EngineerHer

When I chose “forging new paths” as the tag line for EngineerHer, I thought long and hard about it. It wasn’t just an off-the-cuff thing. In fact, an earlier rendition had “survival to thrival” as the tagline, but it just didn’t work from a practical point of view…

So, what do I mean by “forging new paths”?

The Obvious

OK, there is the obvious. A few years ago, I co-authored a paper on why we don’t have more women engineers in Ireland. While the evidence from the universities and 3rd level institutions in Ireland is getting better, the % of women engineers registered with Engineers Ireland (the professional body in Ireland for engineers) has remained fairly consistent over the last few decades at approx 12%.

So, women are still relatively few and far between in the industry. I’ve spoken in previous posts about the issues this raises, from the basics around toilet availability (something that always strikes a chord with other women engineers) to micro-agressions to so-called “positive” sexism. (Side note: it’s still sexism…)

So, just by being a woman in engineering, we are forging new paths.

The less obvious

Part of the research I’m doing for a paper I’m presenting in May at the TECIS 24 conference in Waterford informed the post I did a few weeks ago on the problem of excellent women engineers. Because so many women engineers are at the top level of engineering, it causes some problems.

Specifically, we need engineers who are experienced, who know what they’re doing, but who don’t want to hit senior leadership at a rate of knots. There is always a need for excellence in the profession. But there is also a need for those who do their jobs. Who offer longevity, consistency and stability for a team as well.

I know, it’s not sexy to say this, but currently we are pretty much ruling out almost half the population. According to the Higher Education Authority in Ireland, there were 256,785 college entrants in Ireland in the 2022/2023 year (latest year I can find numbers for).

Of that 256,785, 32175 (12.5%) entered engineering and of those 32,175, 7,935 were women or non-binary.

Out of 256,785 students, 7,935 were women who wanted to pursue a career in engineering. 3%. (And Trinity, UCD and ATU took almost half of those women. ) But that’s 400 more than the year before…

Before you start wondering about how many women/non-binary people enter 3rd level at all… in this year, 141,445 women entered 3rd level education. (55%)

So it’s not that women don’t want 3rd level education, but there is an issue here with getting women into engineering degrees.

Why do I care?

There a few reasons. First off, engineering is a massively rewarding career. I think by having so few women engaging in even the idea of engineering as a career, we are failing women. (OK, I’m writing this after a weekend when I didn’t get a call from work, so I may be feeling more positive than usual, but even on my worst days in work, I recognise it usually is a rewarding and fulfilling career.)

Second of all, we can’t afford, as a global society, to have half of humanity working on the solutions. Engineers are going to be at the forefront of solutions for the energy crisis, homelessness, food, education, etc, etc, etc. All of the big issues facing society, engineers will be heavily involved in solving.

Thirdly, when we leave out half of humanity from the solutions, we end up solutions that don’t suit the other half of the population. If you haven’t read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez, I strongly recommend to read it. It certainly opened my eyes!

Forging New Paths

In my life time, I want women engineers to be normal. I want to not have people go “oh wow, go you” when I tell them I’m an engineer. I want it to be as much a part of the normal career discussion for girls of all academic levels as it is for boys.

To do that? We need to forge new paths. As individuals and as groups. And that’s what I want to help people with. Even as women engineers in the current workplace, we’re forging our own paths. Almost all of us.

It’s not easy, and while I’d love to suggest that everything I write about is in the past, I know it isn’t. And as long as women are in the minority in the engineering workplace, these issues will continue to persist.

Now, I’ve said before and I’ll say again, that while I won’t pretend to know everything about careers in engineering for women, over 20+ years in industry, there isn’t much I haven’t come across. Either through my own experience (and honestly, I think a lot of what I describe sometimes in my own experience, people don’t believe) or through helping others figure out their way forward.

This is what it’s about. For me, EngineerHer is about supporting other women in engineering. It’s about helping those who are currently experiencing some of the situations I’ve experienced before. It’s about making sure that every woman in engineering can forge her own path and her own career.

I know it might seem a lot of the time like you’re on your own. You’re not. I promise. There are people out there willing to help. And if you know no one around you, reach out to me here!