RUNNING HEAD: Global Issue Report 1

Global Issue Report:

Why so few Women Engineers

Ezekiel Lang

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

Dr. Vierra

October 14, 2019

RUNNING HEAD: Global Issue Report 2

Abstract

The global issue that is a problem throughout every country in the world is the lack

of females that are mechanical engineers or even trying to pursue that dream. the RWS 1301

class want to know why that is and how can UTEP help change that.
RUNNING HEAD: Global Issue Report 3

Why so few Women Engineers?

There is globally a lack of female engineers in the field. With all the stereotypical

thing in the engineering field I can understand why, but that can be resolve so we can push

for more female engineers.

Discussion

With Mechanical Engineering being known as a manly career field not a lot of women

feel that that career is something they would like to do. There are about 20 percent of

undergraduate engineering degrees are awarded to women, but there are only 13 percent of

engineering workforce are female. Germany is beating US by 6% of females in this career field.

College University should try to push females to be mechanical engineering because with most

company’s wanting to be diverse its more likely for girls to be successful in the career field.

Girls feel that mechanical is a men’s line of work, that why the percentage of females in this

field is low. It may perhaps be the most male dominated profession in the U.S, with 14 percent of

mechanical engineers are females and the US is contributing 5.8 percent of that 14. Without out

no major female mechanical engineer role model there are no inspiration for other females. (p.1)

Women who go to college intending to become engineers stay in the profession less often than

men. The numbers of females that start off in the field are much larger than the percent of

women that actually go all the way through because women switch their major because they

don't believe that their skills are good enough and they don't feel like they fit in engineering

based off the stereotype that is held against mechanical engineers.

There is lots of dirt, oil and loud noises from the machinery and apart from that the

factories have a high risk related to injury/death because of the high-pressure equipment and
RUNNING HEAD: Global Issue Report 4

electrical equipment. Many girls rather work in offices than in such conditions where as of boys

on the other hand wouldn't mind the grime so much. The stereotype that links masculinity to

engineering field is unfortunately and that people believe the stereotype that girls and women are

not as good as boys and men in math and science, yet these stereotypes is still hard to overcome

worldwide. Although universities and high schools are working together to push more female

students to explore engineering, with schools pushing the issue the industry’s also needs to step

up and do more even if its offering more female jobs to show that the field want to be more

diverse.

The misconceptions about mechanical engineering go back to our early school years.

Men and women receive different careers advice at school, according to a 2014 City & Guilds

survey of 2000 young professionals. The top 3 career choices recommended to girls are nursing

& care, teaching, and medical, for boys the top 3 are I.T, engineering, and finance. Engineering

is seen as more brawn than brain is as much sexist towards women as it is towards men. Because

it’s a proven fact that females that take the courses or try to pursue their dream at being a

mechanical engineering they are in the top ten percent, grades wise because females are known

to be smarter then males.

Role models are key in gender diversity especially in tech & engineering in addition,

there are just a few female role models working in mechanical engineering field. According to

studies by microsoft, many girls and young women have a hard time seeing themselves in

mechanical engineering roles and that do not have a female role model in the field to inspire

them to pursue that career. The study found that girls who know a woman in a STEM profession

were 17 percent more likely to feel empowered when they engage in STEM activities than those

who don’t know a woman in a STEM profession. males dominated the workplaces, and some
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employers don’t actively seek female candidates. With the few females that is in the field they

feel that their voice isn’t getting heard in a male dominated work place. With more exposure to

positive role models, young girls could find women that they can relate to and aspire to be.

Mariana Bontempo is a female engineer and she think to get more females to join the field is to

promote career discovery programmes for young female students that allow them to explore their

potential, curiosity and passion for innovation. Mariana believe by creating different scenarios

and interesting work place like simulation for girls where they can explore the technology in an

interactive and insightful way such as workshops in robotics, mechanics and coding it is

possible to give them practical knowledge and understanding of the impact that they can have

being part of the field, they won’t think twice about joining mechanical engineering.

In the United Kingdom their primary engineering has extended to early years engineer

program, which targets children as young as three years old. The United Kingdom feel like if u

introduce something to a girl several times before the have to make a choice, they will pick

something that they know of and not something they don’t have a clue about. This is probably

why the United States is only consisting of 4.8 of the 14 percent of women that is engineers in

the world, because I’m one hundred percent that that no one was talking to kids in America about

being an engineer when we get older. With talk to kid while their young we set a light off in a

kid head about all the cool things engineers do and will make all the kids want to be an engineer

boys and girls.

The shortage in engineering is now recognized. Projects and daily activity are being

change a tad bit to put engineering into schools to show creativity and industry like work place to

enhance the image of engineering to young children and particularly to girls. With UTEP being a

engineering I think they should push more to the local high schools and middle school about
RUNNING HEAD: Global Issue Report 6

studying and pursuing to be a engineer since they have a lot of kids visiting the college weekly.

With UTEP helping with recruiting girls and females to the engineering field and it have any

type of toll on the numbers of females to join the field at UTEP maybe the others university in

the country will follow UTEP’s lead and that should change that 4.8 percent to at least 8 percent

in the next four years. Hope is still out there as mentalities change and misconceptions are being

ironed out. Whenever utep faces aspiring engineering students, they should take extra care of

them and communicate with them to give them specific insight into what mechanical engineering

really is and get rid of the “oily rag” misconception as much as possible.

With considering some of the misconception, most girls develop an idea of what

mechanical engineering is. There are the remaining few who think beyond the limits, but they are

forced to drop because of peer pressure and based off the misconception they heard of. After

these filtering if any girls are still left in the set, then they will join mechanical engineering. So,

there are few or no girls in a mechanical engineering class. But with females thinking of

mechanical engineering as a men’s career field, people need to change their mindset. Mechanical

is not just confined for boys no more. Girls have great potential in the engineering field to. Girls

are becoming pilots, army officers even astronauts. How much difficult can it be to be a

Mechanical Engineering?

I really like this quote “I believe engineering skills and talents are gender neutral. I want

to see an end to the idea that a woman is hired into an engineering role because of her gender and

not her talent. That is why I support the Women & Engineering Program.” - Michele Liebman

BS ’86. There are a lot of companies in the world that try to hire females to have some type of

diversity in their company and not based off their abilities and attributes that they can bring to

the company.
RUNNING HEAD: Global Issue Report 7

Conclusions

There are many explanations for today's lack of female mechanical engineers that often

contribute to the industry's outdated sexist views and misunderstandings. Perhaps if a new

definition and a more up to date name was given to the mechanical engineering industry, that

could attract more female mechanical engineers. However, this would effectively dismiss the

thousands of years of mechanical engineering successes and challenges and take away from what

is for many a wholly satisfying career.

RUNNING HEAD: Global Issue Report 8

References

Ang, J. (2015). Firms in singapore are struggling to find suitable female directors. Retrieved

from www2.humanresourcesonline.net/firms-singapore-struggling-find-suitable-female-

directors/

Anninger, M. (2016). 5 reasons why there aren’t many female mechanical designers. Retrieved

from https://www.engineeringclicks.com/female-mechanical-designers-5-reasons/

Celestine Bohlen. (2018). Making gains for women in STEM fields will take more effort.

Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/world/europe/women-in-stem.html

Janice Gassam. (2018). How to increase female representation in the STEM field. Retrieved

from https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2018/10/16/how-to-increase-female-

representation-in-the-stem-field/#436be65f466a

Moldoff David. (2019).

Putting the college major into perspective. Retrieved from

https://www.collegetransfer.net/AskCT/WhatisaCollegeMajor/tabid/2421/default.aspx

susan s. silbey. (2016). Why do so many women who study engineering leave the field?

Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/08/why-do-so-many-women-who-study-engineering-

leave-the-field
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Figures

this figure Show that there are females amongst

males, because there are less than 1 percent of females to

ever 10 males in the mechanical engineer field.

this image I think more of a stereotype, that only

female that are masculine enough can be a

mechanical engineer which that isn’t true.

this image shows how the job can be a little messy

and this just a little dirt and oil mechanical engineering is

a job that stay getting dirty, so this is one reason why

females don’t think that’s a job for them.