as well as global effects on overall well-being. Specifically, we examined the experiences of female students at a STEM institution where extensive statements of initiatives on inclusion and diversity exist. The findings suggest that despite extensive support for inclusion, implicit, negative biases towards women remain entrenched, resulting in overall negative reported experiences by female students. Related factors included greater perceived stress and low sense of control, greater feelings of objectification, and few positive exemplars. Interestingly, when examining factors that emerge for male students, factor loadings included less perceived stress, being treated as uneducated, and overall unfriendly treatment. Females experienced the burden of social devaluation, resulting in lower ratings of physical and mental health. These data suggest that such initiatives may not be addressing 1) implicit negative attitudes still pervasive for females, and 2) the internalization of such stigma for the recipient. Overt discrimination and health Robust associations exist between overt discrimination and physiological dysregulation including elevated blood pressure, higher resting heart rate, slower recovery to baseline levels after social stress, and cardiovascular illness (for reviews see Pascoe & Richman, 2009; Jackson, Kubzansky & Wright, 2006). Moreover, heightened physiological activity in the major stress systems has been associated with perceptions of discrimination and “weathering,” that is, an additional burden on deleterious health outcomes (e.g., Geronimus, Hicken, Keene, & Bound, 2006). The embedding of adversity due to more subtle and cumulative social evaluation has not been widely investigated, particularly in STEM populations where multiple inclusion initiatives exist. Perceived stress and sex differences A related literature has examined sex differences in perceptions of stress, although findings are inconsistent. Broadly, women report higher negative affect in response to psychosocial stressors (e.g., Kelly et al., 2008). For example, in a standard acute lab stress task with concomitant increases in salivary cortisol (i.e., the Trier Social Stress Test; Kirschbaum, Pirke & Hellhammer, 1993; Kelly et al., 2008) no sex differences in cortisol were found. Subjectively, however, women experienced increased negative mood and negative personal evaluations of performance. In a related study on microaggressions in the workplace, participants read passages that depicted subtle sexist attitudes and blatant denials of harm by a supervisor. Women detected more discrimination, particularly when the sexist beliefs were more subtle (Bas