Like most people, I’ve been known to Google myself. I recently came across a reddit link to my interview on EEWeb. And as soon as I linked to the page, I got very POed. Underneath the link was a lone comment:
I winced I’m sorry >.<
Why do girl EE’s look like that and not like the hot stuff from the Business and Admin Depts??
My first response, of course, was to think that this was ridiculous as a) I know several very beautiful women who are engineers and b) it’s not like most of the male engineers I know are fashion models, either. I also thought the obnoxious commenter needed a good dose of some Single Dad Laughing.
After my initial WTF response, I calmed down and decided that perhaps I should look at it from a different perspective and try to answer this moron’s the question. Why aren’t there more hot female engineers?
The short answer is, of course, because of men like this commenter: men who are more interested than a woman’s looks than her ability and talent.
I can tell you, to begin with, that despite my lack of hotness, I get ogled way more than I like. (See here, as a very recent example, and here for an older one. Guess I never realized my propensity for replicating post titles.) I can remember incidents with certain professors where I was made very uncomfortable because of this sort of behavior…and these were just the ones I caught.
In light of these experiences, I think a serious problem is that women are first viewed as sex objects. Given the choice between this sort of treatment and those in more women-friendly fields, I am guessing more women are a lot smarter than I and just plain avoid it.
Most women I know who are interested in engineering are also not terribly likely to wear a lot of makeup. The reasons that I’ve encountered seem to be either that they feel like it’s a waste of time or that they don’t like the attention it attracts. (See above.) As it turns out, women are assumed to be more competent if they wear makeup. However, the more makeup a woman wears, the less people trust her. So…damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Women in engineering are probably those that can deal with either or both of these situations without too much loss of confidence…because a lot of self-confidence is needed to navigate that minefield. I’m guessing that’s not a lot of women.
Finally, there actually have been studies about why women leave engineering, and it mostly comes down to climate.
In putting all this together, I think the answer to the gentleman’s question is fairly simple: there aren’t that many women in engineering to begin with, and his attitude is the kind of thing that drives women away. Let’s put it this way: only a small number of women can be fashion models, and if you have very few women in engineering to begin with, you’re going to have an exceedingly rare number of fashion models.
I completely disagree with the assertion that “all” women engineers are not attractive, though. In fact, I think a lot of them are. I think the individual in question, however, probably doesn’t attract many women, regardless of appearance, because of his sexist attitude.
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I think it’s very unfortunate that people like this feel they have to comment. My first response is ‘Whatever’ as he has no idea and then ‘why is that at all important?’.
Personally I don’t care one bit what my fellow work mates look like – I don’t care if they are women or men and certainly don’t care if they are good looking or not as that has no factor as to how good a engineer is. I think that it’s a stereotype in the same way men in engineering all wear tweed jackets with elbow pads (may have just offended a number of engineers) but it’s not the norm. By contrast I’m overweight, gone bald and can be a right grumpy so-and-so but that does not affect my engineering skills. Nor does my love of music like Lady Gaga make me better at laying out PCBs. I’m who I am and engineers except that – the same exception should never have limits.
Engineers are just engineers and I think we firstly need to remove people with sexist remarks like this from the gene pool – contamination is never a good starting point. They maybe Women will not see engineering, science and other roles as a pure male environment and may take up engineering more. I say this because I think some purely do not enter engineering because of perceptions and is very sad.
Hello,
I am one of those super attractive women with a brain. Cheerleader throughout high school, sorority girl through college. I wear the heels, have my hair done, and yeah I sure do believe in doing my makeup everyday. I do spin classes after work. I was terrified to go into engineering. I have been told since a young age that I was at best, going to be a teacher. If I didn’t go into beauty school. I think the reason that women don’t go into engineering is because of the fear that they will turn into one of those stereotypical women engineers. Be single for the rest of there lives. You can be beautiful and smart. Never sell yourself short.
The saddest part is that I’m not surprised by this comment at all. While the culture varies between schools and sub-disciplines, I’m amazed how many guys will make this kind of comment around the women they work with, and then turn around and ogle the same women they just pronounced un-hot.
Also, maybe women engineers are less stereotypically hot because we spend more time working on engineering projects instead of our appearance? Perfect hair and makeup takes an immense amount of time and money to maintain, which seems illogical and impractical.
Yeah… those kind of men are a problem.
To be fair though, I think this issue of workplace climate varies dramatically between different organizations/teams/etc. Of course, the environments where sexism is rampant tarnish the reputation of the field regardless of how many environments are sexism-free.
Personally, I do think this issue is partially a generational thing though, and things might improve (some) as generational shift occurs.
I think they both have the gist of it covered. The “Fine Individual” that had the lack of foresight to post the comment was most likely a poor engineer in the first place. Most good engineers don’t get into it for the money or glamorous life, but to be creative in a field that allows it. If he is so worried about appearances, it sounds like he has personal inadequacy issues, in that he has to try to find something wrong because he can’t do anything right. Most engineers are smart enough to know and understand that engineering isn’t about catching face time because of appearance, but recognition for having done it right the first time.
It takes our brain power to work through the problems, and we instinctively see the appearance issue as a non-starter to accomplishing the goals we set. We’re smart enough to differentiate between what’s necessary and what’s superfluous, and quickly dispose of the latter. When people are brought up with superficial beliefs, then they don’t think they can work in an area that requires real intelligence. So that’s why we have Admin types, they were never taught they could do something, only hindered by their environments.
Alas, the individual that made the comment would most likely look at the comments and still not make the connection. For people like that, we have the sales engineer track. Leave the work to the people that can handle it and go play with your phone system.
Just my $.02
Yeah, that comment was senseless and uncalled for. To be blunt, that guy was an ass. (Also, I happen to be an admin for that subreddit, so I can always take strong action if requested
).
I don’t think the title is correct though; I don’t believe this is why women don’t go into engineering, though this kind of crap doesn’t help. It’s endemic of the ecosystem that exists today (fewer women in engineering) and the male culture behind it; if an office was full of women, regardless of how they look, w0uld this guy make such a comment?
I hope this will get better over time. In fact, I often find myself being gender-blind (akin to color-blind in bigotry situations) and surprised when others aren’t. An example is when we were talking about an entrepreneur (Ayah) on The Amp Hour and Dave said, “Aaaand, she’s girl!”. My response being, “And?”. I find it natural to have women involved in engineering these days (and excelling) and I hope the trend continues. Over time, with enough people standing up to buttholes like this commenter on reddit (and real life if someone is uncouth enough to make comments like this), the behavior will hopefully decrease. Though like any prejudice, some people are bound to be unpleasant.
Chris, you are awesome by the way!
Chalk that guy up to the unfortunate fact that while all guys grow up, very many never mature. Luckily, guys like that are EEOC lawsuit bait and either attorneys or their next female boss will have the opportunity to take them out at the knees.
Interestingly, from MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, women in engineering who display an advanced “fashion sense” and who show up to work with magazine perfect hair and make up, have pretty universally been lousy engineers.
BTW, any woman doing good engineering (or science) is automatically ‘hot’ in my book, and I could make the assessment with my eyes closed.
Wow – I am sorry to hear how frustrating it is to be a female engineer. Just so you know, you’re not alone . . . it can be frustrating to be a female in any field, for all the same reasons you named.
On a slightly different subject, I think that engineering is absolutely fascinating, and wish I had been encouraged more in that direction. I love writing and marketing, and it’s a great fit for me too, but the older I get the more interested I am in science, engineering, “how things work” and wish I had been more exposed to it as a kid. Ironically, my 10 year old brother (big age gap between us) is getting science kits, erector sets, and totally being encouraged in that direction . . . and I think that sort of stuff plays into why there aren’t more female engineers.
Keep the the awesome posts!
I’m sorry you received such a douchey comment.
But I don’t think engineers are particularly bad in this regard.
There is a whole subculture of men who honestly believe a woman is entitled to exist only if she’s good looking. There is absolutely no other quality that is relevant in a female and these people completely ignore (when they are not busy belittling) women whom they are not interested in fucking; these “lucky” ones, in contrast, are recipients of way too much unwanted attention.
I don’t think engineers belong to this misogynistic stratus any more than most other professional categories. I would guess that movie actors and fitness buffs are probably the worst offenders. We can all entertain ourselves by trying to figure out why these specimens are so insecure and actually hate women, but I am sure we have better things to do.
Bottom line: these comments are hurtful, but try not to let them get to you. It is true that no matter how beautiful a woman is, I assure you that at some point in her life someone told her (often repeatedly) that she doesn’t look good. This was just some random dude on the interwebz. I am sure Mr Cherish thinks you are smokin’ hot, and that’s pretty much all that matters!
Call me part of the problem, but the premise of the linker’s question is completely wrong in this case.
It’s hard for me to think about the important social issues when the discussion began on such a faulty premise.
I hope they don’t link to my profile article asking why so many short and gawky engineers b/c there’d be a bit of truth to that in my case.
[...] couple days ago, I came across the reddit comment that sparked my huge rant on engineerblogs. And really, my first thought was that we can’t STILL be having this same conversation. [...]
I recently commented on women in engineering (more specifically in CS). It doesn’t look to me like the ratios are getting better:
http://gasstationwithoutpumps.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/40-increase-in-female-cs-majors%e2%80%94not-as-good-as-it-sounds/
@Charles J Gervasi, I was confused by the expression “short and gawky,” since for me the term “gawky” means “ungainly or awkward as a result of being disproportionately tall”.
there is a difference between getting a degree in engineering and excelling in engineering. A bachelor degree is only an introduction, the real engineering starts at the Master level. All this feminists are only in it to irritate and parasite men’s haven rather than inherently being competent. Let me know if there is a new method developped by a woman.
Another great post Cherish. I think this is even worse in industry and I’ve actually noticed the reverse. Because pretty much everyone in management is a male at my company I have a theory that for the few female engineers they do agree to hire are more attractive than the average woman. There are not a whole lot of female engineers there over the age of 35 to begin with. But the few ones we do hire always seem very pretty and polished. I figure I was an anamoly since I came into the company another way. Of course, I guess there’s always another explanation.
Here’s a related post, very new:
http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/female-engineering-majors-struggle-confidence-issues-13307
Sadder than anything is that this entire conversation took place fifty years ago.(These strange people had no Web to use, but managed in panel discussions, in the classroom, on campus, at lunch and at social affairs)
Nothng has changed much. Title Nine gave young women a sense of self confidence that they could be part of all the cool endeavors out there.Science fiction movies certainly encouraged me. (I didn’t realize how much “fiction” there was)
Hasn’t worked out very well and that’s a shame To leave such an important profession totally in the hands of men is pathetic and dangerous.
Hi everyone,
I am working with Global Marathon this year. For those of you not familiar, Global Marathon For, By and About Women in Engineering and Technology is an annual worldwide forum connecting professional women, college students and girls for virtual and in-person conversations about education and careers in engineering and technology.
This year we are looking to stimulate questions and topics for Global Marathon from outside sources. What would you be interested in hearing discussed at Global Marathon 2012? I would appreciate your feedback. Thank you!
Leesa
Most ppl i see these days…all they care about is how to be politically correct and answer without offending, i am amongst the last ppl who will do this.
The truth and matter is, very few women out there who have the real capacities that engineering field require. Engineering requires not only intellectual, analytical, problem-solving prowess, it requires large amount of efforts and dedication to keep up with the challenges. and Like i said few women are capable of handling these kind of demanding environment. I am also a firm believer that while some women are smart, when it comes to intelligence that is cutting edge problem solving, u find it mainly in the other spectrum of the other gender.
In addition, for 150 years women have been in the sceince field but very few invention, no theories, couple of noble prizes, are attributed to women…that’s gotta tell u something.
I vehemently denounce those dude that try to appeal to the feminists by being politically correct.
Dear Sam,
As a woman studying engineering, I’m not suprised to see this comment. It simply reinforces the ignorance of some engineers. Now, I’m prepared to overlook your careless use of the English language even though I can find, in one quick glance, seventeen glaring errors. I’m certain there are more. You might want to try and learn a little more about the singular and plural forms of words. I’d also recommend brushing up on your capitalization rules.
I would try and address all of your “points” but they’re nothing more than sweeping generalizations and unsubstantiated anecdotes. A scientist should know that an argument needs proof and sources. However, I would still like to make a few points. Women have been in the “sceince [sic] field” since the dawn of time. Women have made incredible contributions to science and engineering. A few of my heroes include Marie Curie, Elizabeth Blackwell, Grace Hopper, Rosalind Franklin, and countless others. It is not a matter of political correctness but of accuracy.
I hope that your mentality is merely the result of immaturity and ignorance, and that you will grow out of this delusion as you mature. Best wishes on your journey.
I’m not going to mince words. Those types of comments are exactly why women don’t get to prove themselves in engineering and science fields. Preconceived notions on supposed “proper” gender roles that are fueled by assholes like you are a major reason why technology couldn’t advance further. We have 51% of the population that is denounced by some members of the other 49% because they feel threatened that, GOSH NO, some woman might be (and in your case is) smarter than you.
It is an attitude like that which will ultimately keep you from succeeding in life. Normally I’d feel sorry for someone not being able to fulfill their potential but since you’re such an asshat, I don’t feel sorry in the slightest.
Ah Sam. Sammy sammy sam. How I would love to see you compared to my friends who are women engineers; I’m willing to bet you wouldn’t stack up. I’m guessing insecurity is a big part of your comment above and for that I pity you. And my guess for the reason you likely have never seen any women in engineering? No woman (or person, for that matter) wants to be around an attitude like yours.
While EB will remain a place for open discussion about engineering, sexist comments such as yours (and yes, they were, believe me) will not be tolerated. I’m only allowing your comment to remain so others may see an example of your ignorance.
Perhaps a viewing of my article on the importance of the soft skills of engineering would serve you well?
Sam, people that can, do; those that can’t, troll.
Whilst I don’t agree with all the views of the authors here they at least are able to hold a constructive debate on the issues at hand.
… Dude.
[...] been thinking about writing this post last semester. However, it slipped my mind until some trollish comments showed up on EngineerBlogs today. I think that Chris, Gears and Katie gave the troll a good [...]
If women haven’t has as much achievement in engineering as a group as men it does tell us something, but not necessarily what a redneck might first think. It might be that women weren’t allowed or taken as seriously in scholarly journals / societies as their male peers.
Suppose, though, that it does say that women, as a group, are lousy at math. Maybe 1993 Barbie is right: Math it tough (for girls).
Are you not even going to look at someone’s work on account of a group she belongs to?
That’s a good thing about engineering? If it meets spec, you can’t argue with it. If someone can bill 100 hours and get a product that meets spec, whining about someone’s sex or race won’t get you anywhere. All clients care about is whether you can get your shit working. Usually when people carry on about race, sex, nationality, “being a team player”, etc, it means their design isn’t working.