Miss Guyana 2019

Joylyn Conway

Age: 20 | Height: 160cm

Thank you for taking the time to hop across to my tab. You can now gain some insight with regards to who I am and my journey as Miss World Guyana 2019, while capturing a better picture of my Beauty With A Purpose Project “STEM Girl Glow” and where my inspiration for this project stemmed from.

I believe that a girl can be whatever she wants to be, despite her age, ethnicity, race, size, family background, financial status etc. I believe that for too long girls/women have fallen victim to the stereotype that they cannot or should not pursue fields of study that are STEM based and attain jobs within the mentioned areas of study, allowing this stereotype to define us. I believe it’s time that changes, there should be more girls, more women; we have ideas too! Premised on this I believe that I can use my platform to be a role model and show my fellow Guyanese queens and princesses that we’re more than what the statistics say, we are more than our outward appearance, that we can excel in the study of STEM based areas, its Research and Policy making, and hence also add to the moving forward and further development of our Motherland as one people, one nation with one destiny. This is why I should be Miss World Guyana this year.

Stem Girls Glow

In high school in third form I wanted to go into Technical stream, in school I was told by some of my teachers it’s a primarily guys stream, so I didn’t put that as an option, which was okay, because another awesome opportunity came knocking. I was encouraged to join Science Stream, it’s a challenge that I took gracefully and have never regretted; back then it didn’t seem like such a big deal a girl being in Science stream it still doesn’t actually at least in Guyana; my female friends and I were never faced with the stereotype that “Science is unfeminine”. At University however, this changed; it’s the aspect of your life that you make decisions that can impact all of your tomorrows. I was looked down upon because of my age, people often said “you’re young”, “take a break”, “live life a little”, all these phrases were taunting and so many times I wanted to agree with them. If it wasn’t my age, it was their perception of me; for instance, “you’re a nerd” or guys would say “you’re beautiful + smart”, these lines as small as they seem were hurtful. Being referred to as a nerd made me feel unattractive because of society’s portrayal of nerds via the media and wearing glasses in reality didn’t help a lot either. Being told that I’m beautiful plus smart, it was like being told, “girl you cannot be beautiful AND smart”, like why not I’m just as 100% human as guys are hence I have the same capabilities as they do, the repetition of these phrases in my life, forced me to not want to wear glasses and also to dress up and wear makeup, just so that I would not be perceived as a nerd or someone that studies Sciences in society. Lastly, being told “it’s time you get married”, “you’re of the age”, “you’re a girl”, “your biological clock is ticking”, I often found these funny and not hurtful, these latter phrases are being told to me now and I agree with them, but my future as a wife and a mother is just as important as my academics and career, and I believe that I can have them both, I can easily say this because I see it within my home through my mom, one of my role models. In America women make up ~27% of the holders of STEM careers, these stats are this way because of girls being told some of the exact lines that I was and am being told, forcing us to compromise, like I once did or even quitting.