The Gender Gap: The most pressing structural engineering problem

The Gender Gap: The most pressing structural engineering problem

By Julia Hines, Chemical Engineering, 2021

In 1950, when Mary Pottle and three other women started the Society of Women Engineers chapter in Boston, gender discrimination in engineering was rampant. Mary Pottle herself was told that her application from MIT was denied because “[her] goal in teaching was not sufficient to bump a man from the role.” She decided to go to Northeastern University instead and was able to graduate as one of the first few women with a Mechanical Engineering degree. At this point, women accounted for less than one percent of the students in US college engineering programs.

The Chemical Engineering department at Northeastern recently announced that their incoming class was 50 percent female. This huge improvement from Mary Pottle’s time reminds us that we have come very far. However, according to the Society of Women Engineers ongoing research, women are still facing disadvantages that prevent them from being equally as successful as their male counterparts.

The Chemical Engineering department at Northeastern recently announced that their incoming class was 50 percent female… However, according to the Society of Women Engineers ongoing research, women are still facing disadvantages.

The US continues to be one of the only developed countries to not mandate paid maternity leave. This in addition to the fact that women often receive a pay decrease when they have a child, whereas a man receives a pay bump, creates a general culture of frustration for all working women. The rate of women joining the workforce across all fields is declining due to these hardships. However, in the male-dominated world of engineering, they have to face even more barriers preventing them from success. In a survey by the Society of Women Engineers, a respondent said that she felt “diversity is not being embraced in a meaningful way.” These sentiments are echoed throughout the engineering field where women haven’t seen representation progress since 2001. As of 2018, only 13 percent of engineers in the workforce are female.

Structural issues are also a huge barrier to female success. Only 11.5 percent of engineering managerial positions are held by women as of 2019. When there are no role models or allies in leading positions, women either lose hope or are simply not brought into managerial positions. There are multiple ways in which structurally, the system is set up to disadvantage women. Listing just a few: lack of paid maternity leave, lack of affordable child care, a wage gap between men and women in the same roles, and the culture around sexual assault. For progress to be seen in the engineering field, structural changes need to be made.

Only 11.5 percent of engineering managerial positions are held by women as of 2019. When there are no role models or allies in leading positions, women either lose hope or are simply not brought into managerial positions.

Fortunately, many initiatives have been started to kickstart this change. Groups like the Society of Women Engineers and IEEE Women in Engineering allow for women to find peers and mentors. In addition, many local STEM initiatives target middle and high school girls, such as Northeastern’s student-run organization Bits & Bots and its service-learning robotics Cornerstone of Engineering class. These have seen progress, but it is slow. International programs have also seen success; the UN program STEM and Gender Advancement has provided students worldwide with materials and opportunities to explore science and technology. Despite the great work of these organizations, a stigma and culture favoring men in the engineering sector still exists that can be hard to ignore as a woman starting her career.

Recently, engineering co-op classes at Northeastern have added lessons on microaggressions and bias. These lessons are able to educate new workers entering the workforce on the issue of implicit biases, but there is still a large population of older workers that have kept their ideals and attitudes outdated. Although a hard task, for this gender gap and discrimination to stop, the structure and culture of the engineering field needs to change completely. With the stagnation of improvement since 2001, the new local and international initiatives will hopefully start making a statistical difference soon.