• Question: why do you think there are more men than women in engineering?

    Asked by freisy to Amanda, Ben, Dan, Gary, Samer on 18 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Amanda Lewin

      Amanda Lewin answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      In the past there was a lot of stereotyping as to what jobs men and women should do. Women would be nurses and Men would work in engineering. Nowadays things are different (I know several male nurses!) but it takes time for these ideas to be changed and there are still some people around who think engineering isn’t for women the same as they think nursing isn’t for men. Women have an equal ability to work in engineering, we just have to show them that its a really fun and interesting thing to do!

    • Photo: Gary Boorman

      Gary Boorman answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      I think that historically women have always been expected to ‘stay at home’. Thankfully this is changing, but rather slowly. Engineering often has a ‘dirty-hands’ image, which can put people off wanting to work in this field.
      I think the media should take some of the blame for this.

    • Photo: Ben Drumm

      Ben Drumm answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      I reckon if you asked 10 kids age 5 to draw a picture of an engineer, they would all draw men. I think the problem is that if kids get impressions from a young age about which sex do which jobs then they might subconsciously guide themselves towards careers based on the gender associated with that job. Obviously there’s nothing to separate men from women in terms of how good an engineer they can be, it’s just that growing up with those stereotypes probably has more of an influence than we think!

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