EngineerHer

I was speaking to a friend of mine the other day to mention I had started this blog and she said I was being very brave. I got a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach. Then my boss liked my post on LinkedIn. Similar feeling. Then I noticed a few friends signing up to my email list. Oh there we go again.

What’s going on?

Well, on the one hand, I want to post about my experiences and hopefully help other people to not make the same mistakes I did. On the other hand, the notion of people, who exist in real life, taking notice of me doing this, is… scary.

Plus, there is almost a code among female engineers. That we don’t share the bad stuff. In my last post, when I spoke about various ways sexism shows up in the workplace or the “hidden” reasons women leave the profession? Every item on there has been experienced by me or by a good friend of mine. And we talk – quietly, not usually raising a fuss, but passing on information to people we know.

We don’t usually start blogs about things. But when companies want to know how to attract more female engineering staff? Well this is the sort of thing they need to know.

And it was only when I started in my current place of work that I realised I was able to have some of these conversations in public.

But the fear…

The fear is real, people. To a certain extent, no one is really anonymous anymore and I can be fairly easily tracked down on the internet. Of course, I’m also lucky enough to live in Ireland so threats of SWAT raids and doxxing don’t matter as much really. And there are fewer guns per head of population here than elsewhere in the world, along with some regulation around who might own them.

What I’m afraid of is social pushback. There will be loads of female engineers out there saying they’ve never experienced any sort of barriers or obstacles to their career so therefore it must be something I’m doing or my friends are doing. (We are a fairly intolerant bunch when it comes to certain things to be fair…)

The way women in engineering deal with the obstacles facing them is an interesting one. There’s a really interesting paper on the topic from the UK, by Yates and Skinner, called “How do female engineers conceptualise career advancement in engineering: a template analysis“. (Yes, aside from writing blogs on these topics, I do like reading up on academic studies as well…)

“The study has highlighted the structural barriers that these engineers have faced during their careers, showing that it is more difficult for women to develop the career competencies that lead to career success and more difficult for them to convince senior managers of their competence and motivation“

Yates, J. and Skinner, S., 2021. How do female engineers conceptualise career advancement in engineering: a template analysis. Career Development International, 26(5), pp.697-719.

There are still structural barriers facing female engineers, which is why I’m writing this blog. But this quote is also interesting:

“… we identified a series of counter-narratives that the women seemed to deploy to allow them to accept the situation, reframing the behaviour they witnessed as less than sexist.”

Yates, J. and Skinner, S., 2021. How do female engineers conceptualise career advancement in engineering: a template analysis. Career Development International, 26(5), pp.697-719.

Even when we do experience sexism in the workplace, we do our best to show why it’s not really sexism. It’s circumstance. It’s skillset. Lack of competence. Exposure. That project that went wrong…

What do we do?

First off, we stop blaming ourselves for other people’s sexist behaviour. Seriously, this is hugely important.

Second, we start sharing these experiences openly, so that we can share examples of sexist behaviour and highlight to people (not just men) when they are acting in a sexist manner.

Thirdly, we be brave. Those of us who can be. If you have gotten through college, gotten a job in an engineering position and are still there after 5 yrs? You’ve beaten a lot of that leaky pipeline. You’re good at what you do. You have to be!

We stop tolerating being made less and start just saying “fuck it” What’s the worst that can happen? If you’re Irish, the job market is hopping right now. If you’re not – you deserve better and there are places that will support female engineers, recognising promotion has to come on merit, but also that female merit isn’t always seen the same as male merit…

We stand up. We talk about the situations we all deal with. We share our knowledge with the younger generations. We make the world a better place. (Yeah, there’s a massive idealistic streak running through me as well, for all my cynicism)