Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom never told you. From how Supports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline, and this is the e in our
Speaker 1: STEM series, which means we're talking about engineering today. That's right,
Speaker 1: there's only one more episode left in our four part series,
Speaker 1: which would be not yes, don't forget to tune back
Speaker 1: in for that one, but for this one, we are
Speaker 1: talking about the very multifaceted, surprisingly multifaceted. I'm sorry to
Speaker 1: say that I did not realize that field of engineering.
Speaker 1: And to keep things off with a fun linguistic fact
Speaker 1: about engineering, It is derived from the Latin word ingenium,
Speaker 1: which means skills, genius, and invention, no pressure. Isn't that beautiful?
Speaker 1: That is beautiful? Who knew there was such beauty in
Speaker 1: the very word engineering? But who also knew that there
Speaker 1: were so many different aspects to it? Like I just said,
Speaker 1: I mean, I engineering people out there are are engineering listeners.
Speaker 1: I want to hear about all the different things that
Speaker 1: you do, because there are so many different areas that
Speaker 1: engineering majors can pursue. And I think what we're going
Speaker 1: to get into a little bit is talking about the
Speaker 1: importance of educating our students, not just our girls, but
Speaker 1: our boys too, about the different options that they have
Speaker 1: available to them once they go to college and pick
Speaker 1: a specialization. Number one. One of the specializations that my
Speaker 1: friend Clay, for instance, has pursued is civil engineering. UM.
Speaker 1: That's one of the oldest disciplines within the engineering profession
Speaker 1: and deals with designing and creating infrastructure like roads, bridges,
Speaker 1: and ports, as well as energy and water systems. And
Speaker 1: then there's things like mechanical engineering, which designs and analyzes
Speaker 1: objects and systems in motion. You have environmental engineers who
Speaker 1: work more outside looking at man's impact on nature, doing
Speaker 1: things like restoration of areas after natural disasters. Then there's
Speaker 1: biomedical engineering. This is one that has been really popular
Speaker 1: of late to with women in college because it takes
Speaker 1: the traditional engineering expertise and applies it to biology and medicine.
Speaker 1: This is where you get into making life saving devices
Speaker 1: like pacemakers. Yeah, and it's a field that I think
Speaker 1: really takes a lot of flexibility and the ability to
Speaker 1: kind of roll with the punches, because I think in
Speaker 1: biomedical engineering in particular, you're you're really kind of creating
Speaker 1: new technology as you go and so you've got to
Speaker 1: kind of, as with all of these disciplines, you've got
Speaker 1: to be able to pull from many different areas of
Speaker 1: your education. Yeah, and beyond that, there's aerospace, agricultural, chemical, electrical,
Speaker 1: health and safety, engineering and beyond and simply making kids aware,
Speaker 1: Like you said, Caroline, of the vast fields you could
Speaker 1: go into via engineering is one of the main keys
Speaker 1: of getting girls from a younger age interested in this
Speaker 1: e in stem. That's right, And let's talk about some
Speaker 1: of the women who did get interested in the e UM.
Speaker 1: Some of our trailblazers include Martha Coston, who UM, as
Speaker 1: a twenty one year old widow with four children, helped
Speaker 1: engineer a signal system so that ships could light up
Speaker 1: their locations on land and see during the Civil War.
Speaker 1: Just to give you some actual historical context, her husband
Speaker 1: had designed this system that basically wouldn't function. It wouldn't work,
Speaker 1: and so lo and behold, Martha Costin tweaks it and
Speaker 1: the Navy ended up buying her system in eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: nine for twenty thousand dollars. Yeah, and then moving into
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, fans of the book and the two movies,
Speaker 1: cheaper by the Dozen might be familiar with the name
Speaker 1: Lillian Gilbrith. She was an industrial engineering genius and also
Speaker 1: a mother of twelve. How those two things work together seamlessly,
Speaker 1: I don't know, um. But in nineteen fifteen she earned
Speaker 1: a PhD from Brown and then became the first female
Speaker 1: member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. But what
Speaker 1: her specialty was was industrial engineering. She's known as the
Speaker 1: mother of modern management and the first Lady of engineering
Speaker 1: because of all these innovations with that she used. Via
Speaker 1: her industrial psychology degree that she earned. She was the
Speaker 1: first person even to get that degree. Yeah, she used
Speaker 1: a lot of her skills to focus on of all
Speaker 1: things ergonomics, floor plans, and offices, even all the way
Speaker 1: down to the very workflow, like as you go through
Speaker 1: your day, so the way that your office was set up,
Speaker 1: how you sat at your particular desk, and then the
Speaker 1: work you did while you were there. She mapped it
Speaker 1: out and according to Cheaper by the Dozen, she applied
Speaker 1: and even tested out those kinds of industrial designs in
Speaker 1: her home, which was kind of like a mini office
Speaker 1: space when you have fourteen people plus running around there.
Speaker 1: And then moving on to Maryland Jorgensen Reese who had
Speaker 1: a deep love for math, but she didn't want to
Speaker 1: be a teacher. She wanted to do something more with
Speaker 1: her background, and so in nineteen fifty four, she became
Speaker 1: California's first female fully licensed civil engineer, going on to
Speaker 1: oversee Los Angeles's San Diego Santa Monica Freeway interchange. And
Speaker 1: next up we have Beatrice A. Hicks, who was clearly
Speaker 1: a genius. She not only just got a master's and physics,
Speaker 1: she also pursued chemical engineering, aerospace engineering, and electrical engineering
Speaker 1: and really just made her name as this engineering polly
Speaker 1: math who could shape shift all of these different skills
Speaker 1: that she had acquired for all of those different fields.
Speaker 1: And in nineteen fifty she co founded the Society of
Speaker 1: Women Engineers NICE, which still is around. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: we have Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards, who is the first
Speaker 1: woman to graduate from m I T and also the
Speaker 1: founder of home economics. But not what you would think
Speaker 1: of as traditional stereotypical home economics, like baking a cake
Speaker 1: or learning how to run the dishwasher. It's more like
Speaker 1: focusing on safe food practices, healthy and affordable meal planning,
Speaker 1: and being more efficient also in taking care of a
Speaker 1: home and family. And those are just five names. There
Speaker 1: are plenty more because there is a rich history of
Speaker 1: women in engineering, but when we look at the picture today,
Speaker 1: there aren't a ton of women who are pursuing these fields,
Speaker 1: at least compared to men. And before we get into
Speaker 1: today's women and engineering numbers, I first wanted to offer
Speaker 1: up this quote from the magazine The Woman Engineer. This
Speaker 1: is from one of its additions in nineteen nineteen, and
Speaker 1: they wrote, the outlook for women in the engineering world
Speaker 1: has become increasingly gloomy, and with the passing of the
Speaker 1: Restoration of Pre War Practices Bill, the position seems a
Speaker 1: little bliss And I thought that was kind of funny comparison.
Speaker 1: That's nineteen nineteen and not that things are hopeless, but
Speaker 1: still women are trying to figure out how exactly to
Speaker 1: break into this still very male dominated industry. Absolutely, that
Speaker 1: Pre War Practices Bill basically said that women kind of
Speaker 1: just aren't allowed to work as engineers anymore because there
Speaker 1: was they were all of these rules and regulations regarding unions,
Speaker 1: and you had to be in a union to be
Speaker 1: an engineer, but women weren't allowed in unions. So therefore,
Speaker 1: thus ergo they could not be engineers. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: were suffering a lot because during World War One, similar
Speaker 1: to what happened in World War Two, there were all
Speaker 1: these dudes who left their jobs, and so these newly
Speaker 1: minted women engineers were able to fill those ranks. But
Speaker 1: then the war ends and the guys are like, you know,
Speaker 1: on out, ladies, you know, back to your kitchens. Because
Speaker 1: that was from a British publication, right, well, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I was talking to my roommate about the stuff and
Speaker 1: I was reading him this quote from the Woman Engineer
Speaker 1: and he's like, well, I mean, but it's gotten better, right, like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like it's probably approaching equal by now,
Speaker 1: right And I was like, oh no, not even close.
Speaker 1: And he looked confounded because he thought, well, I I
Speaker 1: just thought that's the way that all of these things
Speaker 1: were going, you know, that things are becoming more equal.
Speaker 1: And I said, look, it's just as grim and gloomy,
Speaker 1: you know now as it was just about. Yeah. Today
Speaker 1: in the United States, women are earning around of the
Speaker 1: bachelor's degrees in engineering, but a lot of times if
Speaker 1: they're better at math, they might pursue biomedical sciences instead.
Speaker 1: But the American Society for Engineering Education reported that in
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, women were awarded twenty two point nine
Speaker 1: percent of engineering doctorates, which was more than any other time.
Speaker 1: So we're getting more PhD s. We aren't we are
Speaker 1: looking into engineering, we're getting involved with this, but still
Speaker 1: four times as many men are enrolling and engineering compared
Speaker 1: to women, right, And the gap is smaller. Actually when
Speaker 1: you look at computer science, there's just two times as many,
Speaker 1: just two times men, right, right, Um, And so to
Speaker 1: look a little bit closer at some of the gender
Speaker 1: differences in this field. This is coming from the study
Speaker 1: Pipeline or Personal Preference Women in Engineering two thousand from
Speaker 1: two thousand eight. And that side note pipeline shold sound
Speaker 1: familiar because we've talked about it in one of our
Speaker 1: earlier STEM episodes. Basically, the idea that there is this funnel,
Speaker 1: this pipeline of women from very young ages elementary school,
Speaker 1: middle school, high school all the way through to the
Speaker 1: doctoral degree level, and it's leaking the whole way basically,
Speaker 1: like women start out getting the same grades as men,
Speaker 1: having the same interest in science as men and math,
Speaker 1: and then it slowly starts to dissipate. So that's that background. UM.
Speaker 1: But so this study found out that twelve point three
Speaker 1: percent of the about a thousand female participants had changed
Speaker 1: majors to engineering, compared to six point six percent of
Speaker 1: male participants. And I think that that had something to
Speaker 1: do with, again, these girls coming to college and realizing
Speaker 1: all of the different options that engineering offered them, and
Speaker 1: so they said, oh, maybe this is a better fit
Speaker 1: because again it's from like from the very get go
Speaker 1: with engineering, well a little bit different from something like
Speaker 1: straight up science, tech or math, whereas engineering, I feel
Speaker 1: like there's not as much just public knowledge about what
Speaker 1: all you can do with it. So they think that
Speaker 1: that might be responsible for that larger percentage of women
Speaker 1: switching into engineering. And they thought it was notable that
Speaker 1: over half of the female study participants had engineers in
Speaker 1: their families compared to forty six point two percent of men.
Speaker 1: So they were also more women who seemed directly influenced
Speaker 1: by just seeing engineers around them. Yeah, exactly, And I
Speaker 1: mean talking about stereotypes of the field, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of what we read points out the fact that, um,
Speaker 1: and this isn't just for women this is just kind
Speaker 1: of for all students in general. There's this perception of
Speaker 1: engineering being like I'm going to get my hands greasy
Speaker 1: and dirty, I'm going to be lifting heavy things and
Speaker 1: putting cogs into machines all day long, and you know,
Speaker 1: and and so what we're trying to drive the point
Speaker 1: that we're trying to drive across is that there is
Speaker 1: so much more to engineering. And so the study also
Speaker 1: looked at kind of a breakdown of what uh men
Speaker 1: and women kind of veer toward within these fields, and
Speaker 1: they found that women were more comfortable with lab work,
Speaker 1: performing experiments, and writing, whereas men were more comfortable working
Speaker 1: with tools, designing new things, working with computers, making presentations,
Speaker 1: and working with machines. But I think it's worth noting, though,
Speaker 1: that being comfortable with something doesn't necessarily mean the same
Speaker 1: thing as being proficient as it because Civil environment mental
Speaker 1: engineering professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Angela biel Felt,
Speaker 1: said that quote, women tend to leave engineering with higher
Speaker 1: grade point averages than the men, but they perceive that
Speaker 1: their technical skills are sometimes different, and they're not different
Speaker 1: in reality. And I think that gets to this issue
Speaker 1: of socialization that has come up a lot in this
Speaker 1: women and Stem conversation too, and that negative self assessment
Speaker 1: that goes on. Yeah, and and that's something we've talked
Speaker 1: about in these these episodes that you know, women and
Speaker 1: girls tend to think that they need to be you know,
Speaker 1: triple the engineer or the mathematician or the scientists, that
Speaker 1: the man is just to be considered you know acceptable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it goes into what happens the mindset, the
Speaker 1: Rube Goldberg machine that trips off in the brain when
Speaker 1: you really start to make headway into what is considered
Speaker 1: a really masculine pursuit. Right. And it's interesting to note
Speaker 1: kind of almost the different polls of of engineering that
Speaker 1: men and women go towards. Because in civil engineering classes,
Speaker 1: you know my friend Clay, who is a man, uh,
Speaker 1: in that field, it's going to be mostly guys, but
Speaker 1: the female numbers increase in fields like environmental engineering. But
Speaker 1: women's numbers increase in other fields of engineering, including environmental engineering,
Speaker 1: but particularly industrial engineering. So again for those of you
Speaker 1: who might not be familiar with industrial engineering, it's more
Speaker 1: focused on human centered systems, looking at things like design,
Speaker 1: improvement and installation. In terms of how that interacts with people, materials, equipment,
Speaker 1: and energy, and more than any other field, industrial engineering
Speaker 1: tends to have the largest concentration of women, at around
Speaker 1: thirty two per cent. So there was a study that
Speaker 1: came out called Women in Industrial Engineering Stereotypes, Persistence and Perspective,
Speaker 1: and it came out in two thousand and twelve looking
Speaker 1: at why that was, because this was part of a
Speaker 1: larger body of research digging into the different engineering disciplines
Speaker 1: to see what was really appealing to women and what wasn't,
Speaker 1: what women were sticking with and what they weren't, and
Speaker 1: engineering stood out to them as a quote unquote pocket
Speaker 1: of success. And something that came up really quickly in
Speaker 1: this paper was that there's a stereotype among engineering folk
Speaker 1: that industrial engineering is proceed to be easy, or they
Speaker 1: some sometimes call it imaginary engineering. Uh weah, I'm going
Speaker 1: to make a lot of like disappointed flash disapproving noises
Speaker 1: about that one, because don't you think that, okay, male
Speaker 1: dominated field, section of male dominated field that has the
Speaker 1: most women in it, the highest concentration of women. Women
Speaker 1: then perceived, already in gender stereotypes, to be not as
Speaker 1: scientific or mathematically minded. So then you have some ill
Speaker 1: informed individuals out there thinking, well, if women can do it, well,
Speaker 1: it isn't just the male students who are perpetuating the idea,
Speaker 1: it's also the women who are saying this too in
Speaker 1: the study. But I think you're totally on point because
Speaker 1: one of the number one phrases that popped up when
Speaker 1: these researchers were asking female industrial engineering students why they
Speaker 1: were really into industrial engineering, and the phrase that kept
Speaker 1: coming up was people oriented, which stands in such contrast
Speaker 1: if you think of civil engineering, which is that really
Speaker 1: male heavy pocket of engineering that's all about bridges and
Speaker 1: roads that's paved away through the mountains. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's a it seems it does seem like it's more feminine, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and especially since those focus group participants cited things
Speaker 1: like a proachable faculty um, inherent femininity with things like
Speaker 1: scheduling efficiency and communication, but also so stuability. But I
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting that it's the only engineering major
Speaker 1: that gains women and men from the third semester through
Speaker 1: six year graduation. So it's clearly not just women who
Speaker 1: are all of a sudden going like, oh well, maybe
Speaker 1: I like that instead, maybe I like that better. There
Speaker 1: are clearly some men out there who are also thinking like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I don't want to just focus on
Speaker 1: bridges and roads. Maybe I do like the people aspect
Speaker 1: of that discipline. Not that Caroline and I have anything
Speaker 1: against bridges and row No. I I am so thankful
Speaker 1: when there are roads to drive on, and even more
Speaker 1: thankful when there is a properly constructed and inspected bridge
Speaker 1: across which I may drive. And this has been a
Speaker 1: civil engineering salute. But but there is something though about
Speaker 1: that people aspect and possibly the idea of how engineering
Speaker 1: can solve problems for people, can help people, can literally
Speaker 1: save lives that some who are really invested in attracting
Speaker 1: more women to engineering want to hone in on. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna get into that altruistic aspect of engineering when
Speaker 1: we come right back from a quick break. So we
Speaker 1: left off we were talking about how the altruistic element
Speaker 1: of engineering could be used as a powerful recruitment tool
Speaker 1: to get more girls and women interested in this field,
Speaker 1: because research does consistently show that women are more drawn
Speaker 1: to fields of study that they believe will contribute to
Speaker 1: the social good. And it's the same thing within engineering
Speaker 1: where if you break out all those different fields, women
Speaker 1: do tend to be drawn to those areas that seem
Speaker 1: to have a direct application on people's lives. And a
Speaker 1: lot of times when you talk to women engineers and
Speaker 1: asked them why they love doing what they do, they say, well,
Speaker 1: I help people, I'm solving problems, I'm making people's lives
Speaker 1: better with my work. Sure, and this was confirmed by
Speaker 1: the American Society of Mechanical Engineers because there's this growth
Speaker 1: in women pursuing mechanical engineering in the medical and energy
Speaker 1: fields because of these strong societal ties and the clear
Speaker 1: cut positive impact that it has on people. It's something
Speaker 1: that see Diane Matt, the executive director of the Women
Speaker 1: in Engineering Proactive Network, basically calls social relevance, saying that
Speaker 1: women are drawn to this high social relevance in this field. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's something we should talk about two. In regard
Speaker 1: to this altruistic pull within STEM, some have said that
Speaker 1: the biological sciences, for instance, tend to be uh tend
Speaker 1: to have more women pursuing them working in them because
Speaker 1: there seems to be a closer connection to having an
Speaker 1: impact on other people's lives within that kind of work.
Speaker 1: And obviously you can divert from there to biomedical things.
Speaker 1: You want to become a doctor, you want to help people,
Speaker 1: you want to save lives, etcetera. Same thing going on
Speaker 1: within engineering. And there's even an Intel sponsored study that
Speaker 1: asked teens to read a series of statements about engineering,
Speaker 1: and the ones that motivated the girls the most were
Speaker 1: about how surprise surprise engineering helps fix global problems like
Speaker 1: clean water solutions. And I can understand that if I
Speaker 1: was told when I was fifteen, hey, hey kid, you
Speaker 1: want to solve some clean water issues? Tell my how
Speaker 1: shign me up? Can I podcast it? Can I bring
Speaker 1: the cat um? Well, So, now that we've talked about
Speaker 1: this incredible altruistic angle and the fact that you really
Speaker 1: can change lives and entire communities with your engineering background,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about some salaries. Yeah, you can also
Speaker 1: make a lot of money. That's also something if someone
Speaker 1: to tap me on the Sheila said, hey kid, you
Speaker 1: want to save some lives and make a ton of
Speaker 1: cash doing it. Yeah. The National Association of Colleges and
Speaker 1: Employers shows u just how lucrative a career it can be.
Speaker 1: I mean, engineering makes up like the top the top
Speaker 1: like six I think jobs. So computer engineering you can
Speaker 1: make over seventy thousand dollars, chemical engineering more than sixty six,
Speaker 1: computer science more than sixty four. Yeah, and it goes
Speaker 1: all the way down at the bottom of the barrel.
Speaker 1: If we have civil engineering starting out at just fifty
Speaker 1: seven six. Uh so even even that is really lucrative.
Speaker 1: And uh it's too bad that there can't be more
Speaker 1: quote unquote pockets of success like industrial engineering, because at
Speaker 1: least according to a UK survey among three hundred female engineers,
Speaker 1: the job satisfaction is really high. Although caveat, as you
Speaker 1: there should always be a caveat with surveys. The survey
Speaker 1: was sponsored by Atkins, which is an engineering firm, but
Speaker 1: it found of women said their jobs were rewarding and
Speaker 1: satisfying and didn't see gender as holding them back. But
Speaker 1: it is worth noting that of these women they talked
Speaker 1: to were inspired to pursue engineering thanks to a family member,
Speaker 1: usually their dad, and were inspired by a teacher. So look,
Speaker 1: I mean that is that is like tangible evidence of
Speaker 1: how important it is to have people in our children's
Speaker 1: lives inspiring them to go do something that maybe they
Speaker 1: hadn't thought of how important it is just to normalize
Speaker 1: an entire field of study. Yeah, and that's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why a lot of these respondents went on
Speaker 1: to say that there needs to be a greater awareness
Speaker 1: of what an engineer does, as we have hammered home
Speaker 1: a number of times on the podcast and improved mentorship
Speaker 1: for girls. And that was something too that came up
Speaker 1: in our conversation a while ago with Goldie Blocks founder
Speaker 1: Deborah Sterling, who was a Stanford engineer. She career did
Speaker 1: this toy called Goldie Blocks, which is specifically designed to
Speaker 1: get girls excited about engineering, to teach them engineering fundamentals
Speaker 1: in a fun and engaging and girl friendly kind of way.
Speaker 1: Because when she was growing up, even though she ended
Speaker 1: up becoming an engineer, she would have had no idea
Speaker 1: as a kid that that would even be a possibility
Speaker 1: because in front of her all she saw or princesses
Speaker 1: and barbies and pink things, and she was like, I
Speaker 1: was building things with my barbies, but I didn't know
Speaker 1: that that was engineering. And I think it wasn't until
Speaker 1: high school that a teacher alerted her to that, well,
Speaker 1: all of this stuff that we've been learning in our
Speaker 1: stem episodes has really inspired me because Christmas time is
Speaker 1: coming up and I have a five year old niece,
Speaker 1: and I don't think they all listen to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I think it's safe to talk about this. But um,
Speaker 1: I found this dollhouse set that basically has a like
Speaker 1: a battery pack attached to it, and you can run
Speaker 1: these currents and actually light up your dollhouse and you
Speaker 1: build walls, you hang lamps, you do all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1: And so she is into anything anything that is pink,
Speaker 1: purple and sparkly, and so a dollhouse would be neat.
Speaker 1: And if she can learn some spatial reasoning skills while
Speaker 1: she does it, then that's even better. Yeah, and some
Speaker 1: electrical engineering too. It sounds like, well, anti Caroline is
Speaker 1: trying to get a little Sarah into some engineering. You're
Speaker 1: planting the stem seeds, Caroline. Indeed, I ane um, but
Speaker 1: we do have to bring our high down for a
Speaker 1: moment and move away from that survey that was very happy,
Speaker 1: go lucky, because that's not always the case with women
Speaker 1: and engineering, as is expected when you go into these
Speaker 1: fields that are very much in the words of a
Speaker 1: female engineer boys clubs. Um, there was a University of
Speaker 1: Wisconsin Milwaukee Center for the Study of the Workplace report
Speaker 1: that came out in two thousand and eight looking at
Speaker 1: women and engineering, and it found that, first of all,
Speaker 1: a third of women graduating from engineering programs don't enter
Speaker 1: engineering jobs because they see them as inflexible or non
Speaker 1: supportive of women. Come on now, I mean, how many
Speaker 1: times have we heard that about different I mean just
Speaker 1: different arenas in general. Yeah, as far as I mean,
Speaker 1: as far as supporting women goes. They also found that
Speaker 1: half of women's surveyed who left engineering jobs did so
Speaker 1: because of working conditions, too much travel, too little advancement
Speaker 1: and pay, and one in three left because of a
Speaker 1: hostile work environment. And there probably is a lot of
Speaker 1: unconscious and conscious bias at work because these engineering fields
Speaker 1: are still so male dominated. But female engineers who worked
Speaker 1: in companies that valued and recognize their contributions, invested in
Speaker 1: training and professional development expressed the greatest levels of satisfaction
Speaker 1: within their jobs and careers. Which you could probably apply
Speaker 1: that to any type of job that supports you and
Speaker 1: wants to see you succeed. But in a realm like engineering,
Speaker 1: it's so critical to set up support structures outside of
Speaker 1: college at the end of the pipeline. Where the pipeline
Speaker 1: is supposed to end up the pool, the engineering pool.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to extend this pipeline metaphor any farther
Speaker 1: because the gap is so huge, not just in the
Speaker 1: United States but around the world. For instance, in in
Speaker 1: the U s And Canada, in the engineering workforce, women
Speaker 1: make up only but that's not as bad as it
Speaker 1: is in the UK. No, the UK, it's only seven percent,
Speaker 1: And in Australia women make up nine point six percent
Speaker 1: of the engineering workforce, but it's awesome over in Latvia
Speaker 1: which is thirty percent and Bulgaria which has twenty nine
Speaker 1: point three percent. Yeah. I think that came up as
Speaker 1: well in our tech episode because it's similar with computer
Speaker 1: science where Eastern year up. They're all about getting some
Speaker 1: women into some STEM and this probably is a reason
Speaker 1: why we're seeing so much government initiative with getting girls
Speaker 1: engaged in STEM because guess what folks of the engineering
Speaker 1: workforce in China or women, Yeah, we're trailing. Yeah, we're trailing.
Speaker 1: And people are seeing this as a potential detriment to
Speaker 1: our economy because why do women in engineering matter on
Speaker 1: a practical sense. It's not just because we want parody
Speaker 1: for everything fifty fifty for all know, it has very
Speaker 1: real world implications because diversity foster's innovation. We need innovation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like there was some percentage I can't remember, But our
Speaker 1: g d P is actually suffering because of the fact
Speaker 1: that we don't have the brightest minds in these fields,
Speaker 1: in the stem fields and engineering in particular. And I'm
Speaker 1: not that's not to say that the people in engineering
Speaker 1: aren't right, but when you are only taking from one
Speaker 1: cool of people, from one pipeline to bring that metaphor back, um,
Speaker 1: that means that you're taking, yeah, the best, but then
Speaker 1: you're also having to go down to fill the rest
Speaker 1: of your spots too, maybe the middle of the pack.
Speaker 1: But why don't you go over to the other pool
Speaker 1: and take the top of their candidates also, because that
Speaker 1: is the way that you get more innovation, right, And
Speaker 1: even speaking more specifically to two women's involvement, there's even
Speaker 1: some feminist theory of gender and engineering talking about how
Speaker 1: the two really are interwoven because a lot of times
Speaker 1: we're talking about all of these systems that are human centered,
Speaker 1: and we're they're they're making things they're making those roads
Speaker 1: and bridges and biomedical devices and clean water sheds, all
Speaker 1: of those things for not just male consumers obviously, but
Speaker 1: also for female consumers and for kids. And as Don Bonfield,
Speaker 1: who's the VP of the Women's Engineering Society said, women
Speaker 1: bring diversity that a non mixed team doesn't have. And
Speaker 1: the skills that they bring include a desire to produce
Speaker 1: an excellent product that delights to customer and solves a problem. Right,
Speaker 1: I mean, just think about the items, to use a
Speaker 1: general word, that we are not getting because some of
Speaker 1: those great minds did not end up in engineering or
Speaker 1: left engineering because it was unwelcoming. And I mean another
Speaker 1: problem that you run into, like you said, I mean
Speaker 1: you you you lose that innovation when you don't have
Speaker 1: women's minds on the team as well. But you also
Speaker 1: create problems. You're not just avoiding good solutions, you're creating
Speaker 1: problems because we have the issue of air bags. What
Speaker 1: about airbags? You say, well, because it was a male
Speaker 1: team that created these safety devices, they were created from
Speaker 1: male bodies, and so women and children in vehicles, Actually,
Speaker 1: we're getting injured by the very safety devices that we're
Speaker 1: supposed to save their lives. Yeah, and there have also
Speaker 1: been issues of voice recognition software that only recognized male
Speaker 1: voices because it was an all male team building them. Now,
Speaker 1: clearly you could swing the other way and say that
Speaker 1: you'd have similar problems crop up if you had all
Speaker 1: female teams working on things. That's why the name of
Speaker 1: the game is about diversity and bringing multiple minds to
Speaker 1: the table to foster innovation. Because I think Dr Mary Gilly,
Speaker 1: who works with e A Technology, said it best. She said,
Speaker 1: we have more chances of better serving the needs of
Speaker 1: society as a whole if those working in engineering reflect
Speaker 1: across section of society. Yeah. And I mean Margaret Bailey,
Speaker 1: who's a professor of mechanical engineering at the Rochester Institute
Speaker 1: of Technology in New York, summed it up by saying, hey, look,
Speaker 1: you're just going to see entirely different outcomes in general.
Speaker 1: I mean you're going to see better products. I mean,
Speaker 1: happier consumers, but also happier engineers. I mean, I think,
Speaker 1: I think if there's a shift in this field, you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully we can get more women involved and more of
Speaker 1: the old guard more accepting and welcoming as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's exciting to know that there are those Lilyan
Speaker 1: Gilbreath's out there, those trailblazers who have done incredible things,
Speaker 1: and that there are women working right now who are
Speaker 1: doing incredible things, but we need more of them, which
Speaker 1: is why I'm quitting the podcast to become an engineer.
Speaker 1: No please, I'll tell you what it excited me. Honestly,
Speaker 1: just learning about engineering. It honestly made me feel like
Speaker 1: a senior in high school looking through the college pamphlets
Speaker 1: thinking about, Oh, all these incredible things people are doing. Um,
Speaker 1: but I do really want to hear from engineers out there, male, female, whomever,
Speaker 1: because I would I would love to get an inside
Speaker 1: view of what it is really like because there are
Speaker 1: those vastly different workplace survey results saying oh, everything's great, No,
Speaker 1: everything's terrible, huh. So let us know what it's like.
Speaker 1: And also if there any notable women engineers that we
Speaker 1: should promote, let us know all of your engineering thoughts.
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at discovery dot com is where you can
Speaker 1: send your letters. You can also tweet us at Mom's
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast or send us a message on Facebook. And
Speaker 1: now back to our letters. So I've got a letter
Speaker 1: here from MG who is a Mexican physicist, and she
Speaker 1: had some thoughts on our women in Science episode, and
Speaker 1: she said, while growing up, I didn't experience such a
Speaker 1: strong gender bias in science education. I've always been good
Speaker 1: in math, and I've always felt proud about it. But
Speaker 1: once I was in the last year of high school,
Speaker 1: the picture change. In Mexico, one has to choose a
Speaker 1: major when applying to a university, and once in university,
Speaker 1: one takes the corresponding courses. I e's not possible to
Speaker 1: decide a major actor and old. I was very interested
Speaker 1: in both math and physics, and before deciding which major
Speaker 1: I would study, I went to the university to talk
Speaker 1: with several researchers to make up my mind, and although
Speaker 1: the information they gave me was useful, I was very
Speaker 1: disappointed by the lack of women researchers. The ratio of
Speaker 1: men to women researchers in physics and math, at least
Speaker 1: in the university I attended, is around one and ten.
Speaker 1: This uninspiring scenario prevailed during my undergraduate studies and my
Speaker 1: master's studies, which I just finished Congratulations. Despite that, I'm
Speaker 1: extremely motivated to pursue a life career in physics. And
Speaker 1: from time to time not having female role models that
Speaker 1: I can relate to is demotivating. I have many anecdotes
Speaker 1: that I could share, but to be brief, my viewpoint
Speaker 1: is that one of the main reasons there are a
Speaker 1: few women in science is because of our culture. I
Speaker 1: even dared a fingerpoint that the pervasive idea that the
Speaker 1: ultimate some may say only purpose of women on earth
Speaker 1: is to procreate has a bad impact on women's self
Speaker 1: image since it tends to diminish any other achievement a
Speaker 1: woman can have in her life. So thanks MG, and
Speaker 1: congratulations on that. Physics masters. Well, I have a letter
Speaker 1: here from Elizabeth. She is a postdoctoral researcher in astrophysics
Speaker 1: currently working at the Max Plank Institute for Astronomy. So
Speaker 1: we I mean essentially have like a science celebrity writing
Speaker 1: us right now, But she had some things to say.
Speaker 1: She says this is purely anecdotal, but growing up in
Speaker 1: a small town in Portugal, I was always very fascinated
Speaker 1: by science, especially astronomy, and I did well in math
Speaker 1: and physics at school. I have a twin brother who
Speaker 1: himself has always been more inclined to the humanities. People
Speaker 1: like friends teachers and family found it very puzzling and
Speaker 1: kept commenting on how we could quote unquote reversed the
Speaker 1: gender roles when we chose what to pursue in high
Speaker 1: school and college. It seemed natural for some people that
Speaker 1: I should have been the humanities inclined twin and my
Speaker 1: brother should have been the science incline one. We weren't
Speaker 1: raised in the most gender blind way. For example, I
Speaker 1: played with a lot of pink stuff and ponies and barbies,
Speaker 1: and my brother had the more masculine toys like robots
Speaker 1: and legos, and overall I was very much encouraged to
Speaker 1: pursue feminine activities like learning to cook and such. But
Speaker 1: the fascination with nature, physics, and the beauty of the
Speaker 1: night sky one over all of that. But I would
Speaker 1: say I had to be quite strong willed to pursue
Speaker 1: that interest against all stereotypes. Not to mention, after physicist
Speaker 1: is not really a common career path in Portugal, let
Speaker 1: alone in my small town. I am sure that girls
Speaker 1: and women could be as good as boys and men,
Speaker 1: and math and science, and any differences we see in
Speaker 1: the student or scientist population results from ingrained sexist biases
Speaker 1: in our culture, and these biases can be damaging at
Speaker 1: any level. I have seen it through my school years
Speaker 1: but also now my academic path. I am very lucky
Speaker 1: to work in a research institute where a large fraction
Speaker 1: of researchers or female not quite fifty though, and the
Speaker 1: work environment is one of the most female friendly ones
Speaker 1: I know. However, you can see how lifelong prejudices and
Speaker 1: biases can affect specifically women. Typically, women are less vocal
Speaker 1: and less dominant in discussions than men, even when they
Speaker 1: have comparable scientific ex rotise. Women in academia definitely tend
Speaker 1: to suffer from imposter syndrome more than men, as you
Speaker 1: discussed in the line in episode, which I think is
Speaker 1: a center of the field still being very male dominated.
Speaker 1: Hopefully things are improving for the better as more and
Speaker 1: more women get PhDs in science fields and more women's
Speaker 1: scientists with visibility outside of academia equals more role models
Speaker 1: for young girls, which is really good news. Good news indeed, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for writing and telling your story,
Speaker 1: and thanks to all of the scientists that we've been
Speaker 1: hearing from lately. We want to hear from everybody. Mom
Speaker 1: Stuff Discovery dot Com is where you can send your letters.
Speaker 1: You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
Speaker 1: send us a message on Facebook like a stair while
Speaker 1: you're at it. And for some more fun stuff, we're
Speaker 1: on Instagram at stuff mom Never Told You and on
Speaker 1: Tumbler as well. It's stuff I've Never Told You dot
Speaker 1: tumbler dot com. And for your viewing pleasure, we have
Speaker 1: a YouTube channel that you should definitely go check out.
Speaker 1: It's YouTube dot com slash stuff Mom Never Told You,
Speaker 1: and don't forget to subscribe for more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, Does it How stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com