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from the we'll-all-be-getting-dates-now dept.
Lina Nilsson writes in an op-ed piece in the NYT that she looks with despair at estimates that only about 14 percent of engineers in the work force are women but that there may be a solution to the disparity that is much simpler than targeted recruitment efforts. "An experience here at the University of California, Berkeley, where I teach, suggests that if the content of the work itself is made more societally meaningful, women will enroll in droves," writes Nilsson. "That applies not only to computer engineering but also to more traditional, equally male-dominated fields like mechanical and chemical engineering."
Nilsson says that Blum Center for Developing Economies recently began a new program that, without any targeted outreach, achieved 50 percent female enrollment in just one academic year. In the fall of 2014, UC Berkeley began offering a new Ph.D. minor in development engineering for students doing thesis work on solutions for low-income communities. They are designing affordable solutions for clean drinking water, inventing medical diagnostic equipment for neglected tropical diseases and enabling local manufacturing in poor and remote regions.
According to Nilsson, women seem to be drawn to engineering projects that attempt to achieve societal good and cites MIT, University of Minnesota, Penn State, Santa Clara University, Arizona State, and the University of Michigan that have programs aimed at reducing global poverty and inequality that have achieved similar results. For example, at Princeton, the student chapter of Engineers Without Borders has an executive board that is nearly 70 percent female, reflecting the overall club composition.
"It shows that the key to increasing the number of female engineers may not just be mentorship programs or child care centers, although those are important" concludes Nilsson. "It may be about reframing the goals of engineering research and curriculums to be more relevant to societal needs. It is not just about gender equity — it is about doing better engineering for us all."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:02AM
The whole underpinning of the story is that engineers do not normally meet society's needs. Bridges, buildings, ships, roads, dams, ports and entire cities don't count.
I find this view condescending to female engineers, who seemingly would be fine for designing kindergarten buildings, and urban parks, or a solar farm, but you won't find any interested in designing a sewage system or a fermentation plant, or a larger passenger plane, or, god-forbid, a faster frigate.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:21AM
Ugh, leave it to frojack for the insulted fauxrage. Frorage?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @03:04AM
The whole underpinning of the story is that engineers do not normally meet society's needs.
Man, we really see what we want to see don't we?
The message I got from this story is that it is just an issue of marketing. That women are attracted to educational programs with purpose rather than abstract study. Civil engineering is bland, but civil engineering to build bridges to connect communities is interesting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @10:28AM
That is demeaning to women though isn't it? Women will only go in when it is displayed as interesting while men don't need to be marketed to.
I'd rather not believe that, but Lina Nilsson is presenting a case for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @11:55AM
> That is demeaning to women though isn't it? Women will only go in when it is displayed as interesting while men don't need to be marketed to.
Men are dullards who don't care about results isn't demeaning to women.