The Student Room Group

Five Reasons Why Women Are Under Represented In Engineering

Our Vice-Chancellor wrote an article for the guardian on why women are under represented in science and engineering. What do you all think, do you agree and feel put off taking a course in engineering for these reasons? or are you a female engineer and think it's all a load of hogwash?

http://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/women-leadership-blog/2014/oct/20/women-science-engineering-under-representation

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Reply 1
I agree with 1. confidence and 3. Visibility. I think girls are very conscious about how other people will judge them.

I recently tried to persuade my niece to take Computer Science as an option at school, instead of French, which she hates. She has to take one or the other, and she is good at Maths, Physics and Chemistry, but it never occurred to her to take Computer Science. She was quite taken aback by my suggestion. Probably because she would be the only girl in the class (or if she knows any girls who take it they are "weird", i.e. not fashion conscious), and she doesn't want to be seen as a weirdo or a geek. Then I asked her if she would like to play with an Arduino Kit (because it's awesome, right?), and at that point she just went :facepalm2: on me. Of course it doesn't help that I am "weird" too.

I can get quite exasperated at the way some children limit themselves to fit in / look cool, but what can you do? As teenagers they will always place more importance on what their mates think than on what some adult thinks they might find fun or interesting.
Original post by llys
I agree with 1. confidence and 3. Visibility. I think girls are very conscious about how other people will judge them.


I absolutely agree.

But then the way the media try to portray it to become more "normal" is to depict a "blonde" wearing a white jacket and glasses surrounded by petri dishes or machinery. They do it all the time and again I don't think this helps at all. It then becomes a debate about "beauty and brains".... which ultimately could knock the confidence of young women further.

Words are powerful, and feeling excluded by language can have a lasting cultural impact. We hear it every day in generalised speech without questioning it: scientists are “he”, engineers are unwaveringly men. For example, students hear careers advisers or teachers talking about he the welder and she the hairdresser all the time. With our unconscious bias towards male and female jobs, we make women in science and engineering invisible.


I don't feel as though science is taught at school with a suggestion that you may then study it to nurture your career in later life.

I was pretty awful at science, so for me it was never an option. My sister was excellent, excelling at triple science and maths because for a long time she wanted to be a physio; which she now is. It feels to me that girls feel more comfortable with biology because again it opens doors to reinforce traditional gender based roles i.e. nursing, midwifery and other healthcare based careers. My sister was just as good at chemistry and maths but no one ever planted the seed that she could use these skills to consider applying into engineering.


I can get quite exasperated at the way some children limit themselves to fit in / look cool, but what can you do? As teenagers they will always place more importance on what their mates think than on what some adult thinks they might find fun or interesting.


I think to an extent this will always be a problem - but ultimately there needs to be more "options" advice for young people. Students should have career advice more widely available to them in Yr9 when they're considering their GCSEs - our education system needs to focus more on mentoring, not just "exam passing". I don't think there is enough open discussion about this kind of thing at all.
Reply 3
Original post by She-Ra
I think to an extent this will always be a problem - but ultimately there needs to be more "options" advice for young people. Students should have career advice more widely available to them in Yr9 when they're considering their GCSEs - our education system needs to focus more on mentoring, not just "exam passing". I don't think there is enough open discussion about this kind of thing at all.


Yes, I agree. I do not know how the school was trying to sell the Computer Science option to pupils. I think if (for example) they had had a few compulsory programming taster sessions the previous year (compulsory for everyone), my niece would have realised how much fun programming is (I do think she would be very good at it). The same is probably true for Engineering. If you have no idea what a subject is about, decisions are much more driven by image (or perceived image).
It's interesting how you have both highlighted that there is not enough coverage of the prospects of things like engineering to GCSE students, i know we have ran events to target young minds particularly those interested in science and engineering, it looks like these are valuable for widening participation.
there's a lot of societal and social pressure - especially in the pressure cooker of secondary school.

as a Man who working in healthcare and also having a background in engineering and logistics , i've seen all kinds of aspects to this.
Original post by llys
Yes, I agree. I do not know how the school was trying to sell the Computer Science option to pupils. I think if (for example) they had had a few compulsory programming taster sessions the previous year (compulsory for everyone), my niece would have realised how much fun programming is (I do think she would be very good at it). The same is probably true for Engineering. If you have no idea what a subject is about, decisions are much more driven by image (or perceived image).


I think taster sessions would be fantastic - challenging those perceptions.... as you "decisions are driven by image". I think that's very much the case. If student's don't know what's available to them longer term in regards to subject options and careers they won't proactively go out and find them.

Original post by Aston University
It's interesting how you have both highlighted that there is not enough coverage of the prospects of things like engineering to GCSE students, i know we have ran events to target young minds particularly those interested in science and engineering, it looks like these are valuable for widening participation.


Absolutely - what kinds of things do you guys do? Is it a case of running outreach programmes; what kinds of information do you share with them?

Although I think this is a great idea I always wonder what happens afterwards i.e. do schools/ colleges continue to promote this focus/ opportunity. Do the parents know these conversations are happening?

Original post by zippyRN
there's a lot of societal and social pressure - especially in the pressure cooker of secondary school.

as a Man who working in healthcare and also having a background in engineering and logistics , i've seen all kinds of aspects to this.


That's really interesting. Do you have any ideas of how this can be addressed? As a man who has worked in engineering (?) have you had many female colleagues? If no, why do you think this is? What steps do you think should be taken to make a change?
I think it would have better from a scientific perspective for your vice-chancellor to add a line somewhere saying that the social factors she outlined are the not the only reasons for the gender imbalance. Otherwise, it risks coming across as saying that in the absence of social pressures, men and women would be exactly equally represented in Engineering (and presumably by extension all degrees); and this statement has absolutely no evidence to support it at all.

Her hypotheses also totally fail to explain how women have gone in the last 50 years from approximately 0% representation in subjects like Medicine and Law to better than parity (subjects which arguably require more 'confidence' than Engineering; which were considered entirely men's work 50 years ago, with no female visibility or conditioning at all, etc), whereas the ratio for Engineering and other highly numerate degrees has stagnated between between 20-35% depending on discipline, and despite numerous initiatives for the latter with nary a workshop for the former.

For me, this article reads like Professor King has left any kind of scientific neutrality at the door for the sake of a politically correct feel good newspaper article. And indeed, in the opinion of my female engineer friends, this article is 'hogwash'.
(edited 9 years ago)
with regard to Medicine comparisons - there are still ghettos of 'boys only' specialities in Medicine ( Surgery in general and Ortho in particular, ) and increasing female representation in some specialities is relatively recent.

With regard to other Health professions - theambulance service was very much a male dominated organisation until relatively recently - based ona perception about moving and handling mainly.

there are areas of practice in Nursing and Physio where there are greater than ratio representation from men ( sports physios, ED and critical care Nursing)


the British populace doesn;t understand what engineering is, not helped by the lack of professional enclosure of the title - If the only people with ' Engineer ' in their job titles were IEng and CEng ( or Diplomates / Graduates on track to one or other of the professional registrations) it might help

call a fitter a fitter, call a spark a spark, call a craftie a craftie, call a repairman a repairman ... these people are not Engineers , ENgineering rather than craft skills only really starts to come into play with a proper Technician role .
Original post by zippyRN


call a fitter a fitter, call a spark a spark, call a craftie a craftie, call a repairman a repairman ... these people are not Engineers , ENgineering rather than craft skills only really starts to come into play with a proper Technician role .

It might be more helpful if we attach monkey to the end so people remember ala greasemonkey for car mechanic. So an electrician is a 'sparkmonkey', a plumber is a 'pipemonkey', a builder is a 'brickmonkey' or 'brickie' and so forth.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by arson_fire
Why would a woman want to enter a career that has no formal industry wide path to professional recognition (unlike law or medicine), has low social status (wow you`re a mechanical engineer - do you fix cars?), and a reputation for **** pay?


Women are basically too smart to go into engineering.
A point I'd like to raise, based on my experience of engineering, is that even within engineering, females tend to gravitate into certain areas... or, basically, away from anything that is big and clunky. At the companies I've been at, there has been a much higher proportion of females in areas like materials, process, etc. as opposed to, say, mechanical.

I also think it can be quite daunting for a girl to go into engineering, especially if she wasn't the type that played with Lego or Meccano. Not because she'll face sexual discrimination, but because she'll likely be amongst people who did play with Lego and Mecanno from a young age, who have essentially been doing engineering from a young age, and they'll be talking a practically different language.
The confidence thing applies to me and I'm a man. Yes I've done a physics degree but the practical aspect always intimidated me. I did play with lego and mechano a bit when I was little but I've never been that great at practical stuff. I've always wanted to do lab work but have always found it daunting. My final year project almost gave me a nervous brake down :erm:

Also this bit where it talks about language applies to me "Women tend to use more cautious, less aggressive language, and often apologise for what they are about to say, eg “This isn’t quite my subject area, but perhaps you might consider …” I don't know how I would ever survive in a competitive environment.

I'm not equating the above as being like this but in some industries it is said women don't get very far as you need to be more cutthroat to survive, well why couldn't this be seen that men should be more like women and be less backstaby?

As to the bit labeled feminism... by all means encourage young girls ot [play with mechano and lego but don't introduce quotas for women.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by She-Ra
Absolutely - what kinds of things do you guys do? Is it a case of running outreach programmes; what kinds of information do you share with them?


We often run events in conjunction with the science museum over the road where interested students will see some interesting projects in action and have an informal lecture on some interesting projects, hopefully it will run again this year. However I know we are hosting an event in 2015 called lightfest based around the amazing world of photonics, there will be a heavy engineering focus as it is being organized by our engineering and science departments.

Original post by Smack
A point I'd like to raise, based on my experience of engineering, is that even within engineering, females tend to gravitate into certain areas... or, basically, away from anything that is big and clunky. At the companies I've been at, there has been a much higher proportion of females in areas like materials, process, etc. as opposed to, say, mechanical.


You also hear this thing about both women who go into medicine and law, gaining into areas relating to families and women’s health. You have to wonder if this is personal choice or male hegemony at play.

Original post by ChaoticButterfly
The confidence thing applies to me and I'm a man. Yes I've done a physics degree but the practical aspect always intimidated me. I did play with lego and mechano a bit when I was little but I've never been that great at practical stuff. I've always wanted to do lab work but have always found it daunting. My final year project almost gave me a nervous brake down :erm:
Also this bit where it talks about language applies to me "Women tend to use more cautious, less aggressive language, and often apologise for what they are about to say, eg “This isn’t quite my subject area, but perhaps you might consider …” I don't know how I would ever survive in a competitive environment.
I'm not equating the above as being like this but in some industries it is said women don't get very far as you need to be more cutthroat to survive, well why couldn't this be seen that men should be more like women and be less backstaby?
As to the bit labelled feminism... by all means encourage young girls to play with mechano and lego but don't introduce quotas for women.


It can be a very complicated, difficult field, but I guess that explains the high wage potential, if it pays well odds are it isn’t going to be easy, I’m sure you’ve grown more confident with more experience, did you go into an engineering role after completing your physics degree? Hopefully in the next 20 years we will see the gender divide shrink even more, even though it is still unusual for little girls to play with mecano. It’s not frowned upon just like boys playing with barbies.
I completely endorse the fact that women want to come into engineering and think it is a great thing overall, it brings much more versatility to the sector. The main problem here is based at the college and a-level stage, too many schools and colleges make it less of a priority to make sure that skilled and talented women are given the option to choose engineering. Really the whole concept of what engineering is can in some peoples minds can be very out of date and has everyone working on a machine on a shopfloor, we need to show everyone not just women what engineering is all about at the higher levels.
Have you considered that maybe they just aren't interested in it?
Reply 18
Original post by tomfailinghelp
Have you considered that maybe they just aren't interested in it?


But why not?
People like http://www.romatheengineer.com are starting to influence other girls/women to think about STEM as a career.

Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by jneill
But why not?
People like http://www.romatheengineer.com are starting to influence other girls/women to think about STEM as a career.

Posted from TSR Mobile


Why does it matter? Why try and push women to do something that they quite clearly don't want to do?

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