TLS Students Underline STEM Gender Discrimination through a Cohesive Research Paper

In the pursuit to break the stereotypes that portray brilliance as a male trait, TLS students Reem Saado, Rayan Matar, Dan Chahine, Joseph Daou, and Sarah Tohme worked on a rigorous research paper intending to address this thorny topic and propose adequate solutions.

Despite the hindrance caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that forced a total lockdown in Lebanon, the team managed to compile a cohesive research paper covering every aspect of the study: Reem Saado managed to interview 212 Lebanese students from 8  universities spread across the country covering the gender gap in a STEM field; Sarah Tohme interviewed students in the Healthcare sector, while Dan Chahine gathered information from multiple sources that include research as well as statistical websites like IEEE, statista, and others. Rayan Matar worked on analyzing data and converting it into statistics and percentages and Joseph Daou addressed the gender gap in Engineering through conducting interviews and multiple desk research.

It is amazing to see that a good number of students from the STEM field have excelled in their TLS gender projects.  Reem, Raya, Dan, Joseph, and Sara did an excellent job covering the perceptions of students from various universities on stereotypes starting from home and the role of parents in directing the girls versus boys academic future to the social and workplace focus on polarizing jobs based on gender differences.

This group as well all students from the STEM field is reflected in their discussions with their schools-such as Engineering school in including a gender perspective in the engineering courses.

“The MEPI TLS program provided us with an opportunity to learn more about gender studies and to expand our learning skills to build our career” affirms Saado; while Tohme points out saying: “ TLS opened an eye on issues we as Lebanese people still hold back under the name of culture, religion, and politics.” “After taking the gender course I have become aware of many things that were happening around me that back then I thought it was normal but now I can see as a transgression of someone’s right (mostly sexual harassment)” declares Daou stressing on the myriad of opportunities that TLS offers to students.