Women in engineering

Women in engineering fields have historically faced obstacles due to a lack of gender equity. In the United States, science and engineering have traditionally not been areas in which women are involved at a proportion equal to their general proportion in society. A number of societies, organizations, and programs have been initiated in an attempt to understand why there is a disparity of gender representation in the field of engineering. These organizations often actively encourage a greater representation of women in engineering. As a part of this movement, there is also a current trend toward recognizing both historical and modern-day women in engineering.

tatistics - USA

Female participation in engineering and the sciences has increased since the 1960s, but is still not equally representative. The trend of increasing representation has followed a pattern that is termed the leaky pipeline: there have been greater increases in the proportion of women getting engineering bachelors degrees than any other possible stage of development. The percentage of female graduate students in engineering in 2001 was 20%. [http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cwse/S_E_stats.pdf] Between graduate and doctoral degrees, there is another drop in the representation of women, although there is still a positive trend. Doctoral degrees awarded to women in engineering increased from 11.6% to 17.6% of total degrees awarded between 1995 and 2004. [http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf06308/pdf/tab2.pdf] The workforce remains as the area of highest under representation for women; only 11% of the engineering workforce in 2003 were women. [http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/pdf/tabh-5.pdf]

Reasons for under representation

A study done in 2004 by the US Government Accountability Office showed that the four government agencies that are responsible for holding academic institutions accountable to Title IX have not been guaranteeing compliance. [http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04639.pdf] It found that the improvements in female representation in engineering have lagged behind areas such as the life sciences. A number of possible causes for the gender disparity have been proposed, from different life choices and priorities to discrimination. One recommendation from the report was that discrimination may not be found if agencies simply wait for complaints, so the government agencies should become more proactive in ensuring that academic institutions are providing equal opportunity to women in the areas of science and engineering.

Other research (by the Economic and Social Research Council) shows that while there have been increases in women choosing engineering as a field of study, they use their degrees to work in fields other than engineering. [http://www.esrcsocietytoday.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/PO/releases/2007/january/engineering.aspx?ComponentId=17829&SourcePageId=17831] It has also found that women receive more help than their male counterparts, both in the workplace and in school. This may indicate that the females are perceived by their male counterparts and superiors to be less competent than the males.Fact|date=July 2008 The women were found to naturally adopt coping strategies to help them deal with difficulties arising from gender based discrimination.Fact|date=July 2008

Many universities have studies regarding the distribution of women within their institution, and have instituted programs regarding diversity. Targeted research can provide more detailed information about a specific institution.

On the other side of the discussion regarding women and engineering is the belief that there has been too much of a push to have women in science and engineering. Instead, the outreach programs to K-12 girls should encourage them to choose what they want to study and not try and convince as many as possible to go into science and engineering fields. [http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0611089v3]

upport structures for women in engineering

There are a vast array of existing support systems for women interested in engineering. Examples of these support systems range from K-12 programs dedicated to encouraging young women to consider engineering as a career path to collegiate programs dedicated to the archiving of women's impact/history in engineering as well as several professional societies dedicated to the advancement of women in engineering.

K-12 programs

There are also numerous K-12 programs designed to provide encouragement/resources for young girls interested in science. Examples of this kind of program include the website-driven [http://www.engineergirl.org/ Engineer Girl] program targeted to young girls and teacher/mentor-oriented programs such as [http://www.wepan.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=38 WEPAN] . These programs offer a variety of services, from making information available to young girls interested in science, to opportunities such as essay competitions and classroom activities, as well as anything else that captivates the attention of female engineering students.

Professional societies

Most of these professional societies provide women with support, professional development and networking opportunities, and advocate for women. There is a longer list of supporting organizations under the external links section.
* Society of Women Engineers
* [http://www.ieee.org/portal/pages/committee/women/index.html Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers's women committee]
* [http://www.geocities.com/robotchicksunion/links.html FIRST and the Robot Chicks Union]
* [http://www.nae.edu/cwe National Academy of Engineering]
* [http://www7.nationalacademies.org/wise/ Women in Science and Engineering]
* [http://www.witi.com/ Women in Technology International]

Women engineers

See the to see biographies of women engineers on wikipedia. Some of the external links below also contain biographies of women engineers.The Archive of Women in Science and Engineering is trying to record and catalog the work of women engineers. [http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/wise/miss.html]

ee also

* Women in science
* Women in Computing
* List of prizes, medals, and awards for women in engineering
* Ecole Polytechnique massacre in Montreal, where women were targeted by a mass murderer because they were female engineering students
* Women in the workforce

Further reading

* "". US National Academies Committee on Maximizing the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering:National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2006.

External links

* [http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cwse/ Committee on Women in Science and Engineering]
* [http://www8.nationalacademies.org/cwse/ViewbyDiscipline.asp?DID=17&Submit1=Select+Discipline List of organizations encouraging women in engineering]
* [http://www.engineergirl.org Engineer Girl]
* [http://www.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/4000WS.html 4000 years of Women in Science]
* [http://www.wepan.org/index.cfm WEPAN (Women in Engineering Programs & Advocates Network)]
* [http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cwse/S_E_stats.pdf Statistics regarding Women in Science and Engineering]
* [http://www.hesa.ac.uk/holisdocs/pubinfo/student/subject0405.htm Statistics for Students in the UK]
* [http://echo.gmu.edu/wise/ Echo's Women in Science and Engineering project]
* [http://research.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/links_sci.html Other links about women in engineering]