Fewer than a tenth of engineers in Britain are women. What can be done to attract more into the job? By Heath Reidy
Women have never been as tightly linked to engineering as men. Even in this day and age for most people an engineer would be a “he”.
This is not helped by the fact that not many women seem to like engineering. A recent review by EngineeringUK shows that only 9% of engineering professionals in the UK are women.
So isn’t it about time we just accepted the fact that not many women want to be engineers? That’s not what many in the profession feel. Not only would the hard work of dozens of female engineers in organisations such as WISE (Women Into Science, Engineering and Construction) have a problem with that but numbers abroad tell a different story. In Spain, 18% of engineering professionals are women, in Italy the figure is 20% and in Sweden it is 26% – nearly three times the percentage in Britain.
EngineeringUK is conducting an investigation into why the UK has the lowest number of female engineers in Europe. So what is the problem? What are the hurdles that seem to be preventing women going into engineering?
Paul Jackson, chief executive of EngineeringUK, says that it isn’t that there are hurdles but a “perception of hurdles, and a perception that there aren’t the right opportunities” for women in the industry.
The traditional but often outdated image of engineering may be the first problem. The idea of a dirty industry persists. Jackson says that more important issues, such as technology developments to provide energy, food and water for the world, “don’t necessarily feature” in someone’s view of engineering.
“If we only have the traditional images of engineering, rather than the breadth of what we know, you can get the associations with things that are messy or dirty,” he says. “We will not attract different people into it, including more girls, if we cannot present the full image.”
Other hurdles are believed to stem from schooling and careers advice for girls. Jackson says there is a lack of understanding among many educational professionals and careers advisers about engineering opportunities.
Vicki Stevenson is a chartered engineer and the Welsh chair for WISE, which encourages girls of school age to pursue STEM subjects and move into related careers. She says that the hurdles start much earlier.
Even girls’ toys can be a problem. While a toyshop may tempt a girl with pink dolls and pastel-coloured bikes, for instance, pink Lego and Meccano are nowhere to be seen.
“There is this subtle but pervasive atmosphere which makes girls from, say, 12 and 14, think, yeah actually, I’ll just go and do something else,” says Stevenson. “It’s a problem because there are an awful lot of girls who are subtly put off or not given the opportunity.”
She believes that if they lose interest in engineering at that point then they are potentially lost to the industry altogether. “If the girls are put off from an early age, they’re never coming back,” she says.
Peer pressure and the fear that girls will not be socially accepted as an engineer may also play a part.
Stevenson compares the situation to a boy deciding to be a ballerina. “Nobody will be out there stopping you but you’d wonder what everyone else is going to think,” she says.
Other causes could include an anxiety among women that they would be massively outnumbered by men in the workplace. Even protective clothing and footwear, which Stevenson says are mainly designed for men, may also be an issue.
But the good news is that things are improving for women in engineering, Stevenson and Jackson agree. There are more engineering support groups for women, such as WISE and the UKRC, the UK resource centre for women in science, engineering and technology.
In April, the UKRC joined three engineering organisations, including the Institution of Engineering and Technology, to tackle gender inequality. Stevenson says general attitudes to women in engineering are changing.
“We have got past some of the blatant sexism, which did exist when I started, at least in the traditional industries,” she says.
More girls seem to be showing an interest in science and engineering from a young age. This year’s Big Bang Fair, for instance, attracted similar numbers of boys and girls, with the 11-14 group attracting more females, Jackson says.
It seems that it is no longer the case that women just don’t want to go into engineering. Instead, hurdles in the form of social influences and inaccurate perceptions of the industry are putting them off. Things are on the up and the hurdles may be starting to fall. Whether they all fall down for good remains to be seen.
© PE Publishing, 19 May 2010
