#nwed

2% of Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering are women.

This here is a post about National Women in Engineering Day, this year being celebrated on...

23rd June

From my personal point of view I’m a student studying Energy Engineering, I am the only non-male identifying person studying my course in my year, and there’s over 30 of us. Furthermore in the entire university there are only 6 non-male identifying people in the entire Engineering department. Frankly, that’s disgusting. It’s even worse that it’s not an unusual ratio. Furthermore there is not a single woman of colour in the entire Engineering Department. 

To show you just how much of a problem diversity in Engineering is, here are some horrifying statistics.

Only 9% of the Engineering workforce is female and only 6% of registered Engineers. (Registered means being part of the Institute or being a chartered or integrated engineer, which gives you better job prospects)

15.8% of engineering and technology undergraduates in the UK are female.

In 2013/14, women accounted for only 3.8% of Engineering apprenticeship starts and 1.7% of Construction Skills starts.

Only around 20% of A Level physics students are girls and this has not changed in 25 years.

Women and men engineering and technology students express similar levels of intent to work in engineering & technology, but 66.2% of the men and 47.4% of the women graduates in 2011 went on to work in engineering and technology.

Women Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering: 2% in 2006 and 4% in 2014.

BUT In a survey of 300 female engineers, 84% were either happy or extremely happy with their career choice.

[source]

So, women want to be Engineers. What’s stopping them? 

We live in a society that is still backwards in that it expects men to be the main workforce in STEM, women are not expected to be good at STEM subjects. Why?

Historically white men have dominated science because of systematic oppression of gender, sexuality and race. This system allowed only the top percentage of wealth and social power to go to university and study. This has changed to a degree in the UK now, but still when we are taught science we learn only about the findings of white men. To quote the phenomenal Sally Ride, “You can’t be what you can’t see.” and so many girls don’t feel like they can work in STEM because of this, making it ever harder to break through the glass ceiling which is set even lower in STEM subjects than in most others.

So, promoting women in Engineering is important for the future as enabling women to meet their full potential in work could add as much as $28 trillion to annual GDP in 2025 . 

What can you do?

Help us get the hashtag #NWED trending on twitter on the 23rd! 

If you’re an engineer, get involved by posting a picture of you with a sign saying #NWED and something about you, what you do or your hopes for the future.

Fill up the tag with positive quotes, stories or pictures of women and other gender minorities being engineering successes!

Reblog this post to spread the word

Happy National Women in Engineering Day!!!

National Women in Engineering Day was set up by the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) to celebrate its 95th anniversary.

The aim is to celebrate the work that women do in engineering, and to showcase the great engineering careers that are available for girls.

The Department of Engineering Science was awarded a bronze award from Athena SWAN in November 2012. This award recognises the Department's commitment to the Athena…

Check out this little video we made at the University of Oxford to promote National Women in Engineering Day on June 23rd! Proud to be in the company of such awesome women doing what they want and doing it well.