next »

[sootgirl]

As a female engineer in a particularly male discipline, I've always been aware that there aren't many women faculty - however, I've also always wanted to be judged on my MERITS not on my gender. As a faculty candidate myself at the moment - I'm particularly aware of the issue - but would prefer to be hired for my brain than my boobs.

 This recent spotlight on "why you should hire a woman" and the article that repeatedly referred to tenure track faculty at an R1 as "Ms." rather than "Dr." left me with an uneasy feeling - anyone else have any comments or  I am being overly sensitive?

[temporaryname]

Are you referring to a Chronicle article? If so, the Chronicle's style is to refer to everyone by first name+last name on first reference, then by Ms.+last name (for females) and Mr.+last name (for males) on all subsequent references. Not referring to someone by Dr.+last name isn't a slight.

That's only one of the two issues you raised, though--I'll let other forumites take on the other issue.

[mouseman]

The fact is that a CV with a woman's name on it is less likely to get taken seriously, and that women are treated like crap in many engineering departments, including almost all civil engineering departments.  When those phenomena disappear, then you can worry about being judged on your merits. 
Simply put: the engineering SC's and faculty members are already paying a lot of attention to your boobs, rather than to your brains, so you're not getting a fair shake in most cases anyway.  Besides, it's a brutal job market out there, so take whatever advantage that you have.

[polly_mer]

The fact is that a CV with a woman's name on it is less likely to get taken seriously

Interestingly, that's not quite the case based on one recent study by the National Academy of Sciences for academic positions.

                                                                                      Civil Engineering                  Electrical Engineering
 % women Ph.D.s (1999-2003)                                               18                                        12
Mean % of applicants who are women                                       16                                        11
Mean % of applicants invited to interview who are women        30                                       19
Mean % of offers that go to women                                          32                                        32


Yes, those hiring committees are playing quite a bit of attention to whether the applicant has boobs in addition to brains, but writing as someone who is teaching an all-male upper-level engineering class this semester, something has to be done to encourage more women to go into engineering and hiring more faculty who are both technically competent and women may help. 

All of my mentors were men so I know that male mentoring of women students works.  However, considering the huge discrepancy between the numbers of women who go into physical science and math fields (indicating that many women with the likely potential and interest exist) and those who go into engineering, there's something strange going on in engineering and that has to be addressed by engineers, regardless of whether they have boobs.

[mouseman]

Thanks for the update, Polly!  Those data are interesting and surprising.  Let us see, however, the number of jobs that actually go to women (as opposed to having a nominal woman on the interviewee list), and how well they do in their departments - especially in Civil Engineering.

[temporaryname]

Thanks for the update, Polly!  Those data are interesting and surprising.  Let us see, however, the number of jobs that actually go to women (as opposed to having a nominal woman on the interviewee list), and how well they do in their departments - especially in Civil Engineering.

Well, one of the things Polly listed was "Mean % of offers that go to women", so it'd seem we have that part of the data...

[scampster]

Thanks Polly for those number. I had never seen those before.

There is a fairly lengthy NSF report that deals with some of these issues, although it is for science and engineering, not just engineering:

www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf04323/pdf/nsf04323.pdf

Pertaining to mouseman's question regarding how they do once they are in the positions, the report says this:

For example, we estimated an overall tenure rate of 0.476 (47.6 percent) for doctorate recipients with 8 or 9 years of postdoctoral experience. The comparable rates for men and women with the same experience are 0.503 and 0.385, respectively.

[bms2000]

I'm a female engineer. I tell my female engineering students flat out: grow a thick skin with the guys or you will never survive. Don't ask for any special treatment - not only won't you get it, but they will sense weakness like a pack of hyenas after a wounded gazelle. Be one of the guys, as much as you can. If you have a very girly, high pitched voice, do everything in your power to modulate it so that you sound authoritative.

I personally prefer working with guys over females for the most part, which is probably why I got into engineering in the first place. But the female engineers who I see continue on and succeed are the tough, professional, no-nonsense tomboys. Sucks, but there just is no place for a girly-girl in engineering.

[scampster]

I'm a female engineer. I tell my female engineering students flat out: grow a thick skin with the guys or you will never survive. Don't ask for any special treatment - not only won't you get it, but they will sense weakness like a pack of hyenas after a wounded gazelle. Be one of the guys, as much as you can. If you have a very girly, high pitched voice, do everything in your power to modulate it so that you sound authoritative.

I personally prefer working with guys over females for the most part, which is probably why I got into engineering in the first place. But the female engineers who I see continue on and succeed are the tough, professional, no-nonsense tomboys. Sucks, but there just is no place for a girly-girl in engineering.

I have a girly high-pitched voice and (gasp!) sometimes I even wear make up and skirts to work!

I'm not a girly-girl, but I'm not a tomboy either. I think we do a disservice to women in engineering by telling them to essentially turn themselves into a man in order to succeed, and we will never increase our numbers if we perpetuate that myth. You do need a thick skin and you need to be able to roll with the guys, but I'm not about to modulate my voice to fit in. I'm also not sure that that is required at the tenure-track faculty level, but I'm just a postdoc so I can't say.

A large portion of my work experience before grad school is in construction - after fending off contractors and work crews, I can take anything most engineers want to throw at me, even in a skirt. "Tough," "professional," and "no-nonsense" are not mutually exclusive with "feminine."

[sootgirl]

^ ditto. well said scampster.

[temporaryname]

I'm a female engineer. I tell my female engineering students flat out: grow a thick skin with the guys or you will never survive. Don't ask for any special treatment - not only won't you get it, but they will sense weakness like a pack of hyenas after a wounded gazelle. Be one of the guys, as much as you can. If you have a very girly, high pitched voice, do everything in your power to modulate it so that you sound authoritative.

I personally prefer working with guys over females for the most part, which is probably why I got into engineering in the first place. But the female engineers who I see continue on and succeed are the tough, professional, no-nonsense tomboys. Sucks, but there just is no place for a girly-girl in engineering.

I'm not an engineer, let alone a female engineer, but my partner is--so I'm looking at this from the outside on a daily basis.

So first of all, what scampster said.

Second, I think it's more that there are multiple models that female engineers could follow--and maybe all of them involve developing a thick skin, but there really aren't a lot of career or even life choices for women or men that aren't made better by developing a thick skin, at least in certain places.

Really, this isn't limited to engineering, or being female--we just tend to be more aware of the struggles we face ourselves. (I'm reminded of some of Joan Jett's stories about being a female hard rock guitarist--other female engineers may have had different experiences, but my partner has never had beer bottles thrown at her just 'cause she's female.)

[polly_mer]

Third to what Scampster wrote and I think this:

Really, this isn't limited to engineering, or being female--we just tend to be more aware of the struggles we face ourselves. (I'm reminded of some of Joan Jett's stories about being a female hard rock guitarist--other female engineers may have had different experiences, but my partner has never had beer bottles thrown at her just 'cause she's female.)

applies.

Yep, I have spent a lot of time as one of the guys.  That means I get teased for personal characteristics, just like one of the guys.  That guy is overweight, this guy loves Star Trek, and I am a woman.  It's all playful fodder.

The only big problem I've seen with the girly girls is being moronic about context.  You wear the nice suit with a skirt and spangly jewelry to give the presentation.  You wear jeans and steel-toed boots when on site.  You have to carry your weight during any activity and not try to be secretary because you're afraid to get your hands dirty.  In that sense, one must be a tomboy.  But if we're sitting around working equations to solve a problem, you can wear anything you like that meets the standards for decency. 

While I agree that engineers will leap on any weakness because we are an arrogant lot who like to be right and show how much smarter we are than those around us, having a high pitched voice while explaining how to do the really hard problem in a tone that indicates one considers the problem trivial goes a long way to be taken seriously as an engineer.

[sootgirl]

While I agree that engineers will leap on any weakness because we are an arrogant lot who like to be right and show how much smarter we are than those around us,

^you are right about that ;-)