Dr. Hayden believes the reason for this change at the school level is due to greater recruitment efforts, financial and academic support, and more women role models to provide encouragement. Dr. Hayden sees a similar situation happening in the engineering field.
Dr. Lin, a male electrical engineer, on the other hand, somewhat ironically, seems to feel that women face a tougher challenge in engineering than Dr. Hayden stated. According to Dr. Lin, women can succeed as an electrical engineer if "they are determined." This is clearly a male-oriented view of how to succeed. According to typical male beliefs, success is an individual achievement. If you work hard you will succeed. If you do not succeed, it is because you did not work hard enough. However, Dr. Hayden emphasized in her response to the same question the role of peer mentors, academic support and other outside resources. This is typically a more feminine view of success, which one cannot succeed alone but only with the help of others.
This difference in views of success can be one of the reasons women are underrepresented in the field of engineering. As a predominantly male-dominated profession, the support and resources that Dr. Hayden discusses are likely to be non-existence. Men will simply expect women to succeed on their own and if they don't, this is the reason for fewer women in engineering. However, this is an outdated mentality as it is now common practice in education to use support networks to reach success. (Baker, 2000). As individuals graduate under this educational model, they will likely carry it into the workforce. This too is an example of how the state of education will eventually effect the state of the engineering field, particularly the role of women within the field.
Another interesting difference between the interview responses of Dr. Hayden and...
Lin is to the child-rearing question. When asked what, if any, effect having kids has on a female engineer's career success, Dr. Hayden responds with a positive answer. She highlights her pride in raising a family and working as an engineer. Her answer displays a mentality of work-life balance; where neither one has to interfere with the other. Dr. Lin, on the other hand, responds with a more negative answer. According to him, raising children could "take away time" from the job. This is a typical male response; displaying the mentality that work and family or life cannot be commingled. However, again, this is a mentality that is quickly changing. The generation coming out of college now has a more feminine work-life balance mentality. (Fuller, 2006). In other professions this is seen in the increase of in-house day cares, work at home opportunities, and more personal/vacation days.
In summary, although women lag behind men in terms of numbers in the engineering field, this is likely to change in the future. As more and more women graduate with advanced degrees in this field, more and more women will find themselves in leadership positions within their fields. More so, as this change happens, traditional gender barriers, such as definitions of success and work-life balance will also change, opening up even more doors for female advancement.
Bibliography
Baker, Wayne. Achieving Success Through Social Capital. New York: Jossey-Bass.
Dr. Hayden. Personal Interview. California Poly Pomona. 2006.
Dr. Lin. Personal Interview. California Poly Pomona. 2006.
Fuller, Georgina. "Recent Graduates Expect More from their Employers" Personnel
Today. 31 March 2006.
Society of Women Engineers. Program Statistics. 2002.
A www.swe.org/SWE/ProgDev/stat/stathome.html
