Our guest today is Aynsley Szczesniaks!

We take a deep dive into the intersection of gender and the STEM fields unfolds as the podcast introduces Ainsley, an aspiring medical professional with a passion for menstrual health and women's empowerment in science. She passionately articulates the pressing need for dialogue surrounding the challenges women face in STEM careers, particularly in combating implicit biases and fostering supportive work environments. Ainsley emphasizes the importance of mentorship and advocacy, advocating for initiatives that not only highlight women's contributions in science but also address systemic barriers that hinder their progress.

The discussion pivots to the broader societal implications of such disparities, as both speakers engage in a witty exchange about the transformative power of inclusion in STEM. With humor and insight, they explore how elevating women's voices can catalyze change, ultimately asserting that the path to a more equitable future is paved with open conversations and collective action.

Aynsley is a fierce STEMinist and youth advocate fighting for gender equality by elevating the voices of #WomenInSTEM.

Takeaways:

• The discourse on women's representation in STEM reveals the necessity of breaking societal stigmas that hinder equality and progress.
• Understanding menstrual health and maternal care signifies a critical intersection of medicine that remains largely unaddressed despite advances in medical technology.
• The conversation regarding gender bias in the workplace must evolve to foster an inclusive environment that values women's unique perspectives and strengths.
• Engagement in STEM fields by women is not just a matter of equality but a significant contributor to innovative solutions for global challenges.
• Navigating implicit biases in professional environments requires robust mentorship programs that empower women to overcome systemic barriers to success.
• Collective action through dialogue is essential for illuminating the struggles faced by women in STEM and fostering a supportive community for change.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Girls Who Code

https://www.youtube.com/@the-other-half

Hi, there.

How are you today?

Yo.

I'm good.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Are you a Gen Z or are you a millennial?

What's.

What's your type of designation?

Well, I'm currently an undergraduate student, so.

Okay.

All right, so you're legit.

Right on.

Oh, yeah.

All right, Ainsley.

All right, let's get some background on you.

Let's get some bio on you.

Take it away.

Fantastic.

So I am currently an undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Go Tar Heels.

I am on the pre med track, so I'll hopefully be in medical school in.

In the next year, ten years or so.

Yeah, I.

What other things.

What other things y' all would want to know about me?

I think that's really good.

That's really.

It's tough to get into.

My.

My grandfather was a doctor, so I get.

I get how difficult.

Like medical terminology and that and that, you know, that responsibility is to take your career and your life that way.

Where do you want to go in your career?

What kind of goals do you want to accomplish?

Well, I've recently become really interested in menstrual health, menstrual equity and maternal health care, things like that.

So I don't exactly have a civic field that I'm interested in in terms of medicine or that I'm planning on, but those are some things that I'm really interested in because I've been doing some research.

And it's fascinating that even in this day and age, we think medicine is so advanced.

Maternal deaths, maternal mortality are still very high, and it's because of preventable.

A lot of preventable causes.

So that's something I've recently become really interested in and something that I want to learn more about and hopefully get more involved in to make a difference in that realm.

You know what I want, Ainsley?

I want a full body, full spectrum, full neuro, full chemical test every year to know if I have cancer somewhere or not.

Or, like, well, in the next 10 years, or ALS, God forbid.

Or, you know, just like an update on my brain, maybe, like, neurons are pumping at 80% or my breathing, you know, just to have, like a full body, full scale, easy, like, this is how my body is right now kind of thing.

I think that's the beauty of science.

You know, we are constantly learning more about how our bodies are working.

So, yeah, while there isn't technology right now that could tell you, you know, everything that's happening in your body, there are thousands, millions of researchers out there every day.

Working towards discovering what, what's going on inside of us.

And that's what I, that fascinates me so much about science and particularly medicine.

Yeah.

And there's the scientific theorem.

Right.

Or the, Is it scientific theory or theorem?

I don't know.

Method.

I don't know.

That's the one.

Yeah, the scientific method.

There's a, there's a proven workflow to get something to know if it's real or not kind of thing or if it's just a theory.

Exactly.

Okay.

So Ainsley, you know, what's, what's the big thing with you?

Yeah, of course.

So I consider myself a STEMist.

I don't know if you've ever heard the term before I recently got introduced to it.

Essentially, it's what it sounds, you know, feminist, who was really passionate particularly about empowering women in stem.

Uh, so that's something, you know, as I've entered my, the next stage of my career journey and my, my professional journey, that's something part of my identity that I've been really working.

So what's that, What's STEM for people that don't know?

Yeah.

So STEM is science, technology, engineering and math.

Sometimes you'll also see it with another M for medicine.

But that's essentially my, my mission as a STEMist particular is to shed light on the voices of women and the stories.

Because something that I feel is a big issue in today's society is that we just don't talk about things.

We, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of organizations and such that are, that are trying to get girls interested in STEM and, you know, career exploration.

You may have heard of girls who code, for instance, or just programs that try and tell girls, you know, these are the different careers you can take.

But something that I think hasn't been addressed as much is once you get into that STEM career, then you're, and then you're sort of left on your own.

There's never any sort of follow up of like, you know, when you do inevitably encounter gender bias.

How do you, how do you remedy that?

Things like that.

You know, as someone that wants to work in medicine and stuff.

How do you, how do you, how do you cope like that?

How do you work with those different personalities?

Exactly.

That's the thing.

You, you have to learn that everybody has a different perspective and one of the, the pieces of, or, you know, and that's why we need to have these conversations.

Because we can't just live in our own little world, our own little Bubble and say, you know, this is how I believe the world is, and that's, that's how it should be.

We, if we want to make change for, you know, I'll just say women because that's my area of focus.

If we want to see change for women in stem, we need to have these conversations so that people who maybe didn't realize the struggles that women are facing can be exposed to them.

Like, you know, if you've never realized that just, just how much of a burden child, child care can be for women, like, that's something that we need to talk about more so people can understand why, why we need change.

When you say child care, you mean daycare or like actually having a child?

Both.

There, there's, you know, in the U.S. for instance, there is no official policy regarding like child care leave.

So, you know, things like that that would just need to get talked about more.

That, so there's an organization that's, it's, you know, like insurance for at least a year after having a kid or something like that.

Just, just to, to acknowledge that women are needing assistance and they aren't getting it.

If it's recognized that the assistance is needed, then the assistance should be had.

But it takes, it takes strong people to figure that out, as simple as it seems.

That's fair just to acknowledge that because that's like a, that's like a post in the road, you know, that's not moving.

That's real.

Exactly.

And I think it takes somebody to, to be that person, take the first step and be brave and speak out.

Because I'm, you know, as in with any issue, it's hard to speak out.

It's hard to be the first one.

But once you have that first voice, then others can see, oh, I feel the same way.

It's not just me who, who's been feeling this way.

And so then you can start to build momentum.

Yeah.

Yes.

The momentum was so strong, I dropped everything in my hand.

That was pretty cool.

That was a cool connection.

But yeah, you.

As long as you love what you're doing and you totally believe in what you're doing, it.

That momentum becomes even stronger.

It becomes spite.

And it goes and goes and goes until it doesn't.

And sometimes you hit a wall.

Have you ever hit a wall when you're trying to go top tier and give women's rights as much volume as it can?

Have you just hit a wall and just been like, yikes, you know, this is tough?

Definitely.

You know, I've been working through that actually.

Just right now.

So one of the organizations that I'm involved with, we're working on building a mentorship program.

And one of the things that, yeah, for high school girls in stem, focusing not so much on careers, but on having these conversations about these struggles that women face and how we can conquer them.

And so one of the challenges that we've definitely been having is we have this program built, we have the, we have the women lined up.

I think the main thing that we need is changing the workspace culture.

There is a lot of implicit bias and it's still pervasive in the workplace that needs to be addressed.

I've had a lot of conversations with lots of different women about this, and one thing that I've definitely seen a lot is changing the way that we perceive women's abilities and women's strengths.

Because, for instance, you know, women bring empathy to the workplace.

That, that's something, a strength that we bring.

But a lot of times there's this pressure to, to, you know, to be more, more masculine, to, to not be empathetic because it's seen as a weakness.

It's seen as, oh, you know, women are too emotional, we can't handle things.

And so a lot of the issues and a lot of the change that needs to happen in the workplace and just in society in general is connected to sort of these, these abstract implicit things that are a lot harder to change.

So, you know, the pressure to be perfect, the pressure to suppress your femininity and to blend in with, with the male dominated workspaces, these are the things that need to be changed most.

But these are also the hardest things to change because it starts with changing mindsets and of course, you know, changing how people think is literally the hardest thing ever.

Yeah, that's a whole different mindset.

But to be educated on both sides, all sides, all perspectives on it, and for a person to be able to make their own educated decision with the best info, I think that's the way to go either way.

Exactly.

And that goes back to the idea of just talking about these things.

We need to get as much knowledge out there as we can so that nobody is left wondering.

The conversation needs to be had, the words need to be said.

And once they're.

That's out there in our new medium, this is our medium of communication now.

This is where things are moving very quickly, very quickly.

Like, it's like I get sucked into different conversations, emails, like just everything so fast between clubhouse, Twitter, Instagram, Tick Tock, whatever it may be.

You know, it's Fast.

It's fast and then it stops.

It's just like, whoa.

Yeah.

I was talking with somebody the other day about the beauty of social media and that it's really allows everybody to have a space to share their voice.

But then, you know, there's that downside also of just as easily as you can share your voice, you can also get attacked for your opinions.

You can get so much backlash.

You got to be prepared to put yourself out there and represent yourself as you want it to be represented.

Exactly.

I completely.

You know what I mean?

Like, for me, I do different shows, and for me, broadcasting like this, it's.

It's partly.

Partly character mode almost, sometimes not so much.

With the interview with you, Ainsley, right now, this is.

This is a cool vibe.

And, you know, shout out to everybody in the chat if you're out there, you know, it's.

It's cool to hang with you.

How old are you?

I'm an undergraduate.

So you're an undergraduate.

So 20, 22 or 24.

Somewhere in your 20s, I'm assuming.

It's probably rude of me to ask.

I apologize, but I just want to get the idea.

So, like, you're just gonna go PhD?

Are you gonna go emergency room physician?

Are you.

I mean, where you want to be a politician?

What's your.

What's your goal here?

So what are we going to want you do over the years?

So on the track for med school, I'll be.

I'll graduate college and then go into med school to get my MD and then beyond that, perhaps also PhD.

Not sure yet, but definitely an MD.

That's wild.

That's so much.

You're setting yourself up for so many things, but, man, if you can accomplish all that.

Thank you.

It's been my.

It's been my plan since as long as I can remember to go to med school.

It's always been.

I can't imagine myself doing anything else because medicine, to me is the most extraordinary way to give back to the world because you're devoting your life to preserving and protecting the lives of others.

And I can't think of a more noble mission.

It's the most noble, the most important, the most responsibility thing in the world.

Your life.

You have people's lives in your hands every day, multiple times a day like that.

Most respect.

My whole family's in medicine.

I went into health insurance.

It was a wrong move, but I respect the hell out of what they do because, like, when something goes bad or something, we're all very quick, you know, like because you never know when the emergency is gonna happen.

Right.

What kind of fields are they in?

My grandfather was a respected doctor.

My grandma was a nurse.

My dad's a nurse.

My brother's a nurse.

My mom's respiratory therapist.

Anybody else?

Oh, yeah, I have a couple cousins that are nurses, too.

Wonderful lot of nurses.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Good for them.

You know, that's a really needed profession.

What can.

What can we get out that you got?

Any good tweets or tiktoks that you've put out that we can get out there for you?

Well, I do have a YouTube channel.

It's called the Other Half, and essentially I interview different women in STEM about topics that I feel like don't get talked about much.

Things.

Like, I just released an interview with a woman where we were discussing developing your own leadership style and how you can make your voice matter and make your voice heard in the workplace.

Because I'm sure we've all had that.

That feeling of, you know, do I actually matter?

Like.

Like, is anybody actually listening to me?

So that's.

That's one of the things that we really touched upon, and she offered some great tips about what you can do to make your voice matter.

So I highly recommend checking out that video.

I'll be releasing more throughout the.

You know, continuing on just to, again, try and.

Try and get those.

Those stereotypes shattered and those.

Those issues talked about.

I have another interview with a woman named Dr.

Shiny Samara where we were talking about all sorts of things, everything from how to accept who you are and be grateful for what you've done and not be so tied to perfectionism, things like, you know, just things like that.

So definitely check out my channel.

I'm also on Instagram and Twitter.

It's called the Other Half.

And is there a place where I could, like, put my social media handles or could chat or something?

Awesome.

Ainsley, what's something I can do to help you by being on the podcast right now?

Like, what's something that we can all do to help you?

Is there something we can retweet or.

Well, it'd be great if you all could help get.

Get my message out there, get.

Garner some more visibility for my channel and for the work that I'm doing, because that's the only way that we can make a difference by taking collective action and spreading the word about these things.

So, you know, what is the message?

Ansley, Tell us right now.

What is the message?

I gotta know.

We need to talk about these things.

We need to talk about the issues that women in STEM are facing.

We need to break these stigmas that have been silencing our voices for too long.

And the only way we can do that is through lifting up these voices and being allies.

And even if you are not a woman in stem, even if you're not a woman, you can still do something for women in stem.

You can still be an ally, you can still raise up our voices, and you can still make change.

So we need to.

We need to talk about these things.

We need to start talking and we need to start acting.

Talk the talk, walk the walk.

That's the deal.

That's what you got to do to get anything done.

Apparently, that's what I'm learning, but I'm behind you.

I'm about rights for everybody.

I think everyone should just be equal.

What do you like to do for fun?

You're a gamer.

I've never been much of a gamer.

I do enjoy reading.

I like reading, particularly current event news, things like that.

I like getting outside.

I think that sometimes just going for a walk and walking through and you're just.

Just immersing yourself in nature, having great.

Conversation back and forth.

And that's awesome to hear you.

It goes exactly with my.

My philosophy about how we need to have conversation.

We need to.

Because, you know, there's so much knowledge out there, people just don't know it exists.

You know, the thing about the Internet, it's.

You're like, oh, you know, the Internet's out there.

You can just Google it.

But there's so much out there still that you.

You have to know how to Google it in order to find it.

So just.

I love talking with people.

I love networking because you're always learning something new.

You always.

Like, just yesterday I was talking with somebody and I learned a little bit more about menstrual health, menstrual equity, than I learned before.

And I was like, you know, this is why I love talking with people, because everybody has their own experiences and their own understanding of the world, and we all can.

And, you know, by talking with each other, we can mutually benefit.

We can each expand our perspectives a little bit more.

Right?

I agree with you wholeheartedly.

If I honestly, I'd give you a hug and a high five, too, because honestly, that was so deep and from the heart and I believe that stuff too.

Just like the advancement, you know, it's like with AI, people are afraid as hell of AI.

I think we should, like, be chill with AI, you know, that should be part of this evolution of like getting things done, things that series never been able to get done for us on the iPhone.

The kind of the, the mind bending conversations that we could have about some of the, the advances in science in particular are so fascinating.

String theory, going into quantum, I find that's, I find that stuff just, it's amazing.

And like, I think we were talking about this before, you know, that's just the beauty of science.

There is so much out there.

And I think that that's one of the reasons why you're going back to my mission.

That's why we need more women in stem, because STEM is the future.

And to have women not be a part of this, the progress that we're making towards the future, I think is a detriment to society because women bring such unique perspectives and such a different approach to many of the issues that our world is currently facing that if we don't include women in the conversations, we are really hurting ourselves.

There's research that, you know, workspaces with more women are more successful because we bring a different perspective.

And I want, I don't want to say we as, you know, making assumptions about all women, but I do think that there is a point where you can say women have a different perspective.

Women are advantageous and it's advantageous to have women in the workplace, particularly in stem.

So the fact that women are not represented in these fields is really not just, not just hurting, hurting society in terms of equality, but it's also hurting us in terms of moving forward.

You know, Ada Lovelace, she was the one who invented pretty much coding.

There are so many contributions that women made to STEM that just don't get talked about.

And there should continue to be contributions that women make.

So that's why we need to have.

So what happens after women conquer stem?

What's next for women?

I mean, I don't think there's ever really a stopping point.

I think we can always continue to improve.

I mean, for instance, you could say women technically have the right to vote, but there is still so much surrounding the ability to exercise that right, the ability to.

And then once you bring in the other nuances of what it means to be able to vote and such, there is always, always more that we can do.

And I think it's just a question of continuing to move forward and continu to make strides towards your quality.