Women in Engineering: Is it possible?

Ever since we watched the “Killing Us Softly” video, I’ve had the idea of doing my final project on something similar to it. I really like the idea of images that portray women in different ways. Whether its good, bad, or abnormal, I think they make an impact in our life. But I also thought about doing something on women and engineering since it would include my major in the final project. Being one of few girls in my classes, I have strong views that women should have a more prominent role in engineering than they seem to have now. My current idea for a final project is to incorporate both ideas into one project.

My first thoughts on how to include the images as the video does, would be to focus on magazines, textbooks, and websites and to see how women play a role in engineering. However, I feel like when I will try to find images of women there will not be many. I might possibly have to think about changing it to show all the photos of men in engineering and the lack of women. I could discuss how these images might make girls feel inferior to boys in the field of study. There are even some images of sarcastic comments about women through different engineering aspects.

My claim would be that most women aren’t given the impression that engineering can be for them. Men still tend to be the majority of students in engineering classes. And even when I talk to other people about engineering, they seem to give off that, why-are-you-in-engineering? attitude. They seem to think that women can’t make it in engineering and that they wouldn’t have the skills to do half the things engineers do. Besides, most people still think that engineering is working in a factory in a dirty jumpsuit and hardhat working on parts and pieces of things. Most women even think that engineering is too difficult and that they would never make it. But statistics are showing that more and more women are becoming engineers every year. Even this year Barbie’s new career was Computer Engineer. This could be a huge impact on young girls everywhere, who think, “if Barbie can do it, then I can do it”. [Cliché but true.]

Then I would like to write about how over the years, many women engineers have made the same impact in the world as men. I want to show that there are women who have made a successful career as an engineer. Also, I would want to focus on how young girls can get information about engineering at an early age, such as high school. I could also focus on the various groups in schools and across the country that support women in engineering, such as Society of Women Engineers (SWE) at Miami’s campus. SWE offers scholarships for women who go into engineering in college.

So currently, I’m thinking possibly some sort of image slideshow along with a paper about women and engineering.

If anyone has suggestions or comments I would really appreciate it!