When I was in college, some twenty years ago, I went to an institute primarily focused on engineering (Georgia Tech). So it wasn’t surprising to hear guys constantly talk about “the ratio.” That would be the ratio of guys to girls, and it was always in the neighborhood of 4:1—not a happy statistic for a bunch of young college guys who were eager to party on the weekends.
Today, I (perhaps naively) assume that things are better, and while male students still outnumber females in the engineering ranks, the ratio isn’t as lopsided it once was. News stories on programs aimed to attract young women into STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) degrees and careers come across my newsfeed on a pretty regular basis, and great organizations like the Society of Women Engineers do much to promote the great career opportunities.
Recently, there was a bit of a brouhaha when esteemed rocket scientist Yvonne Brill passed away, and the New York Times wrote her obituary by leading with the fact that she made “a mean beef stroganoff” and was a great mom—and not her accomplishments in propulsion systems.
While we can all argue as to whether or not that obit was appropriate, the discussion about it on our Engineering Exchange led to some comments from a member about how she was treated in school, saying that the atmosphere was still quite hostile, particularly in the mechanical areas.
I reached out to some female engineering students on social media sites, and the responses were varied and interesting. One senior studying Civil Engineering explained that she’s always taken the approach that she simply had to work harder to earn her peers respect, but that it largely worked for her—until her senior design classes. At that point, she was working with another student she met through SWE and they both received high grades. It was then that male classmates began insinuating that they were getting high grades because they were women—teachers must be favoring them, they couldn’t possibly be working hard.
Another woman, Emily, currently majoring as a EE, felt that while females are generally treated well, they are not treated as equals. She faced similar criticisms from male students that her high grades must have been a result of favoritism. The first time she walked into a computer class, a male student told her, “You must be in the wrong class, this is a computer programming class.” This belief that she could not possibly program a computer made her work twice as hard just to prove that she belonged.
On a happier note, Michelle, a recent Georgia Tech graduate in ME, told me how, while there were rare instances of being treated unfairly, she mostly used the scarcity of females to her advantage. She found that it was easier for the professors to remember her in a class dominated by males. And even the other students recognized her studying in the library, so she always had a surplus of study partners.
Josephine Casely-Hayford, an applications engineer with Freudenberg-NOK Sealing Technologies, noted that in her field of study, mechanical engineering, men tend to make inappropriate inferences about women’s appearances, some deliberate, some not. And they can ignore contributions from females.
“Some men feel like engineering is not for women, and some feel like women should not be in leadership … some men completely encourage and love the idea of women in engineering, and consider them to be much more organized, decisive and great leaders,” she said.
Still, maybe the answer to the lack of female engineers isn’t as simple as persuading young women that they can do it. Maybe we also need to be educating young men to understand that women can do it. And maybe we need to remind college faculty that it’s their job to ensure that all engineering students are treated fairly and on a level playing field.
the phrase is “the short end of the stick” or alrenatively the “short schrift”….so you did not learn much English word usage…..poor English users don’t deserve to complain using idiomatic expressions…. women who get “short stick” in life are seldom happy…talk softly and carry the big stick, Teddy Roosevelt.
When I was at Tech the ratio was 17:1 and young men focused on education….Women in Atlanta were everywhere….and they knew how to get the big stick….by being nice and not complaining…..selah!
Interesting observations and facts.
William are you really that big of an A$$? Comment on the subject don’t attack some minor English issue. When I was in school way back in the 80s there were very few women in classes. But I have always welcomed and enjoyed working with women. And I encourage friends of my sons to go into engineering.
Why do we still discuss topics like this? Equality across race and gender has been promoted agressively above all else for years. Any remaining imbalance is due purely to interest. If more women were interested in engineering, more women would go to engineering school. The majority of men and women have different interests. Simple.
I went to school in the 80’s and would of like to seen many more females in my engineering classes. I believe a 4 to 1 ratio is high even for today. Most of my classes were 10 to 1. Math classes were marginally better. At least the “core” classes had a normal ratio.
One thing to keep in mind when discussing attitudes of fellow classmates: they are still kids. Undergrads are generally under 22. I may be unique, but I figured that every woman in my engineering class represented the absolute cream of the crop. If there was one woman in my class, she was pretty much the equivalent to just handful of guys in my class….
Really??? Women knew how to get the big stick by being nice and not complaining. Disgusting, misogynistic remarks like that should be removed.
Short end of the stick??? When I got my engineering degree I was the only one in my classes. Favored by the professors, no, but they did understand my situation probably better than I did. They did not put up with me because I was a woman but they knew I was a very serious student. I did not have time to mess around and stick around on campus more than four years. If I did, I would not have had the money to stay in school since my father was caught in a plant shutdown. Yea, we had those 40 years ago too.
I went to Georgia Tech twenty years ago too. When I was nearing graduation one of my female classmates who had been on a team project with me complained that she felt patronized because she was receiving higher starting salary offers than we males with similar credentials were because recruiters needed “female engineers” rather than the “best engineers.”
My own epiphany occurred when I was standing at the graduate fellowship bulletin board in the Woodruff building and saw program after program which was restricted to women and minorities.
The fact is that white and Asian male engineers in the U.S. are on their own because the system is stacked against them.
I have a Ph.D in mechanical engineering. School was very discriminating, and still is. Horrible for a State University, I worked in aircraft for 30 yrs. As a women in engineering in aircraft, I had to be a pioneer. I put up with discriminating, and sexual harrassing comments. I was expected to be the secretary, and waitress and keep the coffee pot full. The guys without experience and degrees were making anywhere from 20,00 to 40,000 a yr more than myself. There wasn’t one male who had a degree in the dept.and none had experience. I had started with the company and worked to get my degree, and worked my way up to engineering. The boss did not have a high school diploma, and bragged about it. He fired me shortly after I finished my Ph.D. I sued the company for discrimination and after five years won my case. Inside every black cloud is a silver lining. I am doing quite well at being the President of my own company. I always remember where I came from and treat my employees well, no matter what their job or background. Everyone has something to offer the company, and it is my job to discover the talent, not just throw it away.
When I started working at GE Female engineers made 10% more than males and received a 10% hiring bonus. We all worked equally hard at work and in the Training programs GE provided. I can’t say female Engineers were expected to do any less than a male engineer. However, the opportunities and mentorship for female engineers were institutionalized.
Also, after 3-5 years the number of hours female engineers worked DECREASED due to the fact many married and family obligations necessitated dialing back the hours worked. Frankly I see VERY few female engineers putting in 60 hour weeks on high intensity projects. Frankly they get more project manager opportunities and do not get staffing assignments which require herculean efforts.
If anything, I think male engineers are underpaid. Female engineers are paid a higher salary for less expected casual overtime in my experience.
I found the comments by W R Smith to be quite offensive. I can only assume that his derogatory comments about “poor English users” was based upon some assumption that the author was foreign born based upon the image with the post.
The comment that “Women in Atlanta. . . knew how to get the big stick. . .” was particularly crude. We not only need to teach young male engineers about equality, we need to call out engineers who espouse such views as expressed W R Smith.
I think that Mr. Smith also was under the impression that the author was female, not reading carefully the byline that identifies it as a post by the editorial director, Paul Deney.
Lastly, if he understood the meaning of “short schrift” he would realize that it is not correct to say, “the short schrift.” He may have a language problem himself because Teddy Roosevelt never referred to “the big stick” in his famous quote but instead, “a big stick.”
Thanks, all, for the great comments. However, if you are going to nitpick on grammar/word usage, it might be smart to figure out how and when to use ellipses first. 🙂
I graduated 20 years ago with engineering degree with honor from Georgia Tech. It’s not just the attitudes of men at school, but in the workplace and with men in society as well. A lot of men react grotesquely if I tell them I have an engineering degree. It seems that men can’t even fathom that a woman can be good at engineering, it’s so ingrained in their psyche. I noticed that other guy engineers starting out are mentored and scientific women are ignored. This happened to my mom too who was a mathematician. I don’t like being treated so poorly so I left the profession. I also hide my engineering degree. I feel it is worthless.
Working with woman for over 30 years I see a pattern of why they have a bad reputation.
Although a small percentage, ~5%, work hard and are capable. Most use their sexualality and flirting to get men to do work for them and manipulate the guys. And it Works…has for thousands of years!
Many woman will cry to the boss when they fell they are overworked. and the boss, for fear of HR getting on them, re-assign the jobs to the man in the group to get it done. And finally, quite few woman go on maternity leave for 3-6 months every 2-3 years and still expect the same salary increases… Woman just use the system and manipulate the men. 5% have earned my respect but 95% have not.
Mark,
Where do you work? Are you referring to females in the work place in general or specifically female engineers?
So your complaint is that women manipulate you? I’m sorry to hear that. Men manipulate women too, just ask any wife. Why do these points always have to boil down to “The battle of the sexes?” As a female engineer who has worked in industry for more than 20 years, there is prejudice against women. I have always handled it by showing that I know what I’m talking about. That usually impresses the man who tries to dismiss me out of hand because I’m female.
I don’t know if I should be outraged or sad by what Mark wrote about women. Though I am not an engineer, I work in the industry and I served in the military for 6 years with two deployments under my belt. I know very well what it is like to be the “under dog” or in this case “under sex” of a group. As women working in male dominated fields, we fully understand the scrutiny and lack a respect we will encounter, however we also know that we must and DO work that much harder to earn the respect of our colleagues. With blood, sweat and ZERO tears I moved up the ranks and was promoted to Sergeant, now leading the men who thought of me as “Just another woman”. I did not earn my rank with my smile, chest or legs. I earned my rank with strength, determination and good old fashioned hard work! Mark is the perfect example of why we are still fighting to good fight. We as women could just as easily turn on our male counterparts and blast their ways with negative, derogatory and sexists slurs, however we have more respect than that.
As engineers, let us remember that you can’t prove something is true with an example or two. If we pay attention, we can find instances of men treating women badly and of women treating men badly. Let us also remember that situations are complex and no system design is rated highly for every possible criteria. So let’s be more precise about what we mean and engage the issue with more complexity.
The fact is, sexism (defined as differential access to rights, advantages, and responsibilities based on being classified as male or female) is still prevalent in society, institutions, and people. Sexism can be intentional or unintentional. It can be overt or subtle. Society’s sexism hurts men as well as women since they are expected to learn some different things and discouraged from learning others. For example, men are expected to learn not to cry and are not expected to learn to identify subtle emotions. This restricts their abilities to deal with life and to be compassionate leaders. Women are expected to learn to read and respond to people’s emotions and are not encouraged to pursue technical careers. Since these differentials exist in wider society, it is no surprise that they exist in “engineering.”
Research on the experiences of engineering students and professionals shows that microaggressions and microinequalities continue to exist. If you don’t believe they do, please read the research and start with a valid critique of these studies. Let’s use our logical thinking as well as our feelings in engaging this issue.
I don’t believe that one can avoid being sexist in our current society without constant self-examination. A brief review of TV ads and billboards reveals the constant sexism used in marketing for example. The question is not “am I sexist or not?” but ” Where am I blind to my sexism and what can I do to be anti-sexist?” This actually applies to any dimension of discrimination, e.g. race, class, sexual orientation, religion, etc.
The easy work is done, the subtle but harder work yet remains.
I graduated from Georgia Tech in 1970. I am still a working engineer in a major Atlanta company. When I entered GT in the fall of 1966 there were 40 female students in the entire school. I think that made the “ratio” in my day about 0.05 to 1. I was always in awe of their persistence in doing the work in the face of constant comments and harassment by male students. I suspect being a female engineering student back then was many orders of magnitude harder than it is today.
Today, I have the pleasure of working with many young male and female engineers. Our company’s program for training young engineers in the particular’s of our business affords me an opportunity to meet all of our new engineers. Yes, there is still a higher ratio of males to females being hired. I suspect that is because there are still more males graduating with engineering degrees than females. However, I get the feeling that these females are the best engineers we have. I truly believe that our company, and my fellow employees treat all employees, male and female, with equality, and understands the synergies developed by the diversity in the workforce.
My observations after 43 years of working as an engineer –
There will always be differences in the needs of females vs. males. That is something that seems to me to be a given. Once this is recognized by management and co-workers, most issues are easily resolved.
There are also differences in the ways females and males approach problem solving. These differences can lead to a positive solution, especially when they are teamed together and considered in open conversation.
People of integrity, regardless of whether they are male of female, build companies of integrity. The petty conversations from people who lack integrity will disappear.