Mary Anderson, Grace Hopper, Mary Engle Pennington, Lillian Gilbreth. Not exactly household names.
On the other hand, windscreen wipers, computer compilers, refrigeration of food and electric food-mixers are part of our day-to-day lives. These were the inventions of Anderson, Hopper, Pennington and Gilbreth, all of whom were engineers and scientists.
Australia now has the highest number of female high school students pursuing and excelling in maths and science and boasts the highest number of female tertiary graduates over the last decade. So, where are today’s Grace Hoppers and Lillian Gilbreths?
Engineers Australia recently conducted a comprehensive survey of the profession and found that although there is a persistent shortage of engineering skills nationwide, 70% of Australia’s new engineers come from skilled migration. A major contributing factor is that engineering has remained heavily male-dominated, and hence domestic recruitment is constrained to half the population.
The retention of female engineers is an acute challenge. The survey indicated that female engineers are treated differently to male engineers, starting with a gender pay gap and extending to a range of issues that fall under standard job expectations, including opportunities for promotion and level of responsibility, workplace conditions and culture. The survey reports that: “Workplace culture continues to be a troubling issue; while three-quarters of men and women described their workplaces as supportive and collaborative, the prevalence of sexual harassment, discrimination and bullying were at least as high, if not higher, than benchmark statistics for the wider community.”
This, however, is not a doom and gloom story. It’s a wake-up call and Engineers Australia certainly sees it that way.
Encouraging cultural change
There is a clear recognition that cultural change needs to be addressed by the engineering profession as a matter of priority, in order to increase the retention of both men and women in engineering. There is also a necessity to provide convincing evidence for young women that engineering is a genuinely viable career option for them in today’s society.
Engineers Australia and industry partners support Women in Engineering groups around the country. Companies such as Worley Parsons have a Diversity and Inclusion Council to address issues such as gender bias and are making a concerted effort to ensure gender equality in salary and professional development.
Young Australian of the Year Marita Cheng is championing the way for female high school students through her organisation, Robogals. In four years Robogals has taught robotics to over 8000 aspiring female engineers. There are role models in Lizzie Brown, CEO of Engineers Without Borders, and Bronwyn Evans, senior vice-president of Cochlear and non-executive director at John Holland, along with numerous other Australian women who are forging paths in the profession and reaching out to mentor women coming up the ranks.
These are all positive steps. But what is the long-term, sustainable solution to real change?
Let’s examine the following situation: In today’s world millions of girls are being denied the right to education for reasons that revolve around gender and cultural bias. In fact, this morning, 334 million girls, all under the age of 17, woke up and didn’t go to school. Organisations like Room to Read are working effectively to change this statistic and ensure that girls are being given an equal opportunity to attend and complete high school.
Let men join the gender conversation
Part of their secret sauce of success is inclusion. Communities with patriarchal leadership and strong cultural beliefs around the role of women have been engaged and included in the conversation, educated on the benefits of investing in their daughters and have been asked to help drive the solution. The results have been phenomenal. Previously ingrained biases have lifted and communities led by men are now accepting female co-leadership and actively encouraging the potential of their daughters. This is sustainable, systemic change as history is re-written in a single generation.
The same principle can be extrapolated to the engineering profession. Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, is an advocate of including men in the gender conversation. Male engineers need to assist in devising and advocating the solution, in understanding unconscious bias and its impact, and the benefits that they too will gain if the profession actively promotes and practises diversity and inclusion.
The identification of the challenges that female engineers currently face provides an opportunity for a turning point in the engineering profession. It’s important that aspiring engineers are not scared off by current statistics and instead remain true to their love of science, knowing that the engineering profession is committed to positive change.
So, if you have a daughter who is passionate about maths and science, encourage her to pursue engineering and connect her with female engineers currently in the industry. You never know, the next Mary Anderson or Marita Cheng might just be your daughter.