The Present
PhDs on Gender in Engineering
Sally Male
In 2003 at Curtin University of Technology, Lesley Newhouse-Maiden and Elizabeth Godfrey were presented with PhD awards for studies about gender in engineering.
Lesley Newhouse-Maiden: Life Career Histories of Women Engineers – A Socialist Feminist Perspective
Lesley Newhouse-Maiden is Lecturer in Education at Edith Cowan University and currently involved in a new post-graduate diploma of education to prepare students for teaching adolescents in the middle years. Her areas of special interest have been in gifted education, especially in regard to gender equity, and the hindrances to the careers of girls and women in reaching their potential especially in non-traditional fields of study.
Lesley’s PhD followed the life-career histories of 53 female engineering students. “..I chose to study their past career (family, school days and interests), present career (university and first postings) and to gain a progressive insight into their future career aspirations and expectation of the next stage [to address] the lack of such life-span life-space research on the early careers of women in engineering.”, said Lesley. At the start of the study in 1992 and 1993, the engineering students included in the study were first years, final year students, students who had just graduated and postgraduate students. The study continued for seven years from 1992 to 1998, tracking 26 women from first year right through to their first years of graduate employment as engineers, including investigation into pre-university years. In the case of one of the students, Lesley investigated the life-career story from 1974 to 1999.
Lesley noted that the women who chose to study engineering were intelligent and determined to succeed. She said: “The talent of women in the Arts and sciences, their breadth of accomplishments in hobbies, sports, performing arts, and in engineering, was extraordinary.”
On graduation the women found a wide range of employment and higher education options available to them. Problems arose due to difficulties coming mostly from their male colleagues. The women found it necessary to mask their feminine side in order to be accepted as engineers. This finding is consistent with Elizabeth Godfrey’s findings in the education environment [see abstract quotation following]. Lesley found that some of the women experienced unbelievable harassment. This is consistent with the IEAust Careers Review of Engineering Women (CREW) Project, conducted in 2000, which found that 36% of women reported discrimination, 27% of women reported sexual harassment and 50% of female respondents reported that they had experienced sexual harassment and/or discrimination. Lesley said that the women had to be tough - an observation also made by Doreen Thomas [see article in this issue]. Lesley noted that a few employers had good policies that assisted the women to gain deserved career advancement.
Lesley’s study intentionally
investigated the early careers of women in engineering. As an engineer reading
her thesis I cannot resist wondering about the experiences
the young women will encounter in their thirties. The CREW Project found
indication that women engineers over thirty are leaving the profession. Many
women surveyed in the CREW Project reported that having children reduced their
opportunities for interesting work and promotion because it was assumed that
the women were no longer committed to their careers.
What advice does Lesley’s work provide for women in engineering and for engineering employers? Lesley noted that women who succeeded usually had mentors – male and/or female and developed strong networks. A good way of gaining support and learning from the success of other female engineers is to join the Women in Engineering Panel of the Institution of Engineers, Australia. Many of the women chose not to join because they believed they would succeed on merit alone. Lesley’s study provides further justification for the engineering diversity investigation at the University of South Australia, for which an ARC grant has been awarded [see article in this issue].
Lesley Newhouse-Maiden’s PhD thesis
is available at:
http://adt.curtin.edu.au/theses/available/adt-WCU20040211.122806/
Elizabeth Godfrey: The Culture of Engineering Education and its Interaction with Gender: A Case Study of a New Zealand University
Elizabeth Godfrey, Associate Dean, Undergraduate, at Auckland University, New Zealand, was awarded a PhD by Curtin for her study focussing on the culture of engineering education. The following is quoted from the thesis abstract, which is available on the Curtin website at
http://adt.curtin.edu.au/theses/available/adt-WCU20040105.130533/
The goal of the study was to define the dimensions of the culture and the associated processes of enculturation, highlighting the interactions of these with gender. ..[Questions] were addressed through an interpretive case study undertaken at multidisciplinary School of Engineering in a New Zealand University…
This research exposed the masculinity of the basic beliefs and assumptions at the core of the disciplinary culture, revealing the source of enduring cultural norms and their manifestations in behaviours and practices. Diverse forms of masculinity were evident, especially within subdisciplinary subcultures, but all were constructed in opposition to perceptions of femininity.
Participants in the study (whether male, female, students or staff) perceived women in engineering as different, not only to men, but to other women. The women students appeared to construct for themselves a dual identity. They selectively incorporated in this identity both stereotypically masculine and stereotypically feminine qualities, in accordance with their perceptions of simultaneously “doing woman” and “doing engineer”.
The theoretical significance of this study lies in its provision of an accessible framework for cultural analysis by engineering educators and equity advocates. The framework facilitates exposure of the source of observable behaviours and practices in the unconsciously held beliefs and assumptions at the core of the culture of an institution or discipline. The practical significance lies in its potential to provide a base for developing strategies for cultural change advantageous to the participation of women.
The findings of this thesis strongly suggest that such strategies must focus on disrupting the current dualities in language and discourse which implicitly construct women as different, deficient and therefore disadvantaged in engineering education. In particular strategies need to expose behaviours and practices to critical reflection by staff and students, making explicit the values and assumptions which underpin them. Further, while maintaining those features which are the strength of engineering education, there is a need to also include and value ways of knowing and learning styles from outside the current disciplinary and gendered boundaries.