Michael Coslo wrote:
K4YZ wrote:

The following is from the ARRL website...I brought over the first
paragraphs as a starting point. The remainder may be read in it's
entirety at www.arrl.org.

My question: Is this even an issue?

Kind of. There is a wide gender gap between men and women in the
engineering fields.

Yep. Scientific fields too. Whole bunch of reasons for it.

But working in the field, they account for 9 percent of all U.S.
engineers

Ya gotta question a raw stat with no background. What, exactly, do the
consider
a "U. S. engineer"?

Somebody with an engineering degree?
Somebody with an engineering license?
Somebody with "engineer" or "engineering" in the title?
Somebody who describes their job that way?

Or some other criteria?

There is a quote that shows up at several sites:

"Women still face gender-specific obstacles when studying and
preparing
for careers in engineering and other sciences. There is solid
evidence
that mentoring can help address this disparity" said Muller"

http://tinyurl.com/5lm92

Despite the prevalence of the quote, I'm not sure what the
disparities are.

Goes back to long before engineering school. When there's a choice,
more boys
than girls take math and physics. The disparity isn't as bad as it used
to be,
but it's still there. That's just one reason - there are lots more.

Or they can force 'em to go to "tech camp"

http://tinyurl.com/5m82m

Do they not want to go?

Interestingly enough, there are High schools that place emphasis on
science and math. The enrollment in these schools is roughly equal,
gender wise. But the female students tend to gravitate to liberal
arts,
medicine and law.

see
http://tinyurl.com/3umlf

Is that a problem?

It seems to me that the goal is equality of opportunity, not equality
of
outcome.

Finally, I'm not sure what to think. I've discussed the issue with a

woman engineer I work with. Interestingly enough, she says she KNEW
she
wanted to be an engineer from the time she was a kid. No forcing to
go
to camps. She thinks the recruitment efforts are not going to work,
because one does not pick engineering like one may pick a major from
a
school catalog.

I know several female engineers. Their reasons for choosing it vary all
over the place. Some, like your friend, wouldn't dream of doing
anything
else. Others had it suggested to them, liked the idea, and went with
it.
Some had to overcome discrimination, others never noticed any
difference.

Oh, and she says she hates being called a "Woman Engineer".
"Engineer"
by itself will do just fine thank you!

Exactly.

A sample of one, of course, but perhaps a little telling.

Maybe people who are interested in engineering get tin to it for
that
reason, and people who are not into engineering do other things.

Some other reasons:

- Someone who goes into engineering will have an educational and
professional life surrounded by guys and all their characteristics,
good and bad. Some women have no problem with that, others would prefer
a more gender-balanced situation.

- Because technology changes so fast, temporarily dropping out of
active employment in many fields in order to raise a family will make
you unemployable in that field. How many jobs are there for computer
folks whose skills and knowledge are 5 years behind? The usual solution
for fields like health care is to work part time. But their aren't many
part-time engineering jobs.

- Like it or not, there *are* some gender-related differences. They may
be all due to cultural forces (quite likely), or all due to genetics
(extremely unlikely), or some mix, but the differences are there. And
they're not going to go away overnight.

As I said before - It seems to me that the goal is equality of
opportunity, not equality of outcome.

73 de Jim, N2EY