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Asked by KeLs to Kirstin, Agata on 11 Jun 2016.
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Kirstin Rouse answered on 11 Jun 2016:
I’m not sure that I’d use the word glad. I’m proud to be a woman in engineering and it’s important to act as a role model to encourage more women in the future, or at least make sure they’re aware of the opportunity.
I wouldn’t say it’s the easiest job to have as a woman because there is a lot of stigma that engineering is ‘just for boys’, especially with older generations. I’m quite lucky in that the people I work with are all very accepting and I (thankfully) haven’t had any major issues but there are times when it can be uncomfortable. For example, a few weeks ago I held a meeting in the boardroom – there were 20 of us sat around a massive table in the room and as I started to lead the meeting, I looked around and realised I was the only woman in the room. Some days, this doesn’t bother me and I feel proud of where I am but other days it can knock your confidence a bit as you feel out of place.
All in all, I love my job and a few outdated views aren’t going to change that. Hopefully future female engineers will love it as much as I do.
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Agata Suwala answered on 13 Jun 2016:
I’ve always worked and studied in environment where I had female colleagues. Personally I rarely come across people that would act differently towards me that they would do to my male colleagues.
I think in UK there is a very disturbing opinion that engineering is for boys. I come from Poland where for 25 students in my group 4 were females. That’s 16%. In industry that number is over 20%. In most European countries the percentage of females engineers is over 20%, for example in Latvia it’s 30% . In UK the percentage of female engineers is much lower at about 8% which puts it on the last place in statistic, behind Ireland, Finland and Switzerland.
I think female engineers don’t really differ much from male ones, we are generally more organised which helps with the job but our skills are comparable.
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