Do women make good engineers? This question is not to denigrate women. It is in their support.?

Question

I want facts to support my case to change recruitment policy in respect of women in the so-far-male-dominated "heavy engineering" fields .

Please restrict your answer to civil, mechanical, electrical power, chemical and aeronautical engineering. Electronics and computers (hardware and software) are out of this question's purview.

I do not want answers like : "Of course women are as good as men in every respect", though that may well be true. Your answer must be based on solid facts about real women who have proved themselves in these fields and risen to high technical managerial positions in their organisations.

Answer 1

It takes a little more work for women to get started and gain client respect. This especially applies to clients who are nicknamed "bubba" and are in charge of local governments (county/small town)

Other than that I think women make excellent engineers. Some of the best engineers I work with (as clients at ODOT and larger cities) are women.

Why?

1 Perhaps because the women who are in engineering didn't just get there by default. It is not a typically major choice for girls. So, they made a choice to do something they are interested in.

2 women by the requirements of nature were "gatherers". They are often attuned to gathering indirect info from multiple sources to make decisions. This lends well to problem solving skills required to be a good engineer

3 The women engineers I work with a typically better communicators than the men. Cliche' I know. But reports, powerpoints, and explaining things to non-engineering clinets are skills you need.

Answer 2

There are statistically documented differences between male and female brains that may affect this, but nobody can say for sure and this type of question breeds overgeneralization.

That said: I think women have the ability, but many seem to move away from certain types of engineering, for reasons I do not understand. The number of women in my classes (design oriented) slowly decreased as the classes got more specialized and I noted that many women transferred out and some went to industrial engineering. To be honest, the women who stuck it out to the senior year in any engineering field actually seemed to be better academically than the men, on average.

Answer 3

Do men make good engineers? Some do, some don't. Same answer applies to women; some are, some aren't. To make a generalistic comment saying that "all of x people are good at y" is foolish.

How are you trying to change the recruitment policy in respect to women? I think there has been some overcompensation in this area. Many companies/colleges will hire/recruit women over men regardless of qualifications due to quotas. Now, THAT'S what I'd call sexism. Just because it's "male-dominated" doesn't mean women have any less of a chance to be sucessful. There are plenty of fields that are "female-dominated" and you don't see anyone implementing quotas to hire men.

This isn't the 1950's anymore we should expect people to treat each other equally regardless of sex. If someone is hiring unfairly, or recruiting unequally they should be reprimanded; but implementation of quotas and forcing people to hire based on sex or race is worse than the thing we're trying to prevent.

Answer 4

I believe that it is possible for a woman to make a good engineer.

I am currently studying civil engineering and i am generally at the top of my class in most of my studies. However, this maybe because i study more and drink less than the average (male) engineering student.

There is no point changing the recruitment policy. Women who bother to study engineering do it because they have a passion or interest in that area. For example i have just completed my 2nd year of study, and i have only just now been informed that the university that i study at offers a scholarship to females "interested" in that field, this is easily obtainable as i am the on female in both my field of study and year, but i was not looking for a cheaper education when i signed up, unlike the girl who just completed her first year (rather poorly i might add) and got herself a car out of her scholarship money for her 'efforts' ...

Any woman capable of reaching the top in this field does not need the job 'advertised' to her, she knows she wants it

Answer 5

As a group, engineers have done a miserable job encouraging women to enter the engineering field- only 19% of US graduating engineers were women last year. There is a shortage of engineers so we need to do a better job recruiting as many as we can. I work with 3 women engineers and one woman drafter at our 28 person firm. I applaud your effort and wish you luck in your pursuit of improving life for all of us.

I would suggest that we change the message that I heard to be recruited into engineering. Yes, everyone knows you have to be good in math and science and everyone agrees that the pay is decent. However, if we want to so a better job recruiting, we need to say what engineers do with messages such as- help communities have a reliable safe and clean water supply, protect the environement from sewage waste, build fuel cells and wind farms to reduce dependence on fossil fuel, reduce siliting of wetlands, etc, etc,. We have to use a bigger "help save the world" message so people of high ideals will be interested. Literally help save the world would turn off most people with an engineering mindset but the idea of listing specific tasks under that general heading should help.

I applaud your effort and wish you luck in your pursuit of improving life for all of us.

Answer 6

I'm currently going to school (senior) in electrical engineering at Purdue. I have several females in my engineering classes. Many of them are doing just as good as 'the rest'. Of course there is always going to be special cases and I'm sure there are females, just as males, that aren't doing well, but I never think "Oh they won't get it because they're females". I don't understand what you mean by changing recruitment policies. I have never agreed with affirmative action. My thoughts are this, not trying to be racist, but that a school should choose those student's who have better academics over race, or sex. I have never seen my university try to discourage females in pursuing engineering. I think by accepting, if limited, those who have better academics is a better social service than by setting quotas on gender or race. That's my $0.02. But back to question, I haven't been in a work environment yet, but in academics I think women have just as adaquate skills to perform well in engineering as males and I have seen this displayed in the classroom. Hope that helps.

Answer 7

Yes. Women are as good as men in Engineering. There is no sexual selection in intellect. Many leading Architects are women. Women are endowed with one extra quality, patience. They are better than men in table work. Of course there are certain areas in Engineering where women are not supported by nature. Especially in areas like Physical labour, where muscle power is needed.

Answer 8

The bottom line........

If they don't like it, or it is hard, they'll get out of it. One college reported they had about 50% freshman class in architecture, but only 10% graduating.

Engineering requires diciplined thinking, and the ability to visualize spatial relationships. These are difficult for most women--they are much better at diciplines that require flexible and emotional thinking, and personal relationships, or emotionnal sensing.

No rule is stead fast, there are some great women engineers, but any recrutment policy which encourages numbers of women to try something which they may have no aptitude only serves to encourage them to spend fruitless years and money pursuing something they're not adept to and not pursuing something they have talent for and would enjoy, is a disservice to women.

Why don't you pursue Nursing? You'd be just a good and happy as a woman in it...wouldn't you. How would feel if you fell for some recruiting pitch tht put you there?

Answer 9

I am a recent Electrical Engineering graduate, and in my graduating class we had approx. 10% women which is a little below the national average. I think in general, women are less likely to be interested in or have apitude for math and science hence they are under-represented in engineering. Although there are compartivley few women that pursue engineering, I find that the ones that do are just as qualified as the men. In the working world most of the people I work with are men, but the women I do come across are no less qualified.

I think engineering schools actively recruit people that will make good engineers - those interested in it first of all, and those with strong math and science backgrounds. The fact that girls graduating high school are less interested in math, science, and engineering has nothing to do with the schools. I would imagine there are biological predispositions . Not all men like math, not all women hate math - but I think there is a correlation.

One thing to keep in mind is that it is socially acceptable for a woman to pursue any career/major she chooses including engineering. It is not as socially acceptable for a man to become a nurse, or a social worker for example. The women that choose engineering chose it from a larger pallet therefore one would imagine that they must like it/be good at it.

Answer 10

It depends, mostly depending on the woman's interest and understanding of mathematics and science. My boyfriend is an electrical engineer and I think I would be just as successful as him. Yet, I plan to go into premed which is a science dominated curriculum.