Women make up almost half of the workforce in the United States, but hold about 24% of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) jobs. To be a globally competitive in these fields, the representative of women and women minorities must undergo drastic changes.
Women engineers tend to face a problem that other disciplines don’t- once they enter the work field, they tend to leave. A study conducted by the American Psychologist Association showed that 40% of women that earned an engineering degree left or never even entered the field. When a woman was asked as to why she left the field she said, “There isn’t a strong network of females in engineering. You either need to learn to be ‘one of the guys’ or blaze the trail yourself, which is very difficult.”
This will persist to be an issue so long as the pervasive hypermasculinity is stopped before it drives too many women out. Many companies hire and “protect” women and minorities to join their team to make for a more “diverse” workforce. Increasing your numbers in women and minorities may appear to be a strategic move in boosting your reputation, but without a safe space for people to exist, it simply remains numbers on a paper rather than truly diversified creative minds working together to contribute to the advancement of society.
Companies such as Lego, and people such as Debbie Sterling want to engage young girls into engineering. It is a step at getting girls interested, represented, and encouraged to pursue engineering. While this is a leap forward, the numbers of women that leave the field show that changes need to be made towards the attitudes towards women and minorities later on in life as well.
If you are lucky enough to be a woman engineer on the job site, which isn’t always the case- as a woman engineer recalls her company telling her, “we could send you to (nearby, really cool plant), but it’s really male dominated, so we won’t,” you will notice that you are probably one of the few, which was exactly the experience that I had.
There needs to be more inclusion of women and minoritiy engineers as well an increase of leaders. With leadership allows a person who arguably has a better understanding and importance of the issue at hand. But if so many women are dropping out of the field, the chances of more women leaders seems to be quite discouraging. Without the evidence of successful women leaders in the engineering field, there is even less encouragement to go after these positions.
The narrative overall needs to be restructured and women need to be recognized as equally capable and accomplished as their male counterparts. It is worth noting that the lack of flexible hours lead to a disproportionate number of women leaving. Hewlett Packard have reported that flexible hours have been successful and beneficial and companies that follow suit could help increasing the retention of women in STEM jobs.
I feel that as a female engineering student with access to a network such as Society of Women Engineers helps empower both myself and my colleagues to propel us to follow our aspirations, but once we get to these places, such clubs, support, and networks should be available to create the environment that make us want to stay.