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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, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday April 29 2015, @01:16PM
I'd say it all begins at birth. We have social "norms" which are deeply ingrained in society. For birthdays and holidays we gift boys toy trucks, Legos, science/craft kits and video games. Girls get dolls/doll houses, ez-bake ovens and stuffed animals. We inadvertently tell girls that they are caretakers, house wives and mothers before they reach puberty. Boys are taught to be men. They get to play with chemistry sets, bb guns, tools and other gadgets. Girls don't get gadgets or tools. They get silly stay at home wife crap like barbie dolls, ez-bake ovens and fake kitchen sets. What better way to reinforce a womans place than giving her a fake kitchen when she is just a few years old. They have to wear pretty pink dresses and dont get dirty. Meanwhile boys get to play in the mud and wear jeans. Girls who play and dress like/with boys are tomboys and frowned upon.They aren't "feminine" enough. I'm also pretty sure there are plenty of people who believe that this will turn them into a pants wearing lesbian. A woman who can turn a wrench, drive a semi or wield a soldering iron is intimidating to men who were brought up with this way of thinking (the so-called patriarchy). This is a culture problem.
We don't have more women in engineering because mom and dad bought little suzie dolls and play kitchen sets while her brother(s) got legos, chemistry sets and helps dad work on the car.