Engineering Women in Engineering and Computer Science

[I'm Awesome]

As a girl I worry about going into an engineering field. I'm concerned about job prospects for women or discrimination in the work place. I also worry that it might be strange to be a minority in a class of mostly men. I’d like to hear what some girls think if there’s any on here that know about this.
I’d like to hear what guys think about this too though.
I think I’d be interested in going into something like computer engineering, computer science or robotics.

 

[MathWarrior]

I’d like to hear what guys think about this too though.

I think their needs to be more girls in engineering, computer science, and mathematics. My classes in the university are mostly male. So it wouldn't surprise me if their is some discrimination going on.

 

[MECHster]

I think their needs to be more girls in engineering, computer science, and mathematics. My classes in the university are mostly male. So it wouldn't surprise me if their is some discrimination going on.

Just because your classes are mostly male doesn't mean there is discrimination "going on". From what I've heard it's easier to get into technical programs (undergrad) as a minority, in order to balance out the scales as much as possible. In terms of the work place, I have no idea but I think there was a thread about it in either the career guidance or academic guidance section not too long ago.

 

[chiro]

As a girl I worry about going into an engineering field. I'm concerned about job prospects for women or discrimination in the work place. I also worry that it might be strange to be a minority in a class of mostly men. I’d like to hear what some girls think if there’s any on here that know about this.
I’d like to hear what guys think about this too though.
I think I’d be interested in going into something like computer engineering, computer science or robotics.

Here in Australia, there is a huge push to get women in engineering, computer science, mathematics/statistics as well as some of the sciences not including biology and maybe chemistry.

They have scholarships which are quite lucrative as well for this at least where I live.

I don't know about the discrimination issue, but I imagine if you go to a decent company and show that you can do what you're hired to do, then you'll end up getting treated with the respect you deserve.

There are a lot of idiot males out there that laugh when they hear a women doing a 'man's' job, but that's not representative of the whole.

But yeah for classes, I imagine it would be tough considering the ratio and handling this might be a tough thing, but again at least in my country they do have support systems for women in doing these kinds of fields so you could always talk to these people and if you decide to do it and need to just talk to someone, you could do that.

My personal opinion is we need more women in these fields, and I am finding that slowly things are starting to even out more compared to say 50 (maybe even less!) years ago with the gender mix.

 

[member 392791]

I think men just get defensive when there's a woman smarter than them in their presence. I for one love women smarter than me and I actively try to attract them because I know they'll be more successful than me :D

I'm a male gold digger! =)

 

[/flûks/]

As a female in physics, I am definitely a minority, but I don't really feel strange about it, nor have I ever felt like I was being discriminated against. As previous posters said, there are many useful resources for us, from scholarships and REUs to student organizations and clubs to retain women in STEM fields. I say go for what interests you, and don't let anyone stop you (especially yourself).

 

[OldEngr63]

Women get a lot of advantages in terms of hiring, to fill quotas, etc. Whether they feel strange or not is largely up to them. If they can deal with being the only female among a large group of men all day long every day, then they will do just fine. If they find that they have to socialize with the secretaries, this will usually hurt them. I have personally taught a number of women engineers who went on to very successful industrial careers in a wide variety of industries across the country. They were all highly capable, completely competent, relaxed, and able to hold their own in a discussion with any other engineer. I think this was the key to their success.

 

[ParticleGrl]

As a phd in physics, I can say that being a woman in science/engineering can be very difficult. The STEM support groups are there for a reason. Ultimately, your best bet is to find a mentor in your desired field and ask them questions (SWE can help you out here if you have a local chapter, you should contact them). Many of the people who give advice on a message board might have no first hand experience with a topic but decide to weigh in anyway :)

Discrimination can, and certainly does happen both overt and covert, at least in academic physics. A PI for a postdoc told me flat out that if I was planning to have kids in the next few years (I'm in my early 30s) I was wasting his time and shouldn't bother with the position. I doubt men get told this.

 

[jk]

In the larger companies I have worked at as a programmer, there is very little, if any, preferential treatment for women. All that the company cares about is that you can do the job, male or female.

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

Honestly, I haven't seen anything that looked like overt or even subversive discrimination of women in engineering. I think too many women start this field, and then drop out for a variety of reasons that have little to do with the practice of engineering, and everything to do with finding something they enjoy more.

Heavy industry technical challenges (not just engineering, but also the technical and trade work) appeal to many men for much of the same reason that it appeals to boys. It's big, dirty, noisy, and potentially dangerous. This is exactly the sort of thing that turns off most women. I know a few women who work on water and waste-water plants. It is routine, dirty, noisy, and dangerous work with approximately 10% women or less on the plant floor. The closer you get to the office, the more likely it is you'll find more women.

I know women with engineering backgrounds, and most tend toward the management side of things as soon as they can get enough experience to legitimately take charge. I know only a very few who stick to the raw engineering side of things for year after year because they like it. Yet I know many men who seem to really enjoy the innovative and creative side of building bigger, smaller, or really efficient things.

Those who suggest that this is cultural miss an important point: I think there may be more to this than meets the eye.

 

[gravenewworld]

There are tons of programs for women in the sciences in engineering. At my undergrad university, they even got preferential treatment---guaranteed on campus housing for all four years.

 

[eri]

As a girl I worry about going into an engineering field. I'm concerned about job prospects for women or discrimination in the work place. I also worry that it might be strange to be a minority in a class of mostly men. I’d like to hear what some girls think if there’s any on here that know about this.
I’d like to hear what guys think about this too though.
I think I’d be interested in going into something like computer engineering, computer science or robotics.

If you want to start somewhere where you won't be a minority, so at least you don't have to worry about discrimination from professors or other students, Smith College is the only women's college (or at least it was a few years ago) with an engineering program, and they also have good computer science and physics departments.

As a female physicist, I've experienced some discrimination, but it's nothing obvious that other people would easily pick up on. Not something a guy might notice he was even doing until it was pointed out to him - things like being assigned to teach only classes for non-majors despite having more experience than the people teaching higher-level classes and being ignored in faculty meetings. While professional organizations often have sessions at major conferences about sexism in the workplace and how to avoid discriminating against women and minorities while serving on hiring and tenure committees, the vast majority of the audience is always women and minorities. The people who need to hear it are the ones who never attend.

 

[jk]

Honestly, I haven't seen anything that looked like overt or even subversive discrimination of women in engineering. I think too many women start this field, and then drop out for a variety of reasons that have little to do with the practice of engineering, and everything to do with finding something they enjoy more.

I wouldn't be so sure. Discrimination is rarely overt these days because of the threat of lawsuits. It is illegal.

Heavy industry technical challenges (not just engineering, but also the technical and trade work) appeal to many men for much of the same reason that it appeals to boys. It's big, dirty, noisy, and potentially dangerous. This is exactly the sort of thing that turns off most women. I know a few women who work on water and waste-water plants. It is routine, dirty, noisy, and dangerous work with approximately 10% women or less on the plant floor. The closer you get to the office, the more likely it is you'll find more women.

If I was a woman of child bearing age interested in having children sometime, I wouldn't work in an environment like that either . However, I wouldn't assume that is the case for most women
In a lot of the "older" engineering fields like civil, mechanical etc..there is a good old boy mentality that is unwelcoming to women. I would expect that would discourage women from continuing in that career path. A hostile work environment can be a form of discrimination.

I know women with engineering backgrounds, and most tend toward the management side of things as soon as they can get enough experience to legitimately take charge. I know only a very few who stick to the raw engineering side of things for year after year because they like it. Yet I know many men who seem to really enjoy the innovative and creative side of building bigger, smaller, or really efficient things.

I think there are many women who enjoy the "innovative and creative side" of building things as well.

Those who suggest that this is cultural miss an important point: I think there may be more to this than meets the eye.

You really should explain your reasoning when you make vague statements like that.

 

[schliere]

In my experience, women get preference to men as far as getting jobs in Engineering. All the girls in my classes I know, even the ones who have sub-par GPA's got snatched up immediately when it came time to look for internships.

 

[OldEngr63]

I once worked an accident investigation with a young woman assisting me (I am a man). When it was time to do the really dirty part of the job, climbing around among the coal dust covered piping that was left after the explosion, there was no question who was going to do that part of the investigation. I had to take two consecutive showers to get even half way clean after that. I think that there was definite discrimination involved in that assignment, but I knew better than to fight it.

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

You really should explain your reasoning when you make vague statements like that.

I knew someone would question me on this. I'm about to write about some ugly realities that still infest our world: Read them if you dare.

Many graduates, men and women, emerge from the university with some really strange ideas of what engineering might be like. The problem is that their teachers are mostly professors and teaching assistants with very little on the job, hands-on, real-world experience.

So here they come, marching into the work-force, thinking that they're going to do all sorts of really high tech supah-geeky gee-whiz math and physics stuff. Right now, there is another thread by a guy who wants to know if we engineers sit in our cubicles all day long and tinker with modeling software.

It's not like that. First, we adhere to the Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS) principle. We want our projects to work the first time, not have to explain why some really ornate gee whiz gadgetry doesn't work. This appalls many recent graduates who seriously thought they would find themselves looking up solutions to differential equations to apply to a specific application. I can count the number of times that has happened over 25 years on my fingertips. Most of us learn rules of thumb to keep things simple and comprehensible.

Note that I'm not saying we never use this math or that it is bad. Those rules of thumb have limits, and it is imperative that the engineer know what those limits are. But all that said, we try to stay within the territory where these rules apply mostly because of the KISS principle.

Second, many recent graduates are either shocked or pleasantly surprised to find themselves working right in the middle of the action. Here's the deal: Rarely do we ever get a clean sheet design. It is always useful to visit the customer's site, interview the technical staff, look at the equipment currently in use, and do a bit of reverse engineering to figure out how things are actually working.

Third, when things start going weird, people will call with questions. You won't be able to help much unless you've at least been there on site enough to know exactly how things are configured.

What this all adds up to is that a lot of engineering work is not and should not be an office sport. The stuff they teach in a university is heavy on theory, and very light on practice.

In a practical sense, you are going to get dirty. You are probably going to see some high energy and potentially hazardous stuff. It's your job to know what the limits of the equipment are, and what is supposed to happen when it breaks. There can be significant stress. The environment may have hidden dangers. Nobody tells you this while you're studying in the university.

Is there discrimination against women? I haven't seen it. If anything, we give the ladies the latitude to opt out of the more physical work, such as climbing a tower or entering an underground vault. Of the women I have known in technical and engineering endeavors, most move on to other things after less than 5 years on the job. Meanwhile their male colleagues continue for a decade or more. Whether this is for biological, social, or perhaps emotional reasons, I don't know.

Allow me to point out that even raising a family isn't an issue in our company. We have the same leave policies for both parents. I took advantage of it for each of my children when they were born, and I do my share of going on field trips with my kids, picking them up when they're sick, and so on. The issue of child rearing today is not all that different for mothers or fathers (at least where I work). Yet, even in an environment like this, we still see a tendency for women to shy away from engineering.

I think there is something about physical, dirty, and potentially hazardous work sites that tends to discourage women and attract men. That's where a lot of engineering happens. I wish I could say exactly what it is that we could change that might attract more women, because I wouldn't mind seeing more balance in a workplace like this.

But those are the facts as I've seen them for the last 25 years. I am the father of two daughters, and a son. My oldest daughter still thinks my work is pretty cool even though she just became a teenager. Of my three children, I think she is most likely to take after me and I would like to see her do it. Nevertheless, I also know that there are some things we simply can't socialize over. There still are differences between men and women. Although we must not discriminate, we'd be fools to pretend that we're exactly alike.

 

[jk]

I knew someone would question me on this. I'm about to write about some ugly realities that still infest our world: Read them if you dare.

Many graduates, men and women, emerge from the university with some really strange ideas of what engineering might be like. The problem is that their teachers are mostly professors and teaching assistants with very little on the job, hands-on, real-world experience.

So here they come, marching into the work-force, thinking that they're going to do all sorts of really high tech supah-geeky gee-whiz math and physics stuff. Right now, there is another thread by a guy who wants to know if we engineers sit in our cubicles all day long and tinker with modeling software.

It's not like that. First, we adhere to the Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS) principle. We want our projects to work the first time, not have to explain why some really ornate gee whiz gadgetry doesn't work. This appalls many recent graduates who seriously thought they would find themselves looking up solutions to differential equations to apply to a specific application. I can count the number of times that has happened over 25 years on my fingertips. Most of us learn rules of thumb to keep things simple and comprehensible.

One should be careful when extrapolating from one's experience. It depends on the job. I can name specific cases where engineers were actually sitting at desks all day designing or tweaking designs. One friend basically spent his first job out of college picking parts out of a catalog. Another friend worked on a factory floor but most of his work was on a computer. A civil engineer friend did work outdoors about half his time but the other half was spent writing reports. Another friend, a control engineer, spends most of his time traveling to various plants around the world supervising the installation and maintenance of control equipment. In a lot of the cases, the hard, dangerous work is done by people who are called technicians.

Note that I'm not saying we never use this math or that it is bad. Those rules of thumb have limits, and it is imperative that the engineer know what those limits are. But all that said, we try to stay within the territory where these rules apply mostly because of the KISS principle.

I would venture to guess that those "rules of thumb" were in some part derived from a more systematic study of the problem.

Second, many recent graduates are either shocked or pleasantly surprised to find themselves working right in the middle of the action. Here's the deal: Rarely do we ever get a clean sheet design. It is always useful to visit the customer's site, interview the technical staff, look at the equipment currently in use, and do a bit of reverse engineering to figure out how things are actually working.

Third, when things start going weird, people will call with questions. You won't be able to help much unless you've at least been there on site enough to know exactly how things are configured.

What this all adds up to is that a lot of engineering work is not and should not be an office sport. The stuff they teach in a university is heavy on theory, and very light on practice.

The idea is to give you a broad enough base on which to build.

In a practical sense, you are going to get dirty. You are probably going to see some high energy and potentially hazardous stuff. It's your job to know what the limits of the equipment are, and what is supposed to happen when it breaks. There can be significant stress. The environment may have hidden dangers. Nobody tells you this while you're studying in the university.

No reason why this can only be done by men

Is there discrimination against women? I haven't seen it. If anything, we give the ladies the latitude to opt out of the more physical work, such as climbing a tower or entering an underground vault. Of the women I have known in technical and engineering endeavors, most move on to other things after less than 5 years on the job. Meanwhile their male colleagues continue for a decade or more. Whether this is for biological, social, or perhaps emotional reasons, I don't know.

If I was a woman, I would find that extremely patronizing.

Allow me to point out that even raising a family isn't an issue in our company. We have the same leave policies for both parents. I took advantage of it for each of my children when they were born, and I do my share of going on field trips with my kids, picking them up when they're sick, and so on. The issue of child rearing today is not all that different for mothers or fathers (at least where I work). Yet, even in an environment like this, we still see a tendency for women to shy away from engineering.

Is it possible that you are confounding cause and effect here? Isn't it just possible that some women shy away from engineering because of not being treated equals by their male peers and supervisors?

I think there is something about physical, dirty, and potentially hazardous work sites that tends to discourage women and attract men. That's where a lot of engineering happens. I wish I could say exactly what it is that we could change that might attract more women, because I wouldn't mind seeing more balance in a workplace like this.

Your argument seems to be based on the assumption that engineering is physical, dirty or dangerous and that women avoid it for those reasons. This would be more convincing to me if women did not gravitate away from the non-physical, non-dirty and non-hazardous parts of engineering. I am not sure that is the case

But those are the facts as I've seen them for the last 25 years. I am the father of two daughters, and a son. My oldest daughter still thinks my work is pretty cool even though she just became a teenager. Of my three children, I think she is most likely to take after me and I would like to see her do it. Nevertheless, I also know that there are some things we simply can't socialize over. There still are differences between men and women. Although we must not discriminate, we'd be fools to pretend that we're exactly alike.

No one is saying that we are exactly alike but no one has proven that the differences, whatever they may be, are sufficient to account for the huge disparity in the number of men and women who make it in engineering. You seem to be making the case that the disparity is due to biology but you never come out and say it so I can not be sure.
It is very hard to separate the effects of socialization and biology. It may not even be possible to complete separate them and say that this part is due to social upbringing and that part due to nature. This is an age-old question.
By the way, the fact that you have daughters does not mean that you don't have preconceived notions. Fathers tend to be more protective of their daughters than their sons in my experience.

 

[jk]

I once worked an accident investigation with a young woman assisting me (I am a man). When it was time to do the really dirty part of the job, climbing around among the coal dust covered piping that was left after the explosion, there was no question who was going to do that part of the investigation. I had to take two consecutive showers to get even half way clean after that. I think that there was definite discrimination involved in that assignment, but I knew better than to fight it.

For every story like yours, I bet I can find a case where a woman working in a technical field was barred from doing something she is capable of because of discrimination.

 

[respect_the_S]

As a guy from a mechanical engineering program, I can say that the few women we had in our classes were treated the same as anyone else. I had been involved in a few group projects with women in the group and nobody ever questioned what parts of the project they should get based on sex. Same goes for the work environments I've been in. The only time a woman gets criticized for incompetence is when they deserve it, but it works the same way for the men too.

People can't avoid unfairness in life, regardless of the context. The successful ones shrug it off and push forward.

check this out too:
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2010/10/eleven_women_with_kettering_un.html

 

[mariexotoni]

there IS discrimination going on. check out the physics today article

 

[lisab]

there IS discrimination going on. check out the physics today article

Linky please?

 

[mariexotoni]

http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v65/i2/p47_s1

 

[chiro]

http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v65/i2/p47_s1

I don't doubt that physics, which the writer of the article implies is a 'male' field to be in has a lot of bias and discrimination which needs to be addressed, but my question to you is this:

When it comes to tenure, promotions, doing talks and all the rest of it, should you treat women exactly the same as you treat men?

The reason for asking this is because if someone was going to choose between and a man and woman where the man was beyond driven working crazy hours in the lab and the woman who is still an extroadinarily hard worker who matches the male in work history, determination and smarts wants to take some time off to have a baby and raise her children, then who would be chosen?

Being the kind of environment that science can be (and in many respects is), the woman would probably lose her opportunities for promotion even in a case where a lot of the bias and discrimination has been removed.

As the article said, many male physicists are married to women who are uneducated or earn lower incomes. I don't know, but it seems to me that the physicists want to work on physics and avoid the kinds of things like spending time to raise children and so forth. I don't want to paint everything with one brush, but does that conjecture make sense?

So in conclusion my question is: should women be treated exactly like men considering the above kind of scenario and if not/why not? I'm interested to hear a woman's perspective on this over a mans because we can only conjecture what women are thinking, but it makes sense to me to just get the answer from the horses mouth (if you aren't familiar with expressions then google that: I'm not calling you a horse!)

 

[mariexotoni]

YES you SHOULD treat women the same.

Say a women physicist has a child with her husband that she didn't want. She's not going to give up the baby because it's her obligation and responsibility. Because she is a RESPONSIBLE, and INTELLIGENT woman, means men in her field have an advantage over her.
Just because a woman carries the baby in her womb, also, doesn't mean that men can just leave their children with the mother like it's not his responsibility, you know?
I think society just sort of created this idea that men can just leave the children with the women. That's just some paradigm, not necessarily right.

So a male physicist, gets his wife pregnant and DOESN'T take responsibility and expects his wife to 'deal with' the child. It's just as much his obligation as it is hers. And he gets certain advantages over a woman who has a child.

and if women are discriminated against in this field, you are just going to push them away from it! we need more women in this field. the paradigm needs to be shifted.

and yes, I'm very biased towards women, since I am one and am in the physics field and particularly annoyed with your question: should women be treated exactly like men?
yes they should.

everyone should just be treated like a person in that field. let their work define what kind of advantages they get.

say that woman in physics with the baby returns to work, making up for everything, and working that many times harder..doing a better job than her male colleagues.. and then the men get MORE benefits, simply for being a male?

do you understand?
sorry this reply is so hastily written

 

[chiro]

YES you SHOULD treat women the same.

Say a women physicist has a child with her husband that she didn't want. She's not going to give up the baby because it's her obligation and responsibility. Because she is a RESPONSIBLE, and INTELLIGENT woman, means men in her field have an advantage over her.
Just because a woman carries the baby in her womb, also, doesn't mean that men can just leave their children with the mother like it's not his responsibility, you know?
I think society just sort of created this idea that men can just leave the children with the women. That's just some paradigm, not necessarily right.

So a male physicist, gets his wife pregnant and DOESN'T take responsibility and expects his wife to 'deal with' the child. It's just as much his obligation as it is hers. And he gets certain advantages over a woman who has a child.

and if women are discriminated against in this field, you are just going to push them away from it! we need more women in this field. the paradigm needs to be shifted.

and yes, I'm very biased towards women, since I am one and am in the physics field and particularly annoyed with your question: should women be treated exactly like men?
yes they should.

everyone should just be treated like a person in that field. let their work define what kind of advantages they get.

say that woman in physics with the baby returns to work, making up for everything, and working that many times harder..doing a better job than her male colleagues.. and then the men get MORE benefits, simply for being a male?

do you understand?
sorry this reply is so hastily written

The above was not to do with the fact that the woman had a child: it's got more to do the with the fact that this activity will affect her work.

It's like a business being in the situation where an employee gets injured at work and gets a lot of time off, but the employer has to pay for the benefits as well as the extra wages for the new guy that replaced them.

The employer in the above situation would if they could just get on with what they do and hire someone new.

Just as this situation has come into the radar of small and large businesses, so too I imagine will the whole maternity and other related issues in the scientific sector and maternity issues are starting to be dealt out of force especially by big companies.

It's not because your a women, it's simply because with all things weighed together, the other scientist with more dedication to their work and probably with things that are based on luck are going to prevail.

This is the real world: this is what happens. It's going to depend ultimately on the kind of job, the culture and environment of the workplace (and possibly industry as a whole) as well as on the existing policies, but it's not really hard to understand in terms of the employers bottom line why this happens to both men and women.

Politically though this kind of thing is paraded every chance that a business or government department can get for publiuc brownie points in terms of hiring people with disabilities or loudly saying about all the maternity, paternity, and other benefits that a company produces but at the end of the day if it hits them too hard they will find a way to make it go away.

I would imagine that if the male physicist ended up a situation that greatly affected his work and 10 people who are just as capable and just as hard working where in the mix, the guy would lose out if you take all the random crap that goes into selecting applicants.

But having said the above, it would be foolish to deny that discrimination still exists between men and women but even then you need to consider what the employer/grant funder/person who makes hiring decision has to do.

 

[mariexotoni]

consider the women in physics who don't have a child. never had and never will. yet, they don't get treated equally.

and yes, i know you were referring to the activity. that's why i included male physicists who have children- that they shouldn't be leaving it with the wife just because he's dumping off responsibility to fulfill work responsibilities.

if a male has a child, they should put JUST as much effort and time into the child as the mother. it's just as much his responsibility as it is hers.

 

[mariexotoni]

that is the kind of environment we are in now- to dump the child responsibilities off on the mother. a paradigm has to occur.

 

[mariexotoni]

women, or any worker shouldn't get discriminated against based on gender, race, or sexual orientation. they shouldn't get any less benefits than.. the white male. UNLESS, they are NOT fulfilling with the employer wants as well.

it's wrong that there is an assumption that women will be "less" dedicated to their work.

i think we're in a new kind of environment where women are now apart of the work field where it use to be dominated by men. we need a new approach to things.

 

[chiro]

You know mariexotoni, it's the people like you who face discrimination and do something about it that change the system. I am male but I am not a physicist so not only do I not understand the discrimination, I don't understand the context either.

In terms of the child issue, I think you are right in that this kind of phenomenon is very wide spread and not just for male father physicists. It has been a staple in many cultures that the wife/mother looks after the kids while the husband/father does not. This is not an issue with physics or even with employment or hiring but something much more far reaching: it's a social issue that concerns a lot more people.

Also I'm not saying anything about women: all I'm doing is offering my suggestion of how an employer would see a situation even if he had biases or incentives to discriminate either in favor or not in favor of women being hired.

Also you have to remember that a hundred years ago (even less) slaves (particularly black) were still legal in the United States (and even here in Australia: we did some nasty things here as well with the Indigenous Australians) so it's not surprising that we still have a long way to go in terms of discrimination.

But I would encourage you to do something about it if you feel so strongly the urge to do so: get people aware of the issue, document it with facts, be willing to listen to both sides of the argument in a fair manner and after all this supply your suggestions.

People will take you much more seriously (even the people that are going to be completely biased against you from the start) if you do the above. If you don't provide reasonable, firm, and fair suggestions for solutions then no-one will take you seriously.

 

[mariexotoni]

fair :)

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

i think we're in a new kind of environment where women are now apart of the work field where it use to be dominated by men. we need a new approach to things.

I need to point out that the study of Physics is not unique in this regard. There are many fields where, although they're making inroads, women are encountering resistance from other quarters. We still have a societal issue with how we raise families. We still have issues dealing with how we handle the birth of a child.

It is worth recognizing that some endeavors are so difficult that only single people without the need to support a family can participate. People who consistently put in 80+ hour weeks are not well suited to raise children (some may actually manage to make it work, but they are few and far between).

The culture of many fields, physics being one of them, is that sometimes you do have to put in these long hours to make things go. Engineering is another such field. The military is yet another. I don't think it is the physical demands as they are mentally demanding of attention and time.

Our society does not have the cultural support for women who put in this kind of effort. Those who do succeed are usually not mothers. I would be curious if there are any studies that show some metrics of fatherhood and compare them to the "successful" men who make it big in endeavors such as I outlined above.

We have social, and honestly, biological issues. Men remain fertile longer than women. The ability to get ahead and then coast in a career while starting a family works better for men than it does for women. This is a problem that I do not believe legislation alone can fix.

 

[sweetpotato]

I'm a female engineer in an area that often involves high voltages, hands-on dirty work and days of physical labor. Sometimes I have trouble lifting a heavy object by myself and ask a male colleague to help. Equally often, a male colleague who is old and has poor eyesight asks me to decipher a tiny part number for him. Or, a male colleague who has bad knees or a bad back or is overweight can't physically do what I can. Sometimes I get tired during work and need to take a break. Sometimes my male colleague who has diabetes needs to take a break to measure his blood sugar and inject insulin. Everyone has physical and emotional limitations, not just women. To imply otherwise is one of the ways discrimination gets perpetuated.

 

[NewtonianAlch]

I have nothing against women in engineering or anything technological field for that matter, I don't think your gender, race or religious views have anything to do with what is required of you. However I think it's a humongous joke that there are schemes that go out of their way to enlist more women into the field. What do we need to do that for? If someone wants to do it, then let them do it. I don't see why we need to attract a specific [race/gender/religion] to a certain field.

Discrimination can work both ways, like some people have mentioned in here. Now with some of these ******** laws in Australia requiring no discrimination, having worked in labour jobs, I find there are women who are on the job by virtue of the law that workplaces somehow need to integrate women. So the pay-rate is essentially the same, except as one can guess, it's generally the men who get stuck with the difficult jobs. Digging? No worries, you'll see 5 men around a hole digging away, whilst 2 women are at the opposite ends holding stop-go signs.

There's nothing wrong with hard work, but this is just a laughable scenario, add some practical jokes to it and it could be a comedy show. When I worked in a warehouse, it'd always be the guys who'd be assigned to do all the heavy-lifting, wrapping, manual handling. I don't care at all, I love doing it, but why should I be paid the same amount as someone else who is doing the easier work because they can't physically do the other stuff, but is there because the law allows them? If I were a manager, I'd definitely assign the men to do it as well, because it's not in my character to telling women to do the heavy-lifting and letting the men do whatever else, but it's not actually fair play.

Of course the workplace can ask a woman to do the same thing, but what's going to happen? Someone's going to get injured, there will be lawsuits, investigations, and the workplace will be fined for having a rubbish risk-assessment for allocating someone who couldn't do the work to do it despite them not being allowed to reject a woman who applied to do the work, even though she can't do it.

It applies increasingly in many different work environments, and it's largely because society is sexually confused, people can't seem to recognise there are things both genders can and can't do. In the sciences, this doesn't matter as much or at all because engineers and scientists rarely have to go around doing things that require tremendous manual labour; that's what labourers are there for.

 

[NewtonianAlch]

For every story like yours, I bet I can find a case where a woman working in a technical field was barred from doing something she is capable of because of discrimination.

And the point of this is? Discrimination works both ways. Also I'd like to see some examples of what you mean.

 

[NewtonianAlch]

I'm a female engineer in an area that often involves high voltages, hands-on dirty work and days of physical labor. Sometimes I have trouble lifting a heavy object by myself and ask a male colleague to help. Equally often, a male colleague who is old and has poor eyesight asks me to decipher a tiny part number for him. Or, a male colleague who has bad knees or a bad back or is overweight can't physically do what I can. Sometimes I get tired during work and need to take a break. Sometimes my male colleague who has diabetes needs to take a break to measure his blood sugar and inject insulin. Everyone has physical and emotional limitations, not just women. To imply otherwise is one of the ways discrimination gets perpetuated.

I'm very interested to know as to what kind of "heavy objects" you're referring to here, specifically the weight of these objects and what is the "dirty work" and "days of physical labour"? It's good to know these things in its entirety because a lot of this is ambiguous and is dependent on the individual.

 

[lisab]

I'm very interested to know as to what kind of "heavy objects" you're referring to here, specifically the weight of these objects and what is the "dirty work" and "days of physical labour"? It's good to know these things in its entirety because a lot of this is ambiguous and is dependent on the individual.

Why does it matter what the objects are? The things sweetpotato mentioned are found in many work environments.

My last job sometimes involved maneuvering large rolls of paper into band saws. How heavy were they? Well, some of the stronger men could move them around if they really tried, but most couldn't budge them. The environment was dirty, greasy, hot, and dusty. No one of either gender particularly enjoyed that part of it. And why were we wrestling huge paper rolls? Because the rolls had to be a certain size to fit into the prototype treater we used in R&D. Running prototype equipment is a big part of R&D, doing projects frequently took weeks and weeks to complete, and often required significant physical labor.

 

[sweetpotato]

The "heavy objects"- for example, we use these DC power supplies that are about 50-60 lbs. No, there's no way I can lift that over my head.

The "hours of physical labor" refers to wiring and installing items such as these DC power supplies for 8+ hours a day when the workflow of the company requires it and the technicians who are primarily in charge of doing this are too busy.

The "dirty work" refers to working on old equipment covered with dust and mouse droppings, being in contact with grease, sawdust, glue, crawling into small dirty spaces (behind equipment), lying down on the floor wiring and installing equipment.

 

[NewtonianAlch]

Why does it matter what the objects are? The things sweetpotato mentioned are found in many work environments.

My last job sometimes involved maneuvering large rolls of paper into band saws. How heavy were they? Well, some of the stronger men could move them around if they really tried, but most couldn't budge them. The environment was dirty, greasy, hot, and dusty. No one of either gender particularly enjoyed that part of it. And why were we wrestling huge paper rolls? Because the rolls had to be a certain size to fit into the prototype treater we used in R&D. Running prototype equipment is a big part of R&D, doing projects frequently took weeks and weeks to complete, and often required significant physical labor.

It matters because what is heavy for some may not be for others, also depending on the country, and almost all of EU, the USA and Australia requires that for "heavy" objects, either it's a team-lift or people use tools to maneuver them. No, I really want to know, I don't take people's word for things when they claim it's [whatever]. Surely "heavy" should have some kind of quantity attributed to it.

"Heavy" here is generally any object that's > 20kg, or some unusual size or shape that is considered to be difficult to maneuver.

So when someone from one of these countries claims there were items that were ridiculously heavy but required in the workplace to be moved around, I question the details of this. 1) because companies are unlikely to allow the practice to continue for lengthy periods of times, 2) people generally slack off.

So how heavy was it?

 

[sweetpotato]

It matters because what is heavy for some may not be for others, also depending on the country, and almost all of EU, the USA and Australia requires that for "heavy" objects, either it's a team-lift or people use tools to maneuver them. No, I really want to know, I don't take people's word for things when they claim it's [whatever]. Surely "heavy" should have some kind of quantity attributed to it.

"Heavy" here is generally any object that's > 20kg, or some unusual size or shape that is considered to be difficult to maneuver.

So when someone from one of these countries claims there were items that were ridiculously heavy but required in the workplace to be moved around, I question the details of this. 1) because companies are unlikely to allow the practice to continue for lengthy periods of times, 2) people generally slack off.

So how heavy was it?

I answered your question above.

However- just because a company should disallow certain practices or conditions doesn't mean they do. Even if they are "illegal". Regulation agencies such as OSHA don't come in every day checking up on workplace conditions and practices.

 

[NewtonianAlch]

The "heavy objects"- for example, we use these DC power supplies that are about 50-60 lbs. No, there's no way I can lift that over my head.

The "hours of physical labor" refers to wiring and installing items such as these DC power supplies for 8+ hours a day when the workflow of the company requires it and the technicians who are primarily in charge of doing this are too busy.

The "dirty work" refers to working on old equipment covered with dust and mouse droppings, being in contact with grease, sawdust, glue, crawling into small dirty spaces (behind equipment), lying down on the floor wiring and installing equipment.

50-60 lbs is not even a remotely heavy load, although by definition at a work place, it would be considered a "heavy" load and as such there are either tools required to maneuver them or several people to do it.

I don't mean to be rude, but oh boohoo, dusty, mouse droppings and greasy? If someone wants to do the work, I think they should not complain about it. I know it's not just me, as most of the work I do or have done in the past involves this kind of stuff, as it's our bread and butter, and I've never encountered any of the guys I work with complaining about it. If we're there for work, and we know what it entails, there's no whinging to tolerate, you get on with it. Triceps hurting? Tough, deal with it. Something's really too heavy, then use a tool or get others to lift it with you.

I frankly don't find any of the things you've mentioned even remotely overboard or difficult, and for me (and perhaps many others) it would seem like something that's welcoming. It's probably the reason why you see mainly men in jobs like the mechanic trade.

 

[NewtonianAlch]

I answered your question above.

However- just because a company should disallow certain practices or conditions doesn't mean they do. Even if they are "illegal". Regulation agencies such as OSHA don't come in every day checking up on workplace conditions and practices.

I was actually replying to lisab in that post.

Yes I do know that these things don't happen as per the guidelines, but I also do know that some of these posts of "difficult" labour is largely exaggerated. Some people may find "dirty" environments difficult to deal with, whilst for others it's pretty stock standard. And more often than not, it's men that are less likely to be affected by it.

If you can't deal with the work, or don't like it, why do it?

 

[lisab]

It matters because what is heavy for some may not be for others, also depending on the country, and almost all of EU, the USA and Australia requires that for "heavy" objects, either it's a team-lift or people use tools to maneuver them. No, I really want to know, I don't take people's word for things when they claim it's [whatever]. Surely "heavy" should have some kind of quantity attributed to it.

"Heavy" here is generally any object that's > 20kg, or some unusual size or shape that is considered to be difficult to maneuver.

So when someone from one of these countries claims there were items that were ridiculously heavy but required in the workplace to be moved around, I question the details of this. 1) because companies are unlikely to allow the practice to continue for lengthy periods of times, 2) people generally slack off.

So how heavy was it?

Each roll had different dimensions and properties, so their weight would vary. But this gives an idea:

http://www.printingpressman.com/images/clamp-truck-paper.jpg

It's hard work maneuvering an object that size. Good communication, teamwork, and yes even a bit of brute strength are all necessary.

The work environment you speak of is typical of predictable, production-type work. R&D is quite a different beast. Nearly every day, you do non-routine tasks that don't have safety protocols worked out. It's not for everybody.

 

[sweetpotato]

50-60 lbs is not even a remotely heavy load, although by definition at a work place, it would be considered a "heavy" load and as such there are either tools required to maneuver them or several people to do it.

I don't mean to be rude, but oh boohoo, dusty, mouse droppings and greasy? If someone wants to do the work, I think they should not complain about it. I know it's not just me, as most of the work I do or have done in the past involves this kind of stuff, as it's our bread and butter, and I've never encountered any of the guys I work with complaining about it. If we're there for work, and we know what it entails, there's no whinging to tolerate, you get on with it. Triceps hurting? Tough, deal with it. Something's really too heavy, then use a tool or get others to lift it with you.

I frankly don't find any of the things you've mentioned even remotely overboard or difficult, and for me (and perhaps many others) it would seem like something that's welcoming. It's probably the reason why you see mainly men in jobs like the mechanic trade.

I think you're missing my point. I enjoy my job and don't find these things unreasonably difficult. That's why I think I am just as able to do my job as a man. Except for the "heavy lifting", which we have discussed already.

 

[NewtonianAlch]

Each roll had different dimensions and properties, so their weight would vary. But this gives an idea:

http://www.printingpressman.com/images/clamp-truck-paper.jpg

It's hard work maneuvering an object that size. Good communication, teamwork, and yes even a bit of brute strength are all necessary.

The work environment you speak of is typical of predictable, production-type work. R&D is quite a different beast. Nearly every day, you do non-routine tasks that don't have safety protocols worked out. It's not for everybody.

I think that's incredibly silly. Look at the size of that?

Understandably the issue of a man vs woman moving something is rendered null and void in a scenario like that.

Clearly those kinds of objects are not meant to be moved by a single person. Why would anyone even want to bother unless it was just as a joke "amongst the guys" to see who's budging what.

Also note the forklift in use, probably the way that kind of item was meant to be moved.

 

[NewtonianAlch]

I think you're missing my point. I enjoy my job and don't find these things unreasonably difficult. That's why I think I am just as able to do my job as a man. Except for the "heavy lifting", which we have discussed already.

Then we're on the same page.

 

[lisab]

I think that's incredibly silly. Look at the size of that?

Understandably the issue of a man vs woman moving something is rendered null and void in a scenario like that.

Clearly those kinds of objects are not meant to be moved by a single person. Why would anyone even want to bother unless it was just as a joke "amongst the guys" to see who's budging what.

Also note the forklift in use, probably the way that kind of item was meant to be moved.

"Silly"? Yes they're large, aren't they?

"Joke amongst the guys" about moving large things? Not in my workplace; we're professional scientists and engineers and are expected to behave as such.

Yes I know there is a forklift in the pic. But now how do you get the roll from the forklift onto the bandsaw table? These kind of questions are solved every day when doing non-routine tasks.

With all due respect, you don't seem to have much experience with R&D.

 

[NewtonianAlch]

"Silly"? Yes they're large, aren't they?

"Joke amongst the guys" about moving large things? Not in my workplace; we're professional scientists and engineers and are expected to behave as such.

Yes I know there is a forklift in the pic. But now how do you get the roll from the forklift onto the bandsaw table? These kind of questions are solved every day when doing non-routine tasks.

With all due respect, you don't seem to have much experience with R&D.

I didn't claim to have experience in R&D, and neither do I have experience in R&D, that's just some kind of faulty assumption you're drawing.

However, I have worked as a labourer for a long time, and I don't need to have been in R&D to know how to move things around. Suddenly my physical ability is non-existent to move something heavy or my mental ability has diminished suddenly because I haven't worked in R&D?? Please get off your high horse "we're professional scientists and engineers yada yada"

If anyone here is lacking some understanding here, I think it's you. I'm going to assume you actually haven't worked in manual labour before? And I don't mean this silly example of trying to move this large roll onto a bandsaw.

To be honest, if you wanted to move this on to a bandsaw, you'd use a forklift. Either get a team lift to move it slightly so the forklift driver can lift it. Forklifts have high tilt rotations, this can easily be maneuvered onto a bandsaw. In fact, I thought you were joking when you first posed this question, but now I see you actually posed it because you have no idea what goes on in manual labour. These kinds of tasks are pretty much stock standard. They may not involve moving moving a roll onto a bandsaw specifically, but it could be anything from removing a 500kg truck axle mounted on a pallet of 3, onto a truck which is loaded with other items. There is plenty of grunt work involved, so don't think that just because you've worked in R&D that you believe you've experience some kind of labour difficulty that no one else has.

Unless you've been digging for days on-end, working 15-hour shifts that can rival an intense gym workout, don't blab about the difficult a team of scientists had with moving a roll onto a bandsaw, honestly? How heavy is that roll anyway?

Just the idea of "professional scientists and engineers" standing around talking about how they had labour difficulties moving a heavy object is enough to elicit laughter from the grunt blokes who do these kinds of things on a daily basis. In fact, if it weren't for your status on this board, I would have thought you were trolling.

Edit: There are plenty of ways to get that roll onto a bandsaw table, obviously I'm not going to parrot out solutions here because I don't know dimensions, nor weights of these objects and can only guess. What you're alluding to here is not some engineering solution, but a very bone-headed job task that any band of labourers should be able to do or do on a regular basis.

 

[mariexotoni]

i think some people become too condescending on these physics forums...why so attitudey?

 

[NewtonianAlch]

i think some people become too condescending on these physics forums...why so attitudey?

I think any forum has its share of "moments".

 

[NewtonianAlch]

Here's something that was designed by an R&D (historically speaking) team, and man-handled by a labour force.

I wonder what the men who built this thought of moving a large roll onto a band-saw, probably couldn't because they had no experience in R&D.

I don't mean to be "attitudey", but these kinds of statements are going to annoy the hell out of anyone who has worked as a labourer doing the hard yards.

http://www.world-mysteries.com/mpl_2k1.jpg