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Why aren't there more women engineers?

Having initially trained as a nurse, re-trained and graduated as an engineer, had 25 years experience as a female in male-dominated manufacturing industries, and lately done a stint in teaching secondary school, I think I am uniquely qualified to comment on the above! I believe there are 2 questions here: - 1. Why are girls at school not attracted to engineering careers? Initiatives to encourage girls to study engineering fail, in my opinion, for several reasons:- The way maths and physics are taught at GCSE in schools bears little or no relation to real-life applications such as engineering, and is consequently perceived as difficult and boring. Girls have usually had little or no experience of investigating how things work at home, so need to have their interest sparked at school. There is no real understanding of what an engineer does all day, and there is a perception that it is all very complicated. Once girls get interested they are just as capable as the boys, if not more so. Another major problem for girls (and boys) at that age is peer pressure not to be “different”. There are no female-engineer role models in the media, and girls are highly unlikely to come across one in real-life either. Compare the male-nurse role models on series such as “Casualty”. 2. Why do qualified female engineers invariably leave the profession to do other things? Issues are many and varied. Even the young woman who has not had children will experience not being taken seriously by the male dominated management and/or her own male staff. Women in engineering are certainly not being rewarded financially on the same scale as male engineers. A major issue is women in management roles feel pressured to adopt masculine traits such as aggressiveness. In some companies there is still outright bullying and intimidation, and subtle pressure to accept sexist comments and inappropriate behaviours in order to be “one of the boys”. Challenging such behaviour can lead to a woman being perceived as a troublemaker and then sidelined. Having children brings a whole new set of issues, including widespread reluctance to allow flexible working, and then being forced into “backwater” projects if working part-time. Having also worked in the NHS and in Education, and whilst the public sector has its’ problems, women are treated much more fairly and openly than they are in the private sector. In my career, I have watched many women leave the sharp-end of engineering to retrain as teachers, accountants, technical reps, and, as in my own case, to do consultancy work (albeit still in manufacturing). There comes a point when women just get weary of the constant uphill battle of working twice as hard as their male colleagues for less recognition. It’s a chicken-and-egg situation. We need more women in engineering management to actively change the culture and act as role models, but women such as myself are reluctant to encourage girls into engineering because they know the problems they will face once they get there! A glimmer of hope is that young men entering the profession nowadays are generally much more receptive and accepting of female engineers. As they move up the hierarchy it will hopefully get easier for young women.

20 Jul 2011

2:43 pm