A recent report from Ofsted, as published by the Press Association has found that not enough is being done to encourage young women to challenge workplace stereotypes and enter careers such as construction or engineering. It found that of the 200 females, questioned only 7 considered entering the engineering profession – a mere 3.5%.
I wonder why? Ofsted conclusions were that the career advice given to young women was “weak” and that from an early age, the girls surveyed had held conventionally stereotypical views about jobs for men and women.
We really need to do something to change this and encourage women into the profession. Interestingly, when I was searching for a photo to accompany this blog entry, simply typing ‘engineering’ into photo libraries almost all the photos with people in showed men. In fact, I couldn’t find a royalty-free photo depicting a woman engineer. Maybe we all need to do something to change this idea that engineering is purely for the boys.
But it’s not all bad news. For the first time in its 50Â year history The Engineering Council has appointed a female engineer as its President. Our congratulations go to Professor Helen Atkinson. And also, The Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award for 2011 has been won by engineer Michelle McDowell, who runs BDP’s civil and structural engineering business. Here’s the announcement in The Telegraph.
At LCM Systems one of our longest serving engineers is female – maybe I’ll presuade her to do a guest blog and she can talk about why she chose engineering and what constitutes a typical day.
Are you a woman in engineering? Let us know why you think there are not more of you out there.
