I came across this ignite talk on “How to Get More Women in Tech in Under a Minute“ by Caroline Drucker. As I watched this, I literally cheered out loud. I completely agree with her message and I love her use of humor to get her point across.
As a woman in engineering, I run into this wording of girl vs. woman issue over and over again. Since college (when I started paying my own taxes, actually), I identified as a woman rather than a girl, particularly in a professional setting. When I worked in industry, I remember confronting my manager through an awkward conversation about how I preferred not to be called a girl, which he had done a number of times without a second thought. Apparently, in his mind we were all boys and girls, which baffled me. Did he really think of himself as a boy rather than a man? I had my doubts. Regardless, after that, he was a little more conscious about using the word girl in reference to me (and hopefully other woman engineers). Honestly, I think I was the first woman engineer he had ever actually worked with or managed.
As much as it annoys me to deal with gender issues, when I really just want to do engineering work, I think it’s important to set things straight even if it is incredibly difficult and awkward to initiate those conversations. That’s why I like this video. It’s a way of bringing up a serious topic with a thread of humor without directly attacking anyone. Even if not everyone agrees with the message, at least it starts the conversation about gender issues and language usage in engineering/tech.
This menstruating taxpayer fully supports this approach to more women in tech, confronting sexism, and inverting the power structure!
It’s the end of summer, which means back to school! If you’re a senior in high school, senior in college, switching grad schools, or thinking about going back to school, it’s time to apply to colleges and grad programs. As mentioned in a previous post, the gender balance of a program is an important factor on the overall experience for both men and women, and should be considered when picking programs.
Engineering programs face a particular challenge in this area, but some programs are definitely more balanced than others. The representation of women in engineering programs has been slowly increasing over the years. No, seriously, REALLY slowly. Check out the NSF Women participation in CS and Engineering data from the last 20 years:
In 2008, the national average for women’s enrollment in engineering programs was 18.5% for undergraduate and 21.6% Masters/23% PhD for graduate students. I’m guessing it has not change significantly over the last 3 years. With these numbers in mind, let’s see how the top engineering universities and smaller undergrad-focused schools measure up. The percentages listed below are the most up-to-date numbers that I could fine online. Note that colleges vary in exactly what major they include within Engineering, so check out the sources if you want more info on a particular school.
Percentage Women in the Engineering College of Universities
MIT: 40.6% undergrad/16.8% grad (source)
Caltech: 37% undergrad/23% grad (source)
Cornell: 30.2% undergrad, 25.4% grad (source)
Stanford: 29.9% undergrad/23.2% grad (source)
UC Berkeley: 23% (source)
Georgia Tech: 23% (source)
University of Michigan: 22% undergrad/20.5% grad (source)
Purdue: 19.8% undergrad, 20% grad (source)
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: 17-20% (source)
Percentage Women in Small Undergraduate-focused Colleges
Olin College of Engineering: 44% (source)
Harvey Mudd: 35% (source)
Cooper Union: 35% (source)
Rose-Hulman: 20% (source)
All Women’s Colleges with Specialized Engineering Programs
Smith College: 100% women! (link)
I also wanted to include Smith College, which as far as I know is the only all-women, 4-year US institution with a specialized engineering program (specific engineering majors, not just a single general engineering degree). So, if you’re looking at colleges for undergraduate or graduate engineering programs, at least check out the gender ratio in the programs you are considering. Faculty gender ratio is another important number to look at. A clear presence of women makes a world of difference in the academic and social environment of the college. It can also say a lot about the administration’s attitude towards the value of more women in the field. It’s the next 4 years of your life (or more for grad school), so choose wisely.
I came across an article in IEEE Spectrum about how Germany Faces a Shortage of Engineers. In the article they clearly state the societal need for more engineers:
a steadily rising demand for developing sustainable mobility and energy solutions are also contributing to [the shortage of engineers].
The article later states that they are failing to get more women to be engineers, which would help solve the problem:
“Many girls are more interested in helping people and society and don’t see this possibility in engineering,” Schanz says. “It will remain very hard to attract women to engineering—much harder than reducing the dropout rate.”
There is a clear need to solve the world’s energy problems through engineering–exactly the motivation a lot of women look for when choosing a career. Yet the perspective is that it will still be hard to attract women to engineering? When I read this article, it was glaringly obvious that we should be using the global energy needs to entice more women to become engineers!
Why is there such a disconnect between engineering and helping society? In my mind, engineering is directly related to improving society and helping people, and it can affect society on a greater level than other professions that help one person at a time. Maybe it’s because engineering is so often thought of and advertised as building “cool” things, like bikes and cars. The “cool” factor is not enough to motivate people interested in “helping the world.”
There are numerous studies that show a key factor for women in choosing their career path, even from a young age, is the ability to help people and society through their work. In my personal experience and in working with math-and-sciencey girls, understanding that engineering is intricately linked to helping society is crucial in deciding to become an engineer. I distinctly remember, in my second year of college when we were declaring majors, reasoning with myself how electrical engineering would help me “make a difference.” Even then, I didn’t have a full picture of what I could achieve through engineering, but I convinced myself enough to stick with it, and I’m glad I did.
To really start to attracting women to engineering, the image needs to change from “building cool stuff” to “solving the world’s problems.” Because if we’re actually going to solve the world’s problems, we definitely need more engineers…
We’ve had a dormant stretch on Steel Toed Stilettos, but we’re trying to bring it back and keep things going. I’ve been doing a lot of reading for a project that focuses on women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and combines some psychology, gender, and education studies. I hope to bring findings from that and some other ideas to the blog, so stay tuned for more exciting posts!
If you have any thoughts on things you’d like to see or ideas you have about posts, leave us a comment! We’re also open to guest posts to add more voices as women engineers (or scientists/techies). So, let us know if you’re interested.
The IEEE “The Institute” article Four New Female Fellows Make Their Mark on Robotics came out recently stating that this year was the highest number of women elevated to “Fellow” status in one year. If you’re not familiar with the IEEE Fellow program, it basically a process where senior members of the IEEE society are nominated, evaluated on their contributions, and voted on by the IEEE board of directors. It’s a pretty big deal from what I can tell (I’m currently only a student member).
The article features four really amazing women, all professors actually, doing work in robotics. Most, it seems, are mid-career and well-established. For one, it’s great to see women engineers being recognized and featured for their work. It’s good to know there are successful women paving the way.
Upon a closer look at the numbers, I was a little disappointed. Only 29 of 321 Fellows this year were women. That’s only 9%, and it’s the highest number of women thus far. This begs the question: “Why so low? Where are the women engineers?” This is a common theme on this blog, but at the same time I am baffled by why progress is so slow. It’s 2011, not the 1950s. Women are significantly more prominent in medicine, law, and business; why not engineering? I have many thoughts on this, but I’ll save that for future posts. My hope is that every year will be a record high number of women IEEE Fellows, and, someday, to add my name to that list. Got to represent! :P
I really enjoyed this TED talk by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO. I think it’s a great message for any woman in a male-dominated environment whether it be high-power business, entrepreneurship, or engineering.
I really like the “sit at the table” message. It’s such a simple action, but has a lot of power and confidence behind it. I remember walking into meeting rooms where there were many open seats at the meeting table and choosing to sit on the side, which really puts you on the sidelines of the conversation and discussion. Once I realized this, I started always sitting at the table or pulling my chair up to the table. You are at the meeting because your opinion, perspective, and ideas are valuable. Make sure everyone knows it.
In graduate school at my large research-oriented institution, I’ve noticed that a lot of people I have met (both men and women) do not acknowledge that women (or minorities and international students) have a different experience in engineering education or industry than the dominant demographic, usually white males. I would like to believe that there are no differences based on gender, but it is difficult when I am constantly reminded that I am an oddity in engineering. When I meet people and the first thing they say when they learn I am an electrical engineer is “Why did *you* decide to do engineering?” or “Do you *like* electrical engineering?” Because, clearly, this women in engineering anomaly must be explained! But I digress…
What I really want to do is show and explain the kind of different experiences that many women have in engineering in a positive and informative way rather than in a way that might make people feel attacked. So, I thought, what about web comics?
PhD Comics by Jorge Cham are great and I love his strong woman engineering grad student character, Cecilia.
You are the one of the only (or few) women in the class and if you do poorly or say something wrong it will be more than just you being judged; it will be all of WOMAN KIND! No pressure.
It’s a minor thing, but anything having to do with clothing sizing (t-shirts, lab coats, etc) always defaults to larger men’s sizes, so petite women just look ridiculous. Don’t forget, engineers come is small sizes too!
I recently discovered Wasted Talent by Angela Melick, who drew comics about her engineering undergrad experience. One thing I like about her comics is that they are a lot of the stereotypical engineering scenarios but with a nerdy, anime-loving, game-playing, imaginative female spin on it.
You’re the only woman in a study session or group project, and inevitably the penis joke or innuendo happens. Do I laugh, smile, chime in, look unhappy, or have no reaction? It’s already awkward regardless of how you react.
Support networks of other women in engineering are essential for knowing that you’re not going it alone as the only woman in a mostly-male discipline. And, they help you realize that it’s ok to be feminine and girly; you’re still a fierce engineer!
These are just a few comics that caught my eye, but I’m sure there are tons, so feel free to add others in the comments!
When I started working in industry as an engineer, I had a number of “Did that really just happen?” moments. Like you were thrown into an alternate dimension because things like that just shouldn’t happen in the real world of supposedly intelligent and reasonable people. Unfortunately, ridiculous, awkward, or infuriating things do happen. This was one of those moments.
Our company had a “professional development “course that all employees were required to attend. Pretty much everyone, including me, groaned at the thought of sitting in a room being talked at about something that only vaguely related to our jobs. However, I was reassured by higher-ups that the speaker was “highly recommended” and it wouldn’t just be any other boring training. I took this as a good sign and tried to be optimistic about the training.
The class I was in happened to be mostly engineers, and since I was one of the few female engineers, it was mostly guys. The one other female was our finance person and was only there for the morning session. The “highly recommended” speaker was a gangly middle-aged white guy and, initially, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Once the session got started, it was clear that this guy was energetic, loud, and obnoxious, in the rude and insulting kind of way.
Throughout the day, he kept making references to god and jesus, which I found completely inappropriate in a work setting, me being non-religious and all. He pushed his own strong opinions at every possible chance during his lectures, often going off on tangents about them. Every positive example he gave from his “many years of experience” were about men, but interesting how many of his negative examples of “people doing things wrong” were about women. I doubt this was purposeful, but it seemed like it was subconscious thing, not simply to be glossed over.
Even with all these signs of “this guy is a total douchebag” the “highly recommended” tag stuck with me and I kept giving him the benefit of the doubt. All these things he did and said just rubbed me the wrong way, but I kept thinking that it must just be me overreacting and that I would see why this guy is so great if I just kept listening. I kept trying to be attentive and find this great speaker quality, but to no avail.
Then, this happened: It was toward the end of the class and we were talking about reliability and the acceptable margin for error. Note that I was the youngest (at 23), newest (having only worked there about 6 months), and only woman in the room (the other woman had left after lunch). Since I started working I had been trying to do good work and make a positive impression as an engineer. I really wanted my colleagues to see me as a talented and hardworking engineer who happens to be female; I wanted to be known for my good work rather than just my gender. This “highly recommended” instructor decides he wants to use an example of how with some things any error is pretty much unacceptable, like, say in childbirth. He looks straight at me, makes a motion with his hands like he’s taking a metaphorical baby out of my metaphorical womb in front of the entire class of mostly older male engineers and says “Maelin, it’s a boy” and then pretends to drop it and says “Oops.”
Oh My Fucking God. Did that really just happen?! I was so shocked and embarrassed that I didn’t know what to do. I just kind of sat there and turned red, while people laughed uncomfortably. What in the world was this guy thinking? I’m young, unmarried, have no thought of children, trying hard not to call attention to my gender and this douchebag singles me out, creates this image of me giving birth in front of all my colleagues, and embarrasses me because I have a fucking uterus?! …Really?!
Thinking back, I should have flipped the table I was at, gotten in his face, told him off and left the room. Really, I should have. But I didn’t. I just sat there burning, angry, and confused, trying to figure out what just happened and what I should do. At the end of the class there was a feedback form and I probably could have told him face-to-face that I didn’t appreciate being used as an example like that because of my gender. But, I didn’t go off on the feedback from about what a douchebag this guy was and I didn’t talk to him after either. I was just too embarrassed and I even felt ashamed even though I didn’t do anything wrong. I wanted to pretend that whole thing didn’t even happen.
In my nativity, I wanted so much to believe in the good recommendation that I kept brushing off the clear signs that the instructor was actually not good (and in fact, terrible). It was easier to just tell myself that I was somehow wrong rather than believe that everyone else was wrong. But, when you’re coming from a different perspective, you will see things differently, and that’s ok. It’s tough being the minority opinion and even more difficult to speak up, but you shouldn’t try to hide it. A lot of times your gut feeling is right and if something keeps bugging you, it’s probably not you. Stick to your guns.
Addressing these kinds of problems is the harder part. What I should have done in this situation is in between all-out yelling at the guy on the spot and doing absolutely nothing. Confronting him in person probably would have been best, or writing candid, detailed feedback would have been maybe less effective but still good. A lot of times, it is best to call people out on something right after they do it, rather than waiting and bringing it up later. But it is also good to be calm and not angry when confronting people, so it is a bit of a balance. Confronting people about gender-related issues at work or school has been one of the hardest things for me to do and this is a skill that I’m still working on. But, I’ll be in engineering for a while (i.e. the rest of my life), so unless the gender ratio in engineering suddenly flips, I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it in time.
I was helping out at an engineering expo where elementary to high school students and community members are invited to see engineering demos and experiments put on by college students. I was running a demo that used a stationary bike to power different kinds of lights to show how much power each light technology uses. All ages of kids and adults came through the exhibit and most of them were eager to get on the bike and power the lights.
I don’t usually interact with kids, so it was interesting to see how some were a little too eager to get on the bike and would fight with their friends to get on, while others asked politely if they could try it and took turns with their friends. One girl, who was probably late elementary school, was with her family and looked pretty interested in the demo. I asked her if she wanted to ride the bike and power the demo. Her face initially lit up, but then a wave of shyness came over her and she stepped back and said “no, that’s ok.”
I realized, suddenly, that this used to be me! I remember really wanting to do something, but letting shyness and a “I’m not sure if I am supposed to be doing this” feeling hold me back. This especially happened with things that my older brother would do, like playing video games or card games that seemed to be “for boys, not girls.” I didn’t want this little girl to think that science and engineering “wasn’t for girls.”
It may seem like a little thing. “So what if she doesn’t ride the stupid bike?” But, it’s this kind of subtle encouragement or discouragement that can make a difference. The moments where you are deciding between “go for it” and “just stay in your comfort zone” can be important moments in life; like asking that person you like out on a date, initiating that crucial conversation that you’ve been avoiding, or simply raising your hand to ask that question that the rest of the class is too afraid to ask. Maybe it’s just me, but I think everyone, especially engineers, should be able to take a little risk. Holding back for no good reason just seems like you are missing opportunities, but I know it took me a long time to get over my shyness and apprehension.
After recognizing what this girl was feeling, I was determined to get her to ride the bike for the demo. Fortunately, her father was also encouraging her to give it a try. I didn’t exactly know what to say to persuade her, so I just kept saying, “try it! It will be fun!” With enough pressure a.k.a. “strong encouragement” from the two of us, she got up on the bike. She had a big smile on her face as she pedaled and I turned on the different lights. I asked her if she could feel how the lights that took more power make it harder to pedal and she nodded happily. After she got off the bike, she even thanked me (with prompting from her father), but I could tell she was glad she did it.
The dreamer in me hopes that this experience has planted a seed in her brain with a message that “engineering is cool! And, I bet I can do it too.” The subtle messages and encouragement are just as important as the overt ones. Supportive parents and mentors are pretty important too. I’m no expert on child development, but I think we should encourage kids to not be afraid of trying something a little out of their comfort zones. This is probably something even us non-kids should try to do more often too.
(Clarification: I definitely only mean encouraging positive, responsible things. Remember kids, engineering is good! Drugs are bad…)
I read this New York Times article recently on how there are still very few women in high tech entrepreneurship realm in Silicon Valley. The outright sexism described in the first part was frustrating, but not surprising. Both outright and subtle forms of sexism clearly do still happen in many workplaces and, generally, I find it very discouraging. However, reading this article, I felt oddly motivated and even inspired to start some sort of tech venture. This is even more weird for me because I have never really liked business. So, why the change?
I think it’s pretty apparent that I am a big promoter of increasing representation of women in engineering. One reason that women are often turned off by engineering is because engineering is perceived as being focused only on things and not on working with or helping people. Contrary to this perception, I see engineering as being one of the most important things to helping people improve their lives. Good engineering should look beyond just the technology and see how people interact with it and how it affects their lives. The understanding that engineering is a way to create positive change is clouded by misconceptions of the field.
It seems entrepreneurship faces a similar problem. My perception of business and entrepreneurship had always been that it was for self-important people that wanted to push their ideas and make it rich at any cost. I didn’t really see myself going in that direction because “making it big” wasn’t really a driving force for me. But, now that I’ve gotten to know the full breath of what entrepreneurship can mean, I realize that it can serve as the medium that brings new ideas and engineering advancements directly to people that want and need them. It can play in very well with the “do something to help people” factor that I think is important to many women.
Both engineering and entrepreneurship are disciplines that require idea generation and problem solving. Diversity (in all the dimensions you can think of) is a benefit for coming up with better ideas and solutions. So, it’s more than just unfortunate that there aren’t more women in these fields; there is a missing critical perspective. So, now, I’ll be a big promoter of increasing the number of women in engineering and entrepreneurship through fighting misconceptions of both fields. Guess I’ll start here: Make a difference! Change the world! Become an engineer and/or an entrepreneur!
