Wider horizons

A recent graduate of Riga Technical University (RTU) is struggling to understand The Engineer’s line of enquiry regarding gender equality and reasons why Latvia has more female engineers than Britain.

Although a small country with a population of approximately 2.3 million, women account for around 30 per cent of engineering professionals compared with seven per cent in Britain.

In a 2011 opinion piece for The Engineer, Newcastle MP Chi Onwurah pondered with a degree of sarcasm whether this could be attributed to ‘Latvian women being more left-brained.’

Prof Marika Rošā, Riga Technical University

For Janina Doviborova, M.Sc-Ing the answer is simple: ‘We do not look at things and say “that profession is for a women and that profession is for a man.”’

Doviborova, who graduated RTU this year with a masters degree in power and electrical engineering, and Prof Marika Rošā, a scientist in the Faculty of Power and Electrical Engineering (FPEE) at RTU believe Latvia’s relatively high proportion of female engineers can be attributed in part to the country’s annexation into the Soviet Union in 1940.