Engineering not just for men
17 Nov 2015
The roles women have played in the past can be compared with the current struggle to get more women into science and engineering, says Electroustic’s Amy Wells.
For Britain, the sharply defined domestic role of women lay relatively untouched from the Middle Ages right through to the end of the Victorian era. But when we look further into history, gender roles were not always so sharply defined.
These days there is a plethora of media coverage and awareness campaigns to encourage and praise the small number of women working in the engineering industry.
Results from the UK Engineering and Manufacturing Census state that 75% of the 300 female engineers surveyed still consider engineering to be a ‘male career’
Electroustic’s Amy Wells
As a result, female engineers are finally starting to be held in high regard.
A number of recently launched initiatives such as the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) and the Women in Science and Engineering campaign (WISE) suggest that the engineering industry is successfully bridging the gender gap.
Yet, only 6% of the UK’s engineering workforce is female.
Nearly half of UK state schools do not send a single girl on to study higher education physics at college or sixth form.
There are myriad barriers preventing women from entering the engineering sector and inevitably, the gender stereotype remains a large factor.
From a young age, gender conditioning teaches us that hands-on, practical activities like LEGO and Meccano are not for girls.
Breaking barriers
Back in 1906, Alice Perry was the first woman in both Ireland and Great Britain to graduate with a degree in engineering. She graduated from Queen’s College Galway, now NUI Galway, with a first class honours degree in civil engineering.
But due to the gender expectations of the era, she actually began her time at university as an arts student. It was only her incredible academic results in mathematics that convinced her to make the move to engineering.
Perry is considered inspirational by many of today’s female engineers. She took a leap of faith and transferred to a subject that, at the time, was a male-only discipline.
Despite this exceptional benchmark being smashed over 100 years ago, men still significantly outnumber the amount of women studying engineering at university level.
Perhaps more worryingly, even women who are currently working as engineers often acknowledge the gender gap associated with the industry.
Results from the UK Engineering and Manufacturing Census state that 75% of the 300 female engineers surveyed still consider engineering to be a ‘male career’.
Although small in number, there is an army of proud and exceptional female engineers in the UK.
In fact, 98% of female engineers consider their job to be rewarding.
These engineering women have built a strong network of support to praise and encourage women in industry. Launched in 2014, The National Women in Engineering Day (NWED) celebrates the achievements of female engineers across the country.
Similarly, the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) presents the annual Young Woman Engineer Award to acknowledge the work of exceptional female engineers under 35.
Industry awards and increased media coverage have elevated the importance of the ‘female engineer’ to nationally recognised status, helping to encourage ambitious young women to smash through engineering stereotypes once and for all.
