A new working paper by Jennifer Hunt examines the exodus of women from the science and engineering fields, and upends some popularly accepted wisdom. Hunt finds that the gap is primarily driven by the engineering field, and that “60% of the gap can be explained by the relatively greater exit rate from engineering of women dissatisfied with pay and promotion opportunities.” Family-related explanations, which are often blamed for the gap, play a much smaller role. Hunt finds a strong positive relationship between share of male workers and excess female exits, which suggests a need for policies aimed at improving female mentoring and networks, and reducing discrimination, across male-dominated fields.[%comments]
Why Do Women Leave?
TAGS: gender relations, science
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Both Cornell and MIT have done careful reviews of the treatment of women students and faculty in their engineering programs in the last 12 years or so… and both found that women were treated very differently than men. Some faculty women were treated harshly by STUDENTS as well as male peers.
Given that the field is most likely dominated by males graduating before these studies and so are less likely to be affected by any improvements the studies might have encouraged, it seems likely the problem is one of persistent undervaluing of women’s talents.
Just because a field is currently dominated by brash males does not mean it requires brashness- or maleness- to accomplish the work at hand. The culture is not the product.
Agree w/commenter #3. Especially when working with more men, they start to wonder why you’re not nice like their wives and moms.
I can see getting tired of sitting uncomfortably on the very sharp and thin line between assertive and “bi*ch”.
Likewise I can see moving up into management, where the social skills forced on women from a young age (and less so on men) and our multitasking (nature or nurture, I don’t know) benefit us.
The question this raises is how many men stay on in engineering despite the inadequate pay and promotion opportunities.
I am one of these statistics. I just left a position in middle management at a large firm after having seen all the women I respected and the men who propmoted them be laid off or leave. As the pressure to produce profits increased over the past two years, policies such as flexible work arrangements and a culture of cooperation quickly became “nice-to-haves” for company management, whereas they are not optional for me.
I also have a 3 yr old son. Despite what my superiors think, my leaving had nothing to do with my family. In fact, I am starting my own business specifically so I don’t have to work for The Man anymore. I simply couldn’t stand to be in one more meeting listening to the boys complain about the vacations their wives were planning or how they one-upped a vendor.
I have been discussing my options with friends and peers for a year and there seems to be a consensus that selling your soul to be a woman in middle management just isn’t worth it.
I think that statements such as “engineers are treated with poorly veiled contempt by managers up the food chain,” rather than begging the question “why would a female want to remain in that profession,” lead me to wonder why would someone of either gender want to remain?
I’m a female engineer and I can tell you that a lot of us are turned off by jerks like Doug. In such a male-dominated field, there’s always enough of these guys around — guys who believe that they’re “very liberal” but then turn around and paint every woman as less than competent after a few bad encounters within an already tiny sample. I especially love that it’s our fault for not bellying up and matching egos with these blowhards.
I think it is also important to note that some engineers are from other countries. I worked in a lab under an engineer from a less egalitarian country, and I think it is possible that his unique, culturally-informed perspective regarding women affected his opinion of me. I would say he was like Doug (#2) – he considered himself socially liberal and “encourageing,” but he always found fault in my work, no matter how hard I tried.
Also, I think some people believe, perhaps mistakenly, that sexual harassment is more common in a field dominated by men. That being said, if a woman does experience harassment, it is more difficult to fix the problem from within a mostly-male work group. For example, a few weeks ago I started to feel wary about one particular male employee, who was following me around, asking me strange questions. According to corporate policy, the proper action of a woman experiencing harassment is to complain to her supervisor. But all of my superiors were men, much older then me, and my boss was from another country. I didn’t really feel like they could relate. Fortunately I was reassigned to a different group.
I don’t know where Doug works, but I’m a PhD level engineer in the microelectronics field with 30+ years experience, and, while there are still more men than women in this field, there are an increasing number of women both in the engineering ranks and in management.
Maybe this is a reflection of exactly the kind of thing Ms. Hunt’s paper describes.
In my experience, those who see the world as “dog eat dog” tend to value personality traits that would thrive in that environment, over actual knowledge and competence. Because, given a certain minimal level of competence, it is the selling and pushing and grandstanding about any accomplishment which is awarded, more than accomplishment itself. Perhaps that has affected his assessment of the women he has worked with.