Makeup of typical engineering departments.

[Ashereng]

Just curious.

What is the percentage of women to men in your engineering department/group?

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[Ashereng]

No offense. It's a form of expression.

I can also say, structural seems to be far ahead?

With regards to the target value, yes, I am using 50/50. No reason. Just a target.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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[monkeydog]

You could use that same arguement (target value of 50/50) for the nursing occupation.

 

[Ashereng]

monkeydog,

That sounds like a good topic for a "New" posting?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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[sms]

I would think that a more appropriate target would be the split in university. My graduating year we had 3 women in a ME class of about 25, or about 12 percent. Seems to reflect in the workplace...(but that was a long time ago...)

I don't see how you could ever have 50/50 in the workplace if schools are not graduating 50/50.

"Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?" Oddball, "Kelly's Heros" 1970

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[macmet]

When I was in school Chem Eng had far more girls than any other discipline through the different years. I've been told that civil is starting to get more and more with most of the girls going into civil/enviro.

 

[DarthSoilsGuy]

National Academy of Engineering has on their website that there are 9% women engineers in USA and 20% of egr degrees earned by women in USA.

It doesn't say if the 20% is historic or if it has increased a lot in the last generation so i wouldn't walk away with the interpretation that 50% of women can't get work with their degrees. perhaps, the actual employed will go up but always be behind the school number for a time lag.

The point the NAE is pushing is to increase the 20% to 50% by encouraging girls to pursue engineering careers and promoting engineering as a gender neutral career. Obviously, they're doing a great job at it since the engineering community (you) doesn't know it's going on.

 

[KENAT]

Just realised if you include the software people that gets a few more females, bunch more males too though so doesn't affect the % much, might make it over 10.

I don't see why any push to make any career 50/50.

So long as there isn't any kind of rules or effort to actually keep any gender disparity then what career different sexes choose should be left up to them.

Now I know not having many colleagues the same sex might put people off a career but where do we stop?

Didn't the Supreme court just make a ruling on positive discrimination?

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[DarthSoilsGuy]

it's not positive discrimination to encourage girls to pursue careers in science. Devil's adv. position would say "i don't see any reason why it's not 50/50". I'll give some points up on family stuff on the career side of the issue, but there are more women in college than men. What are they studying?

if you're talking about gender-based public funded scholarships its another thing altogether. Likewise with gender-based enrollment priority in public colleges.
When you finally get around to looking for money to go to college, you've already gone considerably down the path and will probably work something out (and if you can't needs based is still there).

 

[Ashereng]

Hi Guys. I think a separate post on what the percentage of women in engineering should be would be a great one!

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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[possumk]

6/49 (mech dept)
14/121 company wide

0/24 EE & only 1/14 I&CE

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

In my immediate group, 67%

In all of R&D it drops to something like 15-20%

 

[Ashereng]

Hi Bruno,

What does your immediate group do - if it is not proprietary?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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[HgTX]

3 of 10 here either engineers or on engineering track (still in school or EIT). Used to be just one. All three managers are male.

We're structural, but on the construction/fabrication side. Over on the design side, much more women.

Hg

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[graybeach]

3 out of 30 here. Does anyone else get the impression that the reason for the push to attract more women and minorities to the profession is to increase the supply of engineers in order to supress wages? Why else?

 

[SylvestreW]

Graybeach,
I've never felt that way or experienced anyone else sharing that opinion.

 

[ewh]

Equal opportunity for equal ability ???

 

[GregLocock]

I've always assumed that graybeach's argument was at least part of the reason.

In the UK at least engineering recruitment is heavily pushed by the universities, the more people they can get out of low paying Arts courses into big ticket itmes like Med and Eng, the more money they make per student.

Or is that cynical?



Cheers

Greg Locock

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[KENAT]

You cynical Greg, never.

At my last place in the UK we had 0 female Engineers but did have a female document controller and a female project acountant who were technically part of the Design Office so with a total staff of low double figures we had about 20%.

Last I heard they had actually recruited a female engineer, but they lost the project accountant before I left so still only around 20%.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[DaveVikingPE]

It's about 40 W : 60 M where I am.

 

[epoisses]

I feel like posting another politically incorrect couple of thoughts.

We still haven't cleared up why we should (should we?) aim for 50/50.

Is there anything "unfair" in a 10/90 women/men ratio? As long as the percentage of women employed = the percentage of women who apply for jobs (assuming everyone is equally qualified), nothing is unfair. We would not employ female engineers out of some kind of pity, while they could have been lawyers and made much more money, would we?

I guess more women means more diversity (at least as long as the percentage << 50%), assuming diversity is a good think we would want to have more women, but who says 50/50 is the optimum ratio in an engineering dept?

I guess male engineers would also be interested in seeing more women around for less politically correct (biological) reasons (after all even engineers are only humans and therefore animals) but in that case again why 50/50 and not something like 90/10?