Women in Engineering in Canada: The next Challenges
Monique Frize, P. Eng.
Chair Holder, Nortel/NSERC Women in Engineering Chair
and Professor of Electrical Engineering
University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canada E3B 5A3
Published: 1996 Canadian Conference on Electrial & Comput. Eng., (CCECE '96), May, Calgary: pp 365-368
ABSTRACT
Enrolments of women in engineering have increased
steadily (at the rate of 1 percent per year) for the past five or six
years. We may reach a plateau or see a decline if the obstacles,
that are more systemic in nature, and embedded in the culture,
the curriculum and the teaching style, are not removed. The
workplace environment is also a major factor and issues such as
accomodating career and family (for both sexes), the
elimination of harassment, sexism, and discrimination will have
a positive impact on the retention of women who have chosen
to be engineers. Women must also participate actively in the
governance of the profession if it is to reflect their perspectives
and respond to their needs.
Introduction
In Canada, women represent fifty-two percent of the
population, yet they are under-represented in some fields, most
notably in Engineering. Some of the social barriers start as early
as birth and continue at all levels of the education system to
perpetuate the myth that the physical sciences, mathematics,
and engineering, are fields of study for men. Thus, by the
graduation year in high school, a small number of women are
left in the pool of candidates qualified to enter into Engineering.
Some progress can be noted between 1988 and 1994, where the
average enrolment of women across Canada increased from 11
percent to just under 20 percent. The number of women
graduate students has now also been increasing dramatically in
the past four years, (19 percent in 1993/94 enrolments in
Master's programs and 13.7 percent at the PhD level, compared
to 10 and 6 percent in 1990 enrolments). The number of women
faculty remains dismally low: an average of 5 percent in two-thirds of engineering schools and none in the remaining third.
Other professions such as medicine, law, dentistry, and
veterinary medicine have reached and maintained gender-balanced enrolments for years. This points clearly to the
existence of more subtle and covert obstacles in Engineering
and the Physical Sciences. The climate and environment, the
culture, in these fields appears to be one of the factors limiting
women's participation. In fact, it is possible that a ceiling will
be reached in Engineering at around 25 percent, except where
curriculum content, teaching style and culture issues have been
addressed. One University in Canada has reached an enrolment
of 46 percent of women in their Engineering program. The
Engineering program at Guelph should become a case study to
tell us more about how this can be achieved. Some of the
unfortunate incidents relating to sexism in the workplace or in
academia can also be a deterrent to younger women who would
consider this career. A paradigm shift in the culture of
engineering is needed.
In the process of studying the factors limiting women's
participation in engineering, the Chair holder was greatly
assisted by the creation of a national committee, in February
1990. The mandate of the CCWE (Canadian Committee on
Women in Engineering) was to examine obstacles and identify
successful strategies to increase the participation of women in
Engineering. The study looked at issues at the various levels:
The elementary and secondary education system, the
universities, workplaces and the professional associations. The
committee was composed of 19 members, representing the
major organisations connected to these issues, with regional,
bilingual and gender balance. The author Chaired the
committee which released its report "More than Just Numbers"
in April 1992 (CCWE, 1992). In the process of developing its
report, the CCWE held six public forums across the country and
received more than two hundred personal testimonies and briefs
from individuals and groups. The CCWE contracted a research
project on "best practises" carried-out in seven universities and
six workplaces. Prior to releasing its report, the CCWE held a
national conference in May 1991 to review a set of draft
recommendations, with 250 participants, followed by an
endorsement meeting in September of the same year, with the
major stakeholders, to ensure a 'buy-in' approach . That last
event concluded the committee's work. The major stakeholders
agreed, at that time, to hold an update conference three years
later (in 1995) to assess progress. Future directions would be
guided by the discussions at the conference workshops and
plenary sessions (Update Conference, 1995). In the interim, the
Government of Canada, under the auspices of the National
Advisory Board on Science and Technology, developed a second
report extending the CCWE work to cover the fields of science
and technology, released by the Prime Minister of Canada on
March 8, 1993.
The Pre-University Level
Cultural influences and gender-role stereotyping
continue to be a predominant obstacle to girls and young women
considering the study of science and mathematics at the High
School level. This closes their door to an engineering education.
Another obstacle is the lack of women role models profiled in
textbooks and teaching science and mathematics at junior and
high school levels. For engineering, this lack is even more
serious, as the few women science teachers are usually in
biology or chemistry, and more rarely in physics. Faculties of
Education responsible for training and educating the next
generation of teachers could do much to provide gender
sensitisation to future teachers so that they will be more aware
of how to encourage both girls and boys to develop their full
potential, by challenging them, supporting them and selecting
textbooks that breakdown the stereotypes of gender roles.
Guidance counsellors must provide broader career information
to the students, free of gender bias. They should make a greater
effort in identifying the skills and interest of these young people
for non-traditional areas (as for example, nursing for boys and
engineering for girls).
Current Endeavours at the Pre-University Level:
Workshops for parents and career counsellors,
textbooks portraying women and men in active and sharing
roles, books that profile women scientists, engineers,
mathematicians, are all good strategies. Some schools are using
a cooperative learning environment in their classes ; others have
developed chemistry and physics classes for girls-only classes
and a content and teaching style that incorporates experiences
and interests of girls (Rogers, 1988; Booth and Brooks, 1988?).
Videos have been created on careers in Engineering (Frize,
1992) and Science () showing how engineers and scientists
apply their knowledge to the benefit of humankind, to solve
problems, and design the world we live and work in. This
should make these careers more visible and appealing to young
women. Mentor programs where young women students meet
women in non traditional occupations create a long-term
support needed to eliminate the barriers.
Strategies for Change
Introducing the concepts and methods involved in
problem-solving (engineering) into the existing science and
mathematic courses at the secondary level and introducing early
and basic notions that pertain to the various engineering fields
would bring these fields closer to the students at a critical time
when they are considering their options and their careers. It
would be vital to ensure that the content and delivery of these
courses create a positive experience for young women.
The University Level
Once women chose these fields of study, their experience can vary from being very positive to very negative. This will vary from class to class and from university to university.
Retention seems to be linked to access to women role models, mentoring, tutoring and a general atmosphere where there is respect and tolerance for diversity. Many women seem to enjoy multidisciplinary courses or fields, especially if they have a link to the real world and to societal realities. The myths that propagate a masculine view of excellence may be prejudicial to women's success and to their integration into these fields. This not only applies to myths concerning merit, awards and appointments, but to the value of intellectual work, success in seeking funding and recognition (Caplan, 1992). Humanizing the course content would certainly contribute to enhancing women's interest in these fields. In fact, this may be explain partly why women are so interested in a career in medicine.
The existence of double standards are another major issue. Stereotypes shape our perceptions about what each sex can and should do and what they cannot and should not be done. They can have a major impact on the career progression and success of many women. Generally, in their early socialisation (learning social skills), both women and men are imprinted with stereotypical images such as: Men are supposed to be objective, rational, independent, ambitious, and responsible; women are seen as subjective, intuitive, emotional, dependent, and accomodating (McKee and Sheriffs, 1957). Even though this reference is not recent, current research shows the perpetuation of these same stereotypes that are re-learned from one generation to the other. For example, Foschi's research (1994) in a study of women and men who are shown to have equal backgrounds and skills, males were viewed as "better qualified" by a majority of the male subjects making the selection. This, Foschi says, is more evident where the field is non-traditional. Women, Foschi shows, buy less into this stereotype by selecting slightly more than half of the women candidates as more qualified. This is in stark contrast to the 1968 study by Goldberg where both females and males looked at essays of identical value and selected the ones with male names as superior. The subjects said they had sincerely seen the content of essays with male names as more important, authoritative and convincing than those with female names. (Names had been interchanged for the purpose of the study). Strayer has done a similar experiment in 1985, with similar results. These stereotypes can affect the success rate of women in competitions for scholarships, fellowships, grants, jobs, promotions, research grants, and being nominated and selected to win prizes and awards. The systemic bias that exists against groups such as women and visible minorities can only be eradicated through education and sensitisation programs, and through a balanced representation in committees that select winners of scholarships, of awards; and committees that recommend the hiring, the promotion or tenure of faculty.
Another factor that contributes to the problem is the
predominant culture which defines what is important and what
is to be valued. For example, granting agencies have provided
funding to researchers who work in areas defined by grant
selection committees as 'mainstream and hard-core" topics.
Even the journals where one publishes, are defined in a similar
way, and influences the success of scholarly work. To date, the
committees are mostly composed of senior men who continue to
perpetuate the culture and to nominate similar individuals as
replacements when their term is up. Multidisciplinary programs
and research proposals are still looked upon by the most
conservative factions of our profession as not mainstream and
"soft" and as such, devalued by the "hard engineering" factions.
Yet, it is the multidisciplinary approach that will allow
engineering to crunch the larger, more difficult problems and a
holistic approach to problem-solving will enrich the solutions
and probably make them more societally relevant and
financially successful as we need more complex solutions. These
factors actually also work against some of the men whose
research interests and methods lie outside the currently narrowly
defined 'excellence in engineering scholarship', or what is called
'mainstream research'.
Solutions at the Post-Secondary Level: Climate/culture
Universities should encourage the use of gender-inclusive language and the creation of a non-threatening environment in the classroom. Teaching opinion survey questionnaires should ask students whether the professor made any racist or sexist remarks and whether the language used in class was inclusive. Universities could distribute a booklet on gender-inclusive language to each instructor (Ontario Women's Directorate) and provide gender-sensitivity training to faculty, staff and graduate assistants. Faculties of Engineering should track students on academic probation and develop a mentor program, especially for students in under-represented groups. Special efforts should be made to attract and fund women students in graduate programs; they form the pool for future women faculty. Letters can be sent to women students with high marks, asking them whether they have considered graduate school. Women faculty need to be proactively sought and hired. The goal should be based on the availability of women in the pool of doctoral students. It is frequent to observe that even where affirmative action policies exist, the policy is often ignored or paid lip service.
Institutions of higher learning will only successfully demontrate that they care about these issues when they identify and hire women in senior academic administrative positions. Institutions that hire women at those senior levels should benefit from a diverse perspective and leadership style. However, few institutions have learned yet to appeciate this difference and some of the women hired at those levels have a very difficult task. In many places, the effort on gender-balance is limited to the undergraduate level, where the increased number of students affect the funding level positively.
Curriculum and Teaching Style Issues Studies have shown
that teaching style is important; according to these researchers
(Booth and Brooks), only 5 percent of the population has a
mentally-centred learning style, yet most of the teaching in
science, mathematics and engineering is done in that style; 85
% of people (women and men) prefer a relationally-centred style
of learning. This approach has been shown to be far more
effective than the traditional method for both women and men
students alike [15,17]. In addition, relating the topic to societal
realities would be most effective [1,6,12]. The curriculum
should develop multidisciplinary topics that are related to the
quality of the environment and the quality of life; examples are:
biophysics, environmental engineering, biomedical engineering,
bio-resource and water resource engineering, etc.. Such
programs in Canada have achieved gender-balanced
enrolments. In contrast, topics which are narrowly-focused and
classical in their approach find the lowest enrolment of women.
When these courses are 'humanised' with some societal context,
they will certainly be attended by greater numbers of women.
CONCLUSION
The current 'culture of science' originates from the
middle-ages and from the industrial revolution [11]. One of the
negative aspects of this culture passed down from these early
times is 'man's domination and control of nature, of the planet
and of its natural resources'. This image has deterred many
talented women and men from considering the study of
science[17]. The perception (or reality) of a masculine culture
in science creates a systemic barrier for many women. But their
absence deprives these fields of an enriching perspective.
Strategies must be sought to successfully eradicate sexism and
harassment in our universities. Aspects of the current culture
that make some women feel uncomfortable must be identified
and ways sought to integrate and value feminine perspectives,
especially in the creation of new scholarly work. These changes
will also make Engineering a more comfortable environment for
men and for people of all races. Differences between feminine
and masculine perspectives must be seen as an enrichment of
scientific and technical work. These have more to do with
'culture' than with competence. Institutions that celebrate
diversity should be the most successful ones in the turn of the
century.
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An earlier version of this paper was sent by the authors to the UNESCO "DELORS COMMISSION" on Education for the 21st Century.