Articles
Some years ago, in my early days on Professional Engineering, I covered a railway conference at IMechE headquarters in London. It was a well-attended and informative event that produced plenty of copy for the magazine.
Towards the end of the presentations, in a moment of idle reflection, something suddenly dawned on me – out of probably 100 people in the room that day, there wasn’t one woman in attendance. Not one.
I soon realised that this sort of chronic gender imbalance wasn’t a particularly unusual occurrence. Indeed, I have encountered it quite a few times over the years. Engineering has always been a male-dominated profession, and in some sectors and disciplines that inequality is particularly marked.
Even across the profession as a whole, statistics show that only 10% of engineers in the UK are women. It’s pitiful, really.
Actually that figure is probably higher than it has ever been. In recent years concerted efforts have been made to address the under-representation of women, not only within engineering, but science and technology as a whole. Much has been achieved through the efforts of dedicated campaign organisations which have worked in tandem with employers, professional bodies, education institutions and other groups and networks to ensure that talented young women who are considering a career in these areas get the support they need.
So it comes as something of a disappointment to find that two such highly regarded organisations – Women into Science, Engineering and Construction (Wise) and the UKRC – have fallen victim to government funding cutbacks and will now have to significantly scale back their campaigning efforts. Our news story on page 4 outlines the turn of events that sees Wise folded into UKRC – with Wise’s executive director Terry Marsh made redundant. This would seem an odd decision, coming as it does at a time when engineering needs to attract as many people as it can to alleviate predicted skills shortages.
Wise has been particularly active in its efforts to inform young women about opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics-based careers. This has been achieved through initiatives such as the Meet our Inspirational Women campaign, which puts forward great role models who have defied stereotypes and pursued their dreams in what are considered male-dominated industries. What’s to become of this campaign? Will it fall by the wayside?
Some would argue that organisations such as Wise and the UKRC shouldn’t exist at all. Indeed, in the past, PE has received several letters from female engineers suggesting that the existence of such groups borders on the patronising. If women wanted to become engineers, they would, runs the argument, as barriers to doing so have long since been broken down and sexism in the workplace is very rare. Women are perfectly capable of making their way in the sector without any special help or assistance, it’s been said. So perhaps it’s better to let the gender statistics find their own equilibrium?
It’s a tricky debate, and you could make a cogent argument from either side of the fence. But I can’t help feeling that, ultimately, these funding cutbacks will only hamper efforts to make engineering a more gender-balanced profession – and that’s got to be a bad thing. And, for the relatively small amounts of financial savings that are being achieved, would it not have been possible to recoup the money elsewhere?