Mike Coslo wrote:
wrote:
. . . Is it possible that the woman
engineers I don't see out here are operating in academia instead??
Would not surprise me a bit if that's the case.
I work with 5 or so regularly.
I think you are probably correct regarding their increased presence in
academia, compared to industry.
My thoughts on why that is so are based on two ideas. First is that the
academic world is sensitive to gender issues, due to groups that bust on
them if they are not.
The Harvard guy . . . . Yee-haw! SPANK!
This leads to the second reason. That is that
until there are a lot more women graduating in the engineering fields,
the academic world will scap them up pretty quickly.
No particular comment here, I've been completely out of touch with the
innards of academia for years.
Some have noted that women tend to think differently than men, and may
not want to go into the engineering fields as a result of that
difference. (note that this is as a trend- not as the circumstances
regarding any one woman) I am not sure if the differences are
instinctual, or culture based. Time will tell. And it will probably be
quite a long time.
Certainly women think differently than men and it's good thing they do
in several respects. As far as the timing of the emergence of large
numbers of woman engineers goes. Hell, I know scads of women
contemporaries of mine whose parents never gave them a chance to go
into higher education "because the woman's place is in the home
barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen". Never mind support their
daughters desires to become engineers. Society has come a long way
since those days but it's gonna take a few more generations before this
thinking actually prevails.
Of course she had "problems" with this male chauvinist pig.
Finally got
down to me suggesting that instead of differentiating by the man/woman
thing we differtiate by using "X-Chromosone people" and "Y-Chromosone
people" instead. Only got me about ten seconds of peace before she
recovered and got all over me again.
Yoiks!
Yeah yoicks . . she drove me batty, you would not believe it. 15 years
later she glomed two degrees before she turned 21, has four kids, a big
home in a cushy neighborhood and votes Republican . . . I recently told
her 13-year-old son about his Mom riding with Warlocks when she was 14.
I dunno how I survived but I have so now it's payback time for Pop-pop.
Her two sisters weren't cakewalks either.
In fairness to the particular engineer, she is not particularly
obnoxious. Mostly just wants to get her work done.
- Mike KB3EIA -
w3rv