I am a grad student at a large state university serving in a relatively unimportant but public role within our engineering department that requires me to send emails several times a week to all of the other students in the department.

I try to be nice to the other engineering students in accordance with the desire for a professional working relationship and  polite departmental culture.

Yet – I get emails from other engineering grad students who I scarcely know, that are aggressive and generally inappropriate for a professional environment and relationship. See below for an example of such an exchange. I don’t think this qualifies as harassment, but it is definitely annoying. And I am still not sure how to respond!

It all started last May, when my name was sent in a departmental wide email after I won an award. I ran into this guy in the hallway and was briefly introduced – he took the initiative to find my email and send me this message:

Ann,
Congrats on your award! That’s awesome. What are you going to do with your proceedings?
I’m going on a mission to the farmer’s market tomorrow morning and you should meet me there. It’s going to be fun.
And if you’re so inclined, I’m playing a graduation gig in the afternoon at a house party. Also should be fun. Let me know if you’re interested.
[name redacted]

Maybe if I had replied to this initial message the rest of this awkwardness could have been avoided. But I didn’t want to write anything back to this guy, that I didn’t even know, that was sending me emails telling me what I SHOULD do. I really hate people who tell me what to do, so this totally set me off. I did not reply to this message.

He continued about one month later in another email message:

You were at 100 points in dorkiness level for not responding to my email.
We’ll subtract 10 just because you listen to Nicki Minaj:)

This one also annoyed me to no end. And now, this guy who I don’t really know, who already sent me a stupid message telling me what to do, is now JUDGING me?! And assigning points? WTF. I asked a trusted friend for advice, and he said to send back a short simple message indicating that the effort was nice though misdirected. I replied:

Good effort, thanks for trying. Better luck next time!

To which he said:

What?! You don’t make sense!
Have lunch with me this week. I’m going to [place name]. Have you been there? It’s good.

We all know about the right-hand rule. Typically introduced in the first physics course you’ll ever take, it is a simplifying assumption that arises as a consequence of an arbitrarily-assigned 3-D coordinate system. We need to choose one direction as positive and one as negative, and using your right hand is a good way as any to enable universal consistency. (note: the right-hand rule is also important in electrical engineering to determine the direction of current flow and magnetic fields)

Here’s a couple images that typically are used to illustrate the right-hand rule:

<–From wikipedia

From ExploreLearning–>

What gender do these cartoony-hands look like they belong to?

At left – this hand looks relatively unisex, but decidedly unfeminine. The image on the right is definitely the hand of a cartoon man. Wearing a boring sweater that’s slightly poofy, to boot.

Now contrast this with this image, from interactive mathematics:

Does this look different?

Note the red nail polish that ostensibly says “woman” – does that affect your conscious thought process? What about the subconscious?

I have undertaken surveys of several common engineering textbooks to get a feeling for the images that are typically used within. Engineering texts like to show men doing things – rarely do they use women, even cartoon women, to illustrate a word problem or concept. A scan of a common Statics book (Bedford & Fowler, 3rd ed., 2002) reveals that over 600 pages of text, only 6 women are definitively pictured and the ratio of men to women displayed is over 10:1.

Clearly there is a discrepancy between the diversity of the images shown and the desired diversity in engineering. The demographics represented within engineering examples do matter – they affect how we internalize knowledge and create foundations for our understanding.

The right-hand rule is just one example of how male models are typical in engineering and science concept introductions. Another simplifying assumption, this time on the part of textbook authors and illustrators, to choose a thick wrist and stout nails as the default instead of anything distinctly feminine. I wonder sometimes – what if it was different? What if every time we were introduced to a new idea it was through a female body or feminine image? How different would it feel to learn from an example that looks like me?

Just as the assignment of positive/negative is fundamentally arbitrary, so is the use of male images as the standard models for engineering knowledge and information. While once this was a simplifying assumption as most engineering students were male, this is no longer the desired situation. It’s time to stop being lazy and going with the images that engineers have always used, the assumptions of normality that have always existed within the field. It’s time to make a change, to start now, to encourage new viewpoints and possibilities in engineering, math, and science!

In 2012, please consider the images and examples that represent engineering knowledge in your life. Are they affected by assumptions of males as the norm? Are you ready to challenge the assumptions that have been foundational in the engineering field? As the saying goes, “when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME” – let’s stop being asses, and instead be trailblazers in encouraging women into science, math, engineering, and technology. It’s about effing time!! =)

Hahaha… I find this exchange hilarious:

A young man and his father wait in the lobby of my large state university to ask an undergraduate advisor about applying and attending my college to study engineering for the first time. They mention that they’ve checked out a nearby school whose reputation for technical rigor and history of pure engineering glory is unparalleled in the state.

As I walk by, I overhear the father ask in a parentally protective tone, “Can you give me one reason why John would be happier at your institution instead of the other one?”

I can’t help but say “the women… the WOMEN!!” as I pass, repeating the words a second time for clarity.

The undergrad advisor from my institution guffaws loudly… perhaps to smooth over an awkward moment with the prospective student and his father. Later, she tells me that judging from the look on his face, the young man considering our college was completely terrified by my mention of women, like maybe he had never before considered the concept.

I feel a little buffoonish and ungraceful for my interjection, but SERIOUSLY. In choosing between a college whose undergrad population is 47% female and 53% male vs. 25% female and 75% male, the presence of women is a considerable factor!! And having experience at both of these institutions, I attest that the social climates of both are different and significantly impact the overall quality and scope of the educational experience.

It’s telling, though, that the prospective student was a little freaked by the mention of something he may not have much experience with. I understand… engineers, especially young engineers, can be a little awkward and have difficulty with social encounters with the opposite sex. But I would argue that part of life education should be to gain more experience with interacting with all kinds of different people, all genders, races, backgrounds etc. I would even argue that such experiences make better engineers in the end. But they do require you to get out of your comfort zone!!

Obviously there’s a lot to think about when picking a college… and maybe this terrified young man would prefer an institution where the issue of interaction with the opposite sex could be ignored, avoided, or largely put-off until the bachelor’s degree is in the bag and the parents aren’t around. But – and this is what’s crazy – avoiding contact with women is actually an option that exists for men in engineering! If women are only 1/4 students at a given institution, you could go through an entire undergrad career without ever working with a woman on a team, without doing homework with a woman, not to mention any possibility of romantic encounters.

The more I think about it the more confused I get, actually. Because what will attract women to a school with that extreme gender ratio? Men? How can we facilitate change? What’s actually important here? And actually, my snarky comment doesn’t help?

But for me… it comes back to the women. The presence of strong women is something I make a point to cherish and recognize when I see it. I am thankful to have had so many strong women to serve as allies, role models, examples, demonstrations, and inspirations for day-to-day engineering. Thanks guys! (hehe.. j/k… thanks friends!)

I am confused, I guess about how to write about being a woman in engineering.  (hence no recent updates, among other things)

I have been looking at the Geek Feminism Wiki, specifically the timeline of public events in which women were categorically discriminated against or made uncomfortable. Sadly to say, none of them surprise me. But I wonder why they have to be public events to be reported? What I find terrifying – as well as statistically compelling – is not that events like this occur with high frequency on a public level, but how often and in what capacity they have happened in my one personal life. What’s so striking about discrimination is that it’s on all levels, occurring in an incredible variety as uniquely fitting for each situation. I wonder if starting a collection of personal stories might add another dimension to these stories of reporting incidents at conferences or advertising in journals. An excerpt from my experiences are below – please, I invite you to add yours to the story, anonymously or pseudonymously as you like – so that we can create a realistic cornucopia of the world as it really is, flawed as it is, and sufficiently detailed so that the subtle aspects of discrimination can actually be understood.

In looking back on quitting my job as a systems/project engineer at a mid-size consumer products company, I realize the exact moment of the first crystal of realization it was time to leave. In the midst of a product crisis, all engineers were on deck and emailing all day and night about potential solutions, crossing oceans to manufacturing and back. As the only systems engineer on the project I had naturally been included on all communications and was well prepared for a Thursday 8am to discuss.

At the meeting, software, electrical, quality teams gave updates and there were no surprises. When the mechanical team rose, and spoke, they referenced an entirely new design which had developed early the previous evening and had, over the course of the night, become a front-running candidate.

I had never heard of this design. The rest of the team (including marketing and an intern) nodded their heads knowingly. I grabbed the computer of the engineer seated to my right to double-check, pulling up his e-mail. I found, recently, an entire e-mail chain I had been left off of. It included extensive details as well as discussion among the entire team – including the intern!

It meant, again, that I had been excluded and left off of a critical distribution list. It seems like such a small detail, but in the midst of a crisis when communication is already shot to hell by lack of sleep and politics, being left off an ‘engineering’ e-mail is like death.

I knew the mechanical engineering manager didn’t give a shit about including me. I complained about this, to him, often. I would hear word of an interesting mechanical idea from an intern or my machinist friends, get it forwarded to me from one of them, and send it back to the manager with the request to include me the next time. I had complained so often that he had recently started yelling every time he sent an email out, “I’ll send this to Ann, its an important one.” This became particularly obnoxious as more and more inane forwards or strictly bureaucratic e-mails were also forwarded to me out of spite.

Yet it was all for show as crisis stress hit epidemic levels and higher level brain functions like being a teammate ceased. While some names, including the intern and marketing manager were added to the To: field, mine was left off entirely. E-mail is rather damming in this way as the trail of headers and forwards paints an interesting picture of who considered who, and when.

At one juncture, the program manager was added as well as the rest of the team – just excluding me. I had previously asked the program manager to invoke the use of project lists as email chains inevitably grew thermonuclear and twisted during a crisis. I reminded him frequently and created a general list just for this purpose, to avoid being left out!

At what point does it become personal, and you begin feeling excluded or left out? Is it the first time, the third, the fifth, the sixth in as many days, the tenth, the twentieth? Fingers AND toes? At some point – it’s too much.

I bubbled over, screamed, and threw a plastic assembly about 6″ long x 3″wide x2.5″tall directly at the table in front of the mechanical engineering manager. I remember my words exactly: “I’m on your fucking team.” I started crying, shamelessly, in front of everyone. I was so ragefully angry and fed-up and distraught. It was 8:30AM on a Thursday morning.

Later that day I already could laugh about it. I apologized, was glad there was no serious injury inflicted, and requested again that the team use distribution lists and make that much more of an effort to include me in conversation. Life continued, albeit after an awkward *family chat* with my project manager and the mechanical engineering manager I had hucked the part at, in which he told us we were both his rocks and needed to be strong to support the rest of the team.

Life continued, and I still worked. But the crystal that precipitated that day attracted more and more energy to it – began building, layer by layer.

I never got along the same way with the mechanical engineering manager. Our previous disdain gave way to outright hostility. He sent me e-mails when he saw me walk by or was reminded of my existence. He still forgot, a lot of the time. I signed a buddy up to check, each time he received a project-related e-mail of importance, that my name was also on the distribution list or to add me immediately. I probably should have done that in the first place – but I hadn’t realized how much I still needed someone to watch my back on my team.

I quit my job approximately 5 months later, thinking that engineering was not for me. I am glad that I returned, because it is who and what I am.

A former co-worker recently sent me this photo from 2007 of our team enjoying a Chinese dinner during a big trip to the factory to get everything rolling on the production line. Looking at this picture is confusing and fascinating – I see so much in it:

At a dinner party to celebrate a friend’s accomplishments, I met a retired mechanical engineer who had a wealth of experience in mining, on oil rigs, in designing mechanisms, and generally working in engineering.

I am not a NICE LADY engineer… instead I am a NASTY WOMAN engineer.. and I am totally okay with that, especially since it’s the good nasty, after all ;).

When I started working, I was stuck thinking that I had to be nice all the time – that people had to perceive me as SWEET and NICE for me to be able to fit in and assimilate in the workplace. Of course, that veneer of sweetness was short-lived as stress levels rose, responsibility increased, and fecal matter hit the fan in all the projects under my purview. My true nature surfaced: curt, short, and cut-the-bullshit-direct to enable me to deal efficiently with the never-ending shit storm… and I know that’s what I am remembered for, above all. The ability to get things done despite my low-level position and beyond what people expected from me. I couldn’t have done any of that – I could not have excelled at my job – had I still been preoccupied with being a “nice lady.”

Engineers are frequently not “nice” – why would they be? Instead, engineers are passionate – so passionate that meetings get dragged on endlessly to debate minute details that only engineers would actually care about… so passionate that design engineers frequently get over-invested in their design concepts and refuse to see the flaws…. so passionate that engineers set up mini-shops in their homes to do more engineering at home, as a hobby (what other professions do that?). I mean, if you had to choose just one attribute required for all engineers, wouldn’t you pick passion over niceness? Passion gets you through the long hours and serious lows, way past the stage of “nice.” Passion is what makes you stick to your guns and follow through with your good idea while you simultaneously bash someone else’s.* Sure, passion can bring conflict and resulting “nastiness” — but at least it’s from a genuine place. And if it does get remembered as nasty…rest assured that it’s way better this way than being a “nice lady.”

* intentional sarcasm… heh heh.

Shout-out to all those Wu-Tang lovers and haters out there… this song (C.R.E.A.M.) has been stuck in my head for the last week, maybe related to a slew of articles about $$$… cash… salaries…operating budgets… negotiations for women in technology.

Starting with this list from CNN/Careerbuilder of the 25 Best Paying Jobs for Women:

Computer software engineers
Women – Median weekly earnings: $1,351
Men – Median weekly earnings: $1,555
Women’s earnings as percent of men’s in same occupation: 86.9%

Computer and information systems managers
Women – Median weekly earnings: $1,260
Men – Median weekly earnings: $1,641
Women’s earnings as percent of men’s in same occupation: 76.8%

Computer and mathematical occupations
Women – Median weekly earnings: $1,088
Men – Median weekly earnings: $1,320
Women’s earnings as percent of men’s in same occupation: 82.4%

Computer scientists and systems analysts
Women – Median weekly earnings: $1,082
Men – Median weekly earnings: $1,240
Women’s earnings as percent of men’s in same occupation: 87.3%

Computer programmers
Women – Median weekly earnings: $1,003
Men – Median weekly earnings: $1,261
Women’s earnings as percent of men’s in same occupation: 79.5%

Architecture and engineering occupations
Women – Median weekly earnings: $1,001
Men – Median weekly earnings: $1,286
Women’s earnings as percent of men’s in same occupation: 77.8%

While I don’t entirely understand their categories (what’s the distinction between computers programmers, computer scientists, and computer software engineers? And all of the rest of engineering can just combined with architecture?) the numbers are still compelling. Yup, we’re still WAAYYY unequal in many categories, particularly “engineering.” But why?

Relevant to this discussion is this article in the Money section of the NYTimes, providing “A Toolkit for Women Seeking a Raise.” Indeed, as much as the pay discrepancies in engineering can be blamed on the legacy of the pay gap, the negotiation table where starting salaries are defined and annual raises are assigned is definitely one area where we can actually take tangible action and start to lessen the gap for ourselves.

A college professor of mine gave a memorable lecture in which he described the future of our young graduating class and what happens as you enter the workplace: Imagine two students, both bright, both smart, and both hired at Company Y. They are both given the same starting offer – $65k annually. Our Orange friend accepts the offer, thrilled to have a job out of college. Meanwhile, our Green friend does some research and chooses to push back. She points out all of the unique attributes that make her special and indispensable to the company.  She counters with a request for $70k and Company Y willingly agrees, happy to have someone of her skill.

Both Orange and Green work hard and both become top contributors at Company Y. As star performers, they are given a 5% raise each year. After 5 years, Green’s salary has increased to $85k annually while Orange is making $79k – the gap between their salaries has increased from $5k to $6k and over those 5 years, the Company Y has paid overall $28k more to Green than Orange. After 20 years, the gap just keeps widening and widening — Green is now making $177k annually and Orange is at $164k. While this is a difference of only $13k in their annual salaries, the cumulative earnings gap between Green and Orange has grown to a whopping $165k difference! Starting with a difference of only $5k – over twenty years it becomes a huge discrepancy in accumulated earnings.

After starting behind, Orange will never catch up to Green at Company Y since annual raises are always a percentage of the previous year’s salary. She can always leave to find a new company and get another chance to negotiate a salary – but her expectations will be colored by her previous salary and it’ll be hard to get up to that next level.

So — knowing all of this — I still barely negotiated my first salary. I still regret not pushing harder for, if not a higher take-home pay, at least a larger signing bonus or some kind of per-diem for my extended work overseas. After working at my previous Company X for a year or two, it was painfully obvious that I was a high performer whose work led to tangible profit and results for my company. I tried a few times, mostly unsuccessfully, to lobby for a raise. Each time I would be so worried about how to negotiate, what to say, that by the time I got in there I had mostly already defeated myself and was willing to accept any peanuts they threw in my direction to make myself feel better for my efforts. Oh, and the peanuts they did throw ;).

The NYtimes article recommends talking to male colleagues about their salaries to get a fuller picture of the salary landscape before starting negotiations. Definitely, definitely, a great idea. I would also recommend talking to male colleagues as a reality check for how much arrogance and self-importance you can bring to the table! My friend’s tip on how to negotiate – “don’t phrase it as a negotiation… its already been decided in your mind, and you’re right, and they just need to agree.” Another colleague frequently threatened to quit or transfer divisions if he didn’t get the assignments he wanted — and it worked, because his threats actually had teeth in the form of offers from other companies and internal departments. I should have done the same, so long ago, but never felt like it was worth my time to apply for a job I didn’t want just for the chance to lord it over my current employers. It still seems ridiculous, but these kinds of games do get results… and if you want results, you have to play the game.

One more related article in the Wall Street Journal this week asks “Why Are Women-Owned Firms Smaller than Men-Owned Ones?” Some interesting parallels to the wage gap/negotiation discussion, as many women may not set goals high enough for what they can achieve and may not have access to networks that would explain what they should be shooting for.  Overall though, these all seem like symptoms of the underlying problems and inequities that still exist in the professional world — and they’re also opportunities for us to start making change.

[WuTang Clan - "C.R.E.A.M." Video - cash, rules, everything, around, me (and us)]
[CNN/CareerBuilder.com - 25 Best Paying Jobs for Women]
[New York Times - A Toolkit for Women Seeking a Raise]
[Wall Street Journal - Why Are Women-Owned Firms Smaller than Men-Owned Ones?]

Alright alright — what’s with car companies and these periodic releases of cars that emphasize “woman-friendly” features?

The 2010 Chevy Equinox is one of these – as a brief article in Time explains, the Equinox has features that were designed with women in mind but are relatively subtle – many consumers may not even notice. The notable “woman-friendly” features include:

1. a different tilt to the accelerator pedal that makes driving in high heels safer and more comfortable
2. carved-out door panels, to help keep rings from getting whacked when window switches are used
3. center console spacious enough to stow a handbag

I think the change to the accelerator pedal tilt makes tons of sense and would genuinely help the transmit the force from the leg to the pedal without placing too much pressure on the fulcrum of the heel or ankle.

However, as reporter Alyssa Fetini points out in this video, they didn’t bother to change the brake pedal to match! I think its a legal/safety requirement that the brake pedal be closer to the driver than the accelerator, so perhaps there’s less flexibility in tilt angle for the brake pedal. But doesn’t it seem like the designers just went halfway in integrating this female-friendly feature?

As for the other Chevy improvements — I don’t wear rings and have no idea what they mean by a carved-out door panel. But its funny how all the press materials are careful to specify that the doors are carved out to keep diamond rings from rubbing. As we’re in the US and American cars have the steering wheel/driver’s seat on the left, it’s the left hand and the diamond ring on the left hand that is the concern being addressed by this “feature.” Sounds like a marketing spin as they realize their target customers are the soccer moms/yoga moms with the fatty rocks on their left ring fingers…

And finally – a big center console?! Awesome, sign me up! But I think everyone would find that useful for storage, not just women for their handbags. You could easily spin that feature for men as well – “lots of room to stow your man tools, readily accessible from the comfort of your driving seat.”

But the bigger question is — if you make a big deal about the three new special design features included in your product for women, what does it say about the rest of your products? That they were designed with only men in mind? And really, thinking about women and what they would want in a vehicle led to only these three features? Seems lame to me.

For a blast from the past, I’ll remind you of Volvo’s “Your Concept Car” (YCC) introduced in 2004. It made headlines for not only the “woman-friendly features” (they had at least 8, beating the 2010 Chevy Equinox by a longshot) but because it was designed by a team composed of predominately women. Never intended to be a true production model, the YCC was meant to be a symbol of Volvo’s forward thinking and efforts to include women from soup to nuts throughout the design process. Here’s a short list of their “woman-friendly” features:

1. Spacious Center Console to store everything – note they moved the gearshift and parking brake to maximize the center space.
2. Gull-Wing Doors (like the Delorian in Back to the Future) to make it easy to get in and out, also improves visibility over driver’s left shoulder
3. Exchangable and customizable interior colors/fabrics to “match every outfit”…
4. Sealed front hood – capless ball-valve filling points for windshield washer fluid and gas are the only 2 orifices the customers are intended to interact with and service
5. Car Care button that keeps track and automatically notifies service centers when car services are needed (i guess this was a big deal in 2004)
6. Easy Clean Paint Finish so the car stays “clean”
7. Parking Assistance – computer helps steer and check to make sure you have space while parallel parking (this was a big deal in 2004 but has become increasingly common since)
8. Ponytail Space – the headrests have a split in the middle to accomodate drivers with ponytails
9. Adjustable Heel Support for Accelerator pedal – wonder if they patented it as Chevy’s design is quite different.

Not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, as the Chevy Equinox actually is mass produced, marketed, and solid to the general public whereas the Volvo YCC was meant to be just a concept.. “your concept.” The best and most popular ideas from the YCC were supposed to be integrated into the next rounds of Volvos — but I’m not if any ever made it. Or, if they did, they were not heralded as “woman-friendly.” And while the Volvo YCC female design team came up with many features meant to appeal to the needs of real women, the car still seems a bit… ridiculous?  Are the most important things to me, as a female driver, really the easy clean paint finish and space for my ponytail?

Looking, as always, to the wisdom of Jezebel commenters to provide some perspective on what features women really want in cars:
“How about a retractable vibrator attached to the steering column for those times when you’re stuck in traffic and bored to death?”
or “At least it’s not a Dodge LaFemme. We’ve come that far.”

Indeed, we have :)

[Built for Blahniks: A Chevy for the High-Heels Crowd - Time]
[A Gas Pedal Built for Stilettos - Time video]
[Your Concept Car - Volvo press release]
[Gizmag Review - Volvo Concept Car designed by women for women]
[HowStuffWorks - How the Volvo Your Concept Car Works]
[Chevy Builds Car for Carrie & Co - Jezebel]

Happy Take Your Kid to Work Day! If I was at an engineering workplace today I would try to show kids the beauty and excitement inherent in engineering design: keep them out of the meetings, the arguments, the useless beating of dead horses… instead be proud and demonstrate the artifacts and tools that are part of the fun of being an engineer, show off the brainstorming and grandiose blue-sky ideas that can solve real-world problems, and introduce the kids to the engineers who are more than blue shirt and khaki uniformed Dilberts with pocket protectors and thick glasses.

Sorry things have been a bit quiet on the blog front lately. Many recent changes/excuses (for me, deciding on grad school/future life path, re-arranging all furniture and lifestyle to start a yoga studio out of my home, basketball playoffs, general spring distractions) but don’t worry, we’re still here, and still writing.

So much interesting news and data to ponder recently – some links for you:

1) Laura Fizpatrick’s article for Time Magazine, published Tuesday, April 20th – Equal Pay Day. Many of the articles written to describe the pay gap take a broad view – comparing all of womens salaries to all of men’s, with just a few adjusted statistics for unionized workers or certain specific industries. I would love SWE or some other organization (nonprofit research groups like Catalyst?) to do a specifically detailed investigation into the pay gap in engineering. Though statisticians may be uneasy as there’s never enough data points on the female end to balance the male numbers, wouldn’t it be great to know?

A similar article by the Numbers Guy in the Wall Street Journal includes a chart that has a category for “programmers”:

They’re at the top of the list! Female programmers make 92.7% of what men in a comparable position earn. Better, but still plenty of ground to make up. Do you think other types of engineers (civil, aerospace, mechanical, electrical, chemical, materials, petroleum, etc. etc..) would be same, above, or below?  I’ll start trolling around for the data..

2) Four Women in Space Sets Record on April 5, 2010 – Sweet milestone, but as this blog post at G is 4 Girl points out, maybe someday this won’t actually be such monumental news…

3) Smile, Boys! It Would Make the World So Much Prettier For Us Women! – Have you ever been told to smile at work by a male colleague? It has happened to me, too many times, and I would imagine many other young women engineers share this experience as many older colleagues, especially, don’t seem to understand how ridiculously inappropriate and annoying it is to be told to smile all the time. Thus Spake Zuska has a great dissection and explanation of this phenomenon at the link.

4) Upcoming Science and Math Activities in the Age of Obama – every day, I seem to hear about more and more celebrations for young people about science, math, and sometimes engineering.

Science Club For Girls has a big listing of Science & Math Activities mostly in Massachusetts and the Boston Area for the rest of April and May.

National Lab Day – the first ever will be celebrated on May 12, 2010. The website has a searchable database of projects around the US with the intention of matching students and teachers needing resources for their proposed projects with professional scientists and engineers. Check out what’s happening in your area!

USA Science & Engineering Festival – another first ever event sponsored by the Obama administration – October 10 to 24, 2010, the USA’s first national science festival! The focus is in the DC area but it looks like satellite celebrations are slowly springing up across the nation and beyond. Check out the contests for K-12 students as well as anyone — for instance, you could write a jingle for the USA Science and Engineering festival and win $500! Entry deadline is April 30th ;)

The Leatherman Wave:

“Perfect for any job, adventure, or everyday task, the Wave multi-tool is an international best-seller,” their website copy reads. Indeed, I know engineers around the world who strap a Leatherman onto their belts every day and whip it out with no hesitation at robotics competitions, on the factory floor, in business meetings and design reviews, and even just to play with idly while bored. I’ve known some young men and women who use it as a badge of honor, a signifier of membership in the clan of engineers who need tools available at ALL TIMES, because honestly, who knows when you’ll need to strip wire, fix some eyeglasses, or diffuse a bomb to prevent a bus from blowing up if it goes less than 50 MPH (that’s right, Keanu used one in Speed – inspiring generations of would-be action heroes to spring for their own multi-tools, just in case?).

Engineering companies also frequently give away Leathermen as signs of appreciation and useful gifts – I got one, in fact, as part of celebration for hitting a project milestone and a special message from management saying “here’s another tool because you still have a long way to go.” At that time, I had been joking with my coworkers about how I needed a Leatherwoman instead of a Leatherman. Of course, if you google “leatherwoman” the hits are not for metal multi-tools…

Contrast this with the Tweezerman:

“Eyebrow experts have been going wild for our original, award winning Slant® for over 25 years.  The perfectly aligned, hand-filed tips are slanted to grab every hair, every time with the smoothest, true precision.” Again, the website copy speaks glowingly of this tool’s unique capabilities and ultimate purpose in self-grooming. But I want to know – why did they call it the Tweezerman?

I admit, it’s a cute name that connotes images of a overall-clad helper here to save me from fuzzy and undefined brows (oh god!). Yet, its also a reminder of how I don’t default to an image of a woman in conjunction with functional tools, even when they are beauty-related products intended primarily for females. As one reviewer put it, “If only it was more accurately called Tweezerwoman: How many men pay 20 bucks to pull strands of hair out of their face one-by-one?” But would calling it the Tweezerwoman be appropriate? It sounds almost as awkward as Leatherwoman, but in addition it’s a reminder that I can (and have) pay someone, typically female, to wax/tweeze/groom my brows. Those are the real Tweezerwomen? Or I can purchase a Tweezerman and do it myself?

This connection between “man” and “tool” is deeply rooted (remember the days of Home Improvement and Tim Thomas’s grunting?)- so much so that even beauty “tools” including zebra-striped tweezers for women are constructed with a male identity. What would be an appropriate tool to reflect a feminine identity? Can you think of one? Why is it such a stretch?

In industrial engineering/product design, curves are often used and emphasized to bring out the more “feminine” nature of a given product or part — this is extreme and simplistic, but the curviest tools present in the local hardware store are either the french curve or the flexible curve:

Indeed, they are curvy and more feminine than say, a screwdriver, but if you picked one up would you think/say “I’m gonna use this girl to help me draw this curve” vs. “I’m gonna use this guy to define this edge”, etc.? Just a little thought experiment to evaluate your internal resistance/acceptance of how these tools can be gendered as well. Shows me the extent to which I think of tools as being male. Anyone care to comment on romance languages (spanish/french/etc.) and if the gender of tools in those languages is masculine or feminine?

And, not to get graphic here, but its worth mentioning in the spirit of electrical and cable connections with male/female ends that in engineering, female is associated with anything that has a hole, whereas male is attributed to anything with a protruding end. So, maybe the most feminine tool is actually the wire stripper:

“I’m just gonna use this here tool, this gal here with all the holes, to take the plastic jackets off of those wires.”

Ehhh?  Ok, I’ll stop now. :)

[Leatherman Wave product description]
[Animal Print Tweezerman Product description]
[Review in Jacksonville Skirt of the Tweezerman]
[French Curve Set - Graphics Direct]
[Utrecht Art - Flexible Curve]
[Crazy PC - Wire Strippers, Computer Accessories]