Are Women Underrepresented in Your Engineering Workplace?
Posted December 12th, 2014
Gender equality in the workplace has come a long way, but it’s impossible to ignore statistics that clearly demonstrate that women are underrepresented throughout the engineering sector. What’s worse is that in many cases data is not even necessary. In most workplaces a quick scan of the workforce reveals an obvious disparity between men and women. The causes of this imbalance are complicated, but if we are going to overcome them, it’s important to interrogate them closely. Here are a few of the reasons that female engineers are so far in the minority.
Career Confidence
From an early age, girls are encouraged to pursue passive activities like playing with dolls while boys are encouraged to pursue creative activities like building with Legos. Those boys grow up feeling like they belong in engineering while those girls grow up feeling like outsiders. Without that same level of career confidence, many women avoid engineering, struggle to break in, and have a hard time rising through the ranks.
Gendered Language
Even well-meaning people fall into the trap of calling the doctor “he” and the nurse “she.” That further contributes to a culture in which girls feel excluded from the sciences from an early age and struggle to overcome deep-seated biases throughout their careers.
Professional Visibility
To a certain extent, the gender gap in engineering is a self-perpetuating problem. There has historically been a lack of female engineers, leading most of us to associate engineering with men. Young women without female role models to look up to and emulate have less drive to pursue an engineering degree, less support from friends and family, and less consideration from potential employers.
Antifeminism
Past efforts to close the gender divide in engineering have often been misinterpreted as replacing men with women, rather than promoting equality for all. This erodes support for the cause while breeding hostility towards female engineers.
Double Standards
Many of the traits that are seen as positives in male engineers are viewed as negatives when a woman displays them. For example, women are often criticized for being “too confident” while that exact same quality is framed as “ambition” or “drive” in a man. In many cases, women have struggled to break into engineering because they are held to a different and often impossible standard.
The cause of the gender divide in engineering is complicated and contentious. Luckily, the solution is much simpler. Companies that actively recruit women engineers and support the ambitions of young women interested in the sciences can benefit from the dynamic and diverse workforce they build around themselves. Work with Bayside Solutions to change the character of your candidate pool.
