The other day, I came across an article, "Competing Forces", in PRISM, the American Society for Engineering Education's magazine. The article was about why the professions of medicine, law, and business are better at attracting at women than the (one would think) equally venerable profession of engineering.

The article listed several reasons for the discrepancy in female represantation between the different professions, but I found three interesting.

After the passage of Title IX, the trickle of women into medicine and law turned into a veritable flood. Engineering and business schools, on the other hand, experienced no such influx."In part, say observers, women did not view the fields as offering the same opportunities as law and medicine to bring about social change, a priority for many young women of the baby boomer generation."

Now, I have never viewed myself as a social activist of any degree - although, as I learn more, I see that the environmental and the social are linked - but that sentence caught my attention. I would never consider myself altruistic, but it seemed that I could not help but hear the ring of familiarity. Although I have clearly chosen engineering as my vehicle for change, I have placed that change as my top career priority for the time being.

"Medicine, unlike engineering, is regarded as a field that places a high priority on the betterment of humankind, a characteristic that educators say is very important to young women." Well, the betterment of humankind is really incidental to the betterment of the world, but seeing as how humans are kind of part of the world, but the idea is the same. I had no idea I was part of a generalization. I've always felt - if not alone - than part of a rather rare and scattered population.

"Women see law and medicine as offering opportunity to make a difference in society. They don't see that opportunity in engineering. We have treated engineering as an end in itself, not as a vehicle to help make society better." I think I would have to disagree with that quote (from Domenico Grasso, dean of engineering a U of Vermont), since I have always been taught that engineering is a means to an end, wholly the tool of man, to make his life more convenient. But apparently others see it differently. I wouldn't've included this paragraph at all, except that it resonated with me the first time I read it, though upon further thought, I didn't really see why.

"It's no coincidence that women in engineering are more likely to pursue degree in biomedical and environmental engineering, which are clearly linked to the betterment of society." And the ring of familiarity becomes a gong of recognition. I'm just another "young woman," after all.

I don't know how much I actually relate to this explanation, but I've never thought about societal improvement as a reason why there aren't more women in engineering. While I am attracted to the potential for sustainable development in environmental engineering, I am also attracted to the intellectual pleasure of challenging problem-solving using an analytical and mathematical framework. I've always thought that the latter repulsed girls for whatever reasons. But I've never thought of the lack of the former in other engineering disciplines as a reason. I felt the article raised an interesting point.

The other point that the article made was one with which I could not agree more: "Women saw entry into medicine as an opportunity to make a social contribution with a high probability that they would succeed in medical school and in life ... Fort-one percent of women considering applying to an MBA program saw a glass ceiling in both business and engineering as 'very real' ... [W]omen view business and engineering ... as fields in which often hostile, male-dominated cultures are the norm."

And lastly: "'From the day you are a little girl, you know what doctors do,' but the same is not true of ... engineers." Dude, I still don't know what engineers do. That is, honest to the gods, one of my Learning Outcomes on my co-op.

So that's my two cents for the day. I'm proud of myself for actually sitting down and writing down this damn thing. It was going to end up as an email to Adrian otherwise, and that just didn't seem fair.

goodbye for real - 2006-04-10

women not in engineering - 2005-12-27

another day turned sour - 2005-03-23

you just didn't know when it was coming - 2005-03-23

one free trip to washington, dc - 2005-03-22