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Sheila
Widnall, Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, made the following presentation recently at
the S.E. Regional National Association of Engineers meeting
at Georgia Tech.
In
a seminar with faculty colleagues last week, we were discussing
the information content of a string of numbers-OK so it
was a slow day. The assertion was made that the quantity
of information equaled the number of bits in the string,
unless you were told that, for example, the string was the
digits of Pi. Then the information quantity became essentially
one. The additional assertion was made that of course all
MIT freshmen knew Pi out to some outrageously large number
of digits. I remarked that this seems to me like a "guy"
sort of thing and I doubted that the women at MIT knew Pi
out to some large number of digits.
This
got me thinking whether there are other "guy" sort of things
which are totally irrelevant to the contributions that engineers
make to our society that never the less operate to keep
women out of engineering. These "guy" things may also be
real barriers in the minds of some male faculty and these
faculty may unconsciously, or even consciously, tell women
that women don't belong in engineering. I have recently
visited university campuses where that is still going on.
Let
me make a strong statement: if women don't belong in engineering,
then engineering, as a profession is irrelevant to the needs
of our society. If engineering doesn't make welcome space
for them and embrace them for their wonderful qualities,
then engineering will become marginalized as other fields
expand their turf to seek out and make a place for women.
So
let me give you Sheila Widnall's top ten reasons why women
are important to the profession of engineering:
10.
Women are a major force in our society. We are self conscious
about our role and determined to be heard.
9. Women are 50% of the consumers of products in our society
and make over 50% of the purchasing decisions.
8. Who today would choose a profession that did not have
a significant percentage of women?
7. Women are integrators. We are experts at parallel processing,
at handling many things at once. Women are comfortable in
fuzzy situations.
6. Women are team builders. Women inherently practice what
is now understood as an effective management style.
5. Engineering should be/could be the 21st century foundation
for all of the professions.
4. Women are 50% of our intellectual resource. Without women,
engineering will need to access-say-the upper 20% of our
talent to fill its human requirements. With women, it will
be able to access -say- the upper 10%.
3. Women are a major force in the professions of law, medicine,
the media, politics and business.
2. Women are active in technology. Often they have simply
by-passed engineering on their way to successful careers
in technology.
1. Women are committed to the important values of our times,
protecting the environment, product safety, education and
have the political skill to be effective in resolving these
issues. They will do this with or without engineering. Women
are going to be a huge force in the solution of human problems.
Trends
in our society indicate that we are moving to a service
economy. We are moving from the production of hardware to
the provisions of total customer solutions. That is we are
merging technology and information and increasing the value
of both. What role will the engineering profession play
in this? One future vision for engineering is to create
the linkage of hardware, information and management. It
seems to me that women are an essential part of this new
imperative for the engineering profession if we are to be
central to the solution of human problems. Another possible
future is to restrict ourselves to the design of hardware.
If we do this, we will be less central to the emerging economy
and the needs of our society.
The
top ten reasons that women don't go into engineering:
10.The
image of that guy in high school that all of the teachers
encouraged to study engineering.
9. Poorly taught freshman physics. Linear thinking.
8. Concerned that they won't get a date to the prom if they
get the highest math score.
7. Lack of encouragement from parents and high school teachers.
6. Guys who worked on cars and computers or faculty who
think they did.
5. Lack of encouragement from faculty; survival of the fittest
mentality. "I treat everyone badly"; constant use of masculine
pronouns describing engineers.
4. Lack of women faculty or obvious mistreatment of women
faculty by colleagues and departments.
3. Bias in the math SAT's.
2. Lack of visible role models and other women students
in engineering.
1. Lack of connection between engineering and the problems
of our society. Lack of understanding what engineers do.
These
issues of language and expectations, behavior and self-esteem
are still with us. Until we face them squarely, I doubt
that women students will feel comfortable in engineering
classrooms. No, I'm not talking about off color stories,
although I'm sure that that goes on. I am talking about
jokes and innuendo that convey a message to women that they're
not wanted that they're even invisible. It may be unconscious,
and it may come from the least secure of their male classmates
or teachers; people whose own social skills or self-esteem
is so low and who lack such self-confidence that they grasp
for comments that at least put them in the top 50% by putting
all of the women in second place. Also, many men express
discomfort at having women "invade" their "space"; they
literally don't know how to behave. When I was a freshman
advisor I told my women students that the greatest challenge
to their presence at MIT would come from their classmates
who want to see themselves in at least the upper 50% of
the class.
These
attitudes are so fundamental that unless they are questioned
people just go about the business of treating women as if
they're invisible. I remember one incredible incident that
happened to me. When I was a young assistant professor,
I was teaching the graduate course in aerodynamics with
a senior colleague. I was to give the first lecture. So
I walked into class and proceeded to organize the course,
outline the syllabus and give the first introductory lecture.
Two new graduate students from Princeton were in the class.
One of them knew who I was. The other thought I was Prof.
Landahl's secretary and was very impressed at my ability
to give the first lecture. I think you can all see the intellectual
disconnect in this example. It never occurred to this student
that I might be a professor, although I'm sure I put my
name and phone number on the blackboard. So he thought there
were two professors and one secretary. I did in fact eventually
become a Secretary -- but that is another story.
I
once got a call from a female faculty colleague at another
university. She was having trouble teaching her class in
statistics. All of the football players who were taking
it were sitting in the back row and generally misbehaving.
If she asked me that today I don't know what I'd say. But
what I did say-that worked-was that she should call them
in one-by-one and get to know them as individuals. This
evidently worked and she sailed on. Today she is an outstanding
success. I doubt if many male faculty have had such an experience.
But this clearly was a challenge to her or she wouldn't
have called me. I believe that all women faculty have such
challenges to their authority in ways that would never happen
to a man. Students will call a female professor Mrs. and
a male professor Professor. I told one student that if he
ever addresses Senator Feinstein as Mrs. Feinstein, he will
find himself in the hall. If it is happening to women faculty,
I'm sure it is happening to women students, this constant
challenge to who they are.
We
all have unconscious attitudes that impact our effectiveness
as educators and cause us to negatively impact our women
students. I remember one incident: I was advising two students
on an independent project: a guy and a gal. (The gal was
the better student). We were meeting to discuss what needed
to be done. I found myself directing my comments to the
guy whenever there was discussion about building, about
welding or cutting. I caught myself short and consciously
began to direct my comments evenly. I went to my departmental
colleagues and said: "this is what happened to me. If I'm
doing it, you surely are". Do male faculty welcome the appearance
of female students in the classroom? Do these faculty resent
having to teach women and feel the department is diminished
somehow when women are a significant faction of the students.
You might think so when you notice the low percent of engineering
women graduate students that results when selection is more
clearly controlled by these individual faculty.
And
then there is the issue of evaluation and standards. I don't
think that we as a profession can just sit by and evaluate
women to see if they measure up to our current criteria.
We have to reexamine the criteria. As an example: One of
my faculty colleagues, whose daughter was applying to MIT-thank
God for daughters-, did a study of whether admissions performance
measures -primarily the math SAT--actually predicted the
academic performance of students, not just as freshman but
throughout their undergraduate careers. He did this differentially
for men and women and got some surprising and very important
results. He found that women outperform their predictions.
That is, that women perform better as students than their
math SAT scores would predict. The effective predictive
gap is about 30 points.
Thus
the conditions were set to change admissions criteria for
women in a major way. The criteria for math SAT for women
was changed to reflect the results of the study. In one
year, the percentage of women students in the entering class
went from 26 to 38%...
And
it worked! We have been doing this for close to 20 years
now and the women have performed as we expected. Women are
now about 50% of the freshman class.
Along
the way, we identified some very important critical mass
effects for women. Once the percentage of women students
in a department rises above say 15%, the academic performance
of the women improves. This suggests a link between acceptance
and self-esteem and resulting increases in performance.
These items are under our control. I am convinced that 50%
of performance comes from motivation. An environment that
truly welcomes women will see women excel as students and
as professional engineers.
At
this point, all of our departments have gone critical. Women
undergraduates, who are now 41 percent of the MIT undergraduates,
outnumber men in three of the five schools and 15 of the
22 undergraduate majors. Women are still outperforming their
male counterparts.
At
MIT, women are the majority in four of the eight engineering
courses: chemical engineering, materials science and engineering,
civil and environmental engineering and nuclear engineering.
With the possible exception of Smith College, which is starting
an engineering program, I have not heard of another engineering
department anywhere in which women are a majority of the
undergraduate students. In the entire School of Engineering,
women are 34% of the undergraduates.
Anyone
who has taught in this environment would report that it
has improved the educational climate for everyone. We in
Aeronautics see it in our ability to teach complex system
courses dealing with problems that have no firm boundaries.
Ten
top reasons why women are not welcome in engineering:
10.
We had a women student/faculty member/engineer once and
it didn't work out.
9. Women will get married
8.
If we hire a woman, the government will take over and restrict
our options.
7. If you criticize a woman, she will cry.
6. Women can't take a joke.
5. Women can't go to offsite locations.
4. If we admit more women, they will suffer discrimination
in the workplace and will not be able to contribute financially
as alumni. -I kid you not: that is an actual quote.
3. There are no women interested in engineering.
2. Women make me feel uncomfortable.
1. I want to mentor, support, advise, evaluate people who
look like me.
So
how do we increase the number of women students and make
our profession a leader in tackling tough societal problems?
What do we need?
Let
me give you my list of the ten effectors:
10.
Effective TV and print material for high school and junior
high girls about career choices.
9. Engineering courses designed to evoke and reward different
learning styles.
8. Faculty who realize that having women in the class improves
the education for everyone.
7. Mentors who seek out women for encouragement.
6. Role models: examples of successful women in a variety
of fields who are treated with dignity and respect.
5. Appreciation and rewards for diverse problem solving
skills.
4. Visibility for the accomplishments of engineering that
are seen as central to important problems facing our society.
3. Internships and other industrial opportunities.
2. Reexamination of admission and evaluation criteria.
1. Effective and committed leadership from Faculty and senior
administration.
Technology
is becoming increasingly important to our society. There
may be an opportunity to engage media opinion makers in
communicating engineering opportunities and societal needs
to young girls. I don't believe that the engineering profession
alone can effectively communicate these messages but in
partnership we can be effective. These issues are important
for our society as a whole, not just for engineering as
a profession.
However,
we do have a good bit of housecleaning to do. We must recognize
that women are differentially affected by a hostile climate.
Treat a male student badly and he will think you're a jerk.
Treat a female student badly and she will think you have
finally discovered that she doesn't belong in engineering.
It's not easy being a pioneer. It's not easy having to prove
every day that you belong. It's not easy being invisible
or having your ideas credited to someone else.
What
I want to see are engineering classrooms full of bright,
young, enthusiastic students, both male and female in roughly
equal proportions, who are excited about the challenge of
applying scientific and engineering principles to the technical
problems facing our society. These women want it all. They
want full lives. They want important work. They want satisfying
careers. And in demanding this, they will make it better
for their male colleagues as well. They will connect with
the important issues facing our society. Then I will know
that the engineering profession has a future contribution
to make to our society.
Coda:
I sent out drafts of this speech to women engineering faculty
and MIT and beyond and received many inputs and suggestions,
many have been incorporated. Although I consider this piece
to be more poetry than science, I was extremely gratified
by a common reaction from women faculty: that they had been
"heard".
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