Engineering news
The IMechE report, Stay or Go? The Experience of Female Engineers in Early Career, said companies and universities must “urgently” change masculine and discriminative cultures to recruit and keep women in engineering. The study, which surveyed the experiences of female engineers in the first 10 years of their careers and compared them with women in medicine and finance, found they face “severe” challenges from academia and throughout their careers.
Women only account for 9% of the engineering workforce, compared to 43% of female doctors and 46% of financial professionals in the UK, and 15% of engineers in Germany. Half of UK female engineers leave the profession after completing degrees in the sector and two-thirds leave after giving birth.
The significant portion of women leaving the sector is partially the result of offensive behaviour and unequal treatment in the workplace, the new report found. 63% of engineering women surveyed said they experienced unacceptable behaviour or comments, as much as three times that in finance or medicine.
This atmosphere makes women feel they have to “toughen up” or leave, said IMechE head of education and skills Peter Finegold, the lead author of the report. “I think the prevailing narrative of engineering is very masculine… and there is an association with being tough,” he said to Professional Engineering.
This often forces female engineers to change their personalities or risk being seen as easily offended and lacking a sense of humour, the report said. Respondents said they witnessed inappropriate behaviour such as male staff scoring their female colleagues for sexual attractiveness and hanging pornographic posters around work sites. However, others said they never reported issues to HR because nothing would happen.
“It isn’t good enough that two thirds of female engineers working in industry feel the need to adapt their personalities and ‘toughen up’ in order to get by,” said contributor Silvia Boschetto from IMechE. “Women are often placed in an impossible position of either being accused of lacking a sense of humour or pretending they were not offended. It is time for employers and education providers to ensure this stops.”
Companies must take lead
Of the 500 female engineers surveyed, 40% said they were not treated equally and 60% said it was easier for men to progress in their careers. “The challenge is very severe, very significant,” said Finegold to PE. “That is exacerbated by the reality of the fact that there are just so few women in most companies, that perhaps it hasn’t been a priority for them. These are big cultural shifts.”
Companies and universities must take the lead and improve cultures to take the pressure off female engineers, said Finegold. The report makes five recommendations for the engineering community, including setting quality benchmarks for keeping female engineers in their early-to-mid careers, and identifying “flashpoints” – such as returning to work after maternity leave – where new strategies are needed. Other recommendations are for annual surveys of employees, a UK-wide study of engineering undergraduates and more resources for careers education.
If the recommendations are followed, there is a bright future for female engineers and the sector as a whole, said Finegold. “Engineering is an exciting place to be and it is going to continue to be even more exciting,” he said. “It is almost an issue of social justice to make sure all members of society, especially those who are underrepresented, have an opportunity to participate and have fulfilling careers at the same time.”