• Question: what is your response to people who say that the engineer work field is a mans job?

    Asked by IzzyK to Andrei, Dominique, Mark, Masha, Sarah on 15 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Mark Catherall

      Mark Catherall answered on 15 Nov 2016:

      Pity mainly. People who think that engineering is ‘a man’s job’ are pretty misguided. If engineering companies only hired men, they’d be missing out on half of the engineering talent in the world, so they’d quickly fall behind other companies which hired based on talent alone.

      Saying that engineering can only be done by a man is like saying that you can only make coffee if you’re left-handed – it’s blatantly wrong and it makes the person saying it sound like an idiot!

    • Photo: Sarah Hunt

      Sarah Hunt answered on 15 Nov 2016:

      I disagree entirely! It’s widely recognised that we need more diversity in engineering which means more women, more ethnic minorities and more equality.

      One of the reasons diversity is so important is that, if engineering is only open to men, then companies are only choosing engineers from half the population of people in the world. The companies are therefore missing out on the best engineers from the other half of the population, the females. And there are a lot of tricky problems in the world that need solved by the best engineers. It makes commercial sense for things to be equal.

      Legally, companies in the UK are not allowed to discriminate (or in other words make it harder) for people on the grounds of: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. So, if you do find it hard to get a job because you are female, it is illegal!

      The Royal Academy of Engineering sponsors many projects around the UK to improve diversity and show everyone that it’s not just for men. There are 22 streams of work going on in the Academy to quantitatively (so it can be measured) make a change. So hopefully things will improve in the next 10 years, and if you decide to become an engineer, the workplace will look very different.

      Sorry for such a long answer to your question.. I think this topic is really important so wanted to give a proper answer ?

Comments