or rather engineers...
I had an interesting conversation about the remarkable scarcity of women in engineering in general, and at my current place of work in particular. All of this stemmed from a conversation I had last night with a guy on the way home who assumed that because I was a - female and b - relatively well-dressed, I must be in customer service or marketing. Now, statistically speaking, he made a safe assumption, but it really kind of bothered me, and I started wondering why there aren't more women in engineering.
I actually know lots of girl geeks. Most of them work with mostly men, and most of them work in testing or project management rather than development. In my very unscientific observations while in college, it seemed that women left engineering and CS departments, and were not replaced, unlike every other major field where the male/female ratio remained relatively constant with all of the changing of majors going on.
Why is this so? Women make excellent engineers. I wonder if this is something left over from the days when "that isn't something girls need to worry about" or perhaps something about the work itself is not generally appealing to women. For myself, I know that my experiences in high school math classes made a serious engineering degree (or any scientific degree for that matter) difficult to near impossible. I just didn't have the requisite math background to be successful in those fields. In the end, the extra math classes and catch up work weren't worth it to me so I got a degree in history, took CS for liberal arts majors classes, and work in engineering anyway. It hasn't stopped me, but it seems to have stopped a whole lot of other people.
I freely admit that it can be strange working an environment that is at least 80% male. Being the only woman in a room full of guys can be strange, and took some getting used to. Oddly enough, I think that coming out of a women's college made it a lot easier, but it's still difficult to go through the "Holy crap she's a chick!" to "Respected member of the team who happens to also be a chick" transition period. I've learned to be professionally detached, to not socialize with my coworkers in the same way they socialize with each other, and not wear skirts and make-up too often. Of course, it all depends on the company culture, but I can see where it might be unappealing. Being looked as as a curiosity when walking around the cube-farm on your way to a meeting is not always fun, nor is feeling like you have to prove that you're "just as good as the guys."
One of the guys suggested that it might be because women tend to get more attention then they want in a predominantly male environment and so stay away from it at a more subconscious level. He's clearly never tried dating geeks. If they get to the point of being able to deal with you at all, and once everyone gets over the Holy Crap A Girl stage, you become gender-neutral (until that fatal day you wear a skirt or some lipstick and it all starts over again). It's like being Jane Goodall, the gorillas know I'm there but haven't worked out what to do about me yet.
I have no idea really. Without making lots of gross generalizations, it's impossible to really get any idea of why the figures are what they are, or how to improve them.
2 comments:
I can't help! I'm so un-mathy and un-scientific that I'd kill myself (or get fired really quick) if I tried to study/work in anything remotely close to engineering.
I don’t think it’s a girl / boy thing, it’s a geek thing. As long as you don’t break the geek barrier it’s ok.
Your thoughts reminded me of a woman I met at a conference some years ago. We met offhandedly and though she was female she was a geek first and foremost. We had lunch a couple of times and shared one class. Then was the opening party and I ran across her at the gathering. She had changed from the standard jeans and shirt getup of geekdom to a sundress. She had transformed from a peer in the world of UNIX to a gu..gu…gu…gurl! ;) She was still the same person, but suddenly the fact that she was a beautiful woman was much more apparent than her geekieness.
Perhaps I’m not saying it clearly, I’m pretty tired. But I think you may get the idea. I’ve (on different occasions) seen a similar reaction amongst men. If you show up somewhere dressed up to well (like going to a meeting in a tie and nice shirt) and interact with geeks who do not already know you they will assume that you are just a suit and don’t really know stuff. You have to work that much harder to prove yourself than if you had shown up as a fellow geek. Women have it harder because there are some who are obviously attractive even when dressed frumpy, which puts them on the same playing field as a man in a suit (which isn’t fair, not at all).
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