Women in Engineering

Without sounding like a stuck record, if 2018 proved anything to us, it showed that women have definitely come a long way within the tech industry, and as a glass half full type of person, this year looks promising in terms of continuing to encourage females. However, the fact that I am writing this article means that although a battle may have been won, there’s still some way to go to win the war, and so I want to pose the question - is technology inherently sexist?

In 2019 the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) turned 100 years old and celebrated the present, remembering the past and continuing to change the future. 2018 marked the centenary of British women gaining the right to vote, marking the Representation of the People Act 1918. It gave suffrage for most men, and enfranchised women over 30 who met minimum property qualifications.

Cast your minds back to October, Startups Magazine hosted a 'Female Founders' event to celebrate women in tech, bringing together women and men from the industry to highlight female startups and female entrepreneurs in the industry. Two panel discussions were held and one thing that became apparently clear from the audience and the professionals on the panel, was the huge lack of role models in the technology industry as a whole and in particular, sources of female inspiration for young people.

There are several reasons why there are not enough women in tech as we touched on in last month’s last column, however, when does that discouragement process start? My instinctive answer to this question suggests that it begins in school and at a young age. Is there enough encouragement in STEM subjects for young girls, and if so where does it go wrong? Is it that we have created a society with so many stereotypes that young girls are put off without even realising it?

Women gained the vote 100 years ago this year, a momentous occasion that has gone down in history, so why is there still a gap within the engineering industry between genders? Electronic Specifier’s Anna Flockett investigates. In fact there is not enough diversity in the technology sector as a whole. Mike Butcher, Editor at Tech Crunch, said that this year’s figures show that in the technology sector 20% of the workforce are females, which has dropped from 33% in 2002.

This year saw WES (The Women’s Engineering Society) celebrate its 100 year anniversary. A lot has changed for women over the last century, as Electronic Specifier’s Anna Flockett found out at the organisation’s centennial conference. WES’s centennial conference which was held last month, titled: ‘Celebrating the Past, Transforming the Future’, set out to discuss the past, how far women have come, some of our amazing achievements, and crucially what still needs to be done in the future. 

Attracting more women into construction and engineering must become a higher priority for government and employers, urges Develop Training Ltd (DTL). The training company says redressing the gender imbalance is not just desirable from an ideological viewpoint but also a means of helping to tackle the chronic skills shortage afflicting the industry. Two thirds of employers say a shortage of engineers is a threat to their business.

In 2017 Hanson Robotics hit the headlines with the launch of Sophia, a humanoid robot that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI), visual data processing and facial recognition, imitates human gestures and facial expressions and is able to answer certain questions and make simple conversations on predefined topics.

Over the last few years we have used up a lot of column inches in order to highlight the burgeoning skills gap within engineering and STEM-based careers, and in particular the discrepancy in the gender balance of individuals choosing that particular pathway.