On 15 Jun 2005 17:01:18 -0700, wrote:

In all my 43 years in engineering I've met a grand total of four woman
engineers, two MEs, one EE and a Chem E.

In my 50 years in engineering I've =dated= more women engineers than
you seem to have met, was engaged to one (nuclear engineer) and
married another (EE). In my wife's office alone there are more than
4 =PEs= on her floor, including the chief of the structural engineering
section (imagine that, a lady tower engineer). Had my wife gone
through the paperwork as she talked about twenty years ago she, too,
would have been a PE.

Our contesting club alone has
three female members, an old girlfriend is a ham and I met W3CUL. Out
of Lord only knows how many engineers and hams I've met over the years.

In our club, the largest radio club in the state if not in the
Pacific Northwest, about 1/3 of the hams are women, and of them,
about half are active on the air in some fashion or other.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

Phil Kane wrote:
On 15 Jun 2005 17:01:18 -0700, wrote:


In all my 43 years in engineering I've met a grand total of four woman
engineers, two MEs, one EE and a Chem E.


In my 50 years in engineering I've =dated= more women engineers than
you seem to have met, was engaged to one (nuclear engineer) and
married another (EE). In my wife's office alone there are more than
4 =PEs= on her floor, including the chief of the structural engineering
section (imagine that, a lady tower engineer). Had my wife gone
through the paperwork as she talked about twenty years ago she, too,
would have been a PE.


Our contesting club alone has
three female members, an old girlfriend is a ham and I met W3CUL. Out
of Lord only knows how many engineers and hams I've met over the years.


In our club, the largest radio club in the state if not in the
Pacific Northwest, about 1/3 of the hams are women, and of them,
about half are active on the air in some fashion or other.

That IS a significant number, Phil.

- Mike KB3EIA -

Phil:

My gawd, the bands are crawling with them, there must be heavy
congestion somewhere with 'em all trying to communicate... I think my
radio has stopped working--can't find a one--heck, perhaps some
chauvinist engineer designed this piece of junk and it would pass female
voices though the audio stages--SOMETHING IS WRONG!!!

John

"Phil Kane" wrote in message
ganews.com...
On 15 Jun 2005 17:01:18 -0700, wrote:

In all my 43 years in engineering I've met a grand total of four woman
engineers, two MEs, one EE and a Chem E.

In my 50 years in engineering I've =dated= more women engineers than
you seem to have met, was engaged to one (nuclear engineer) and
married another (EE). In my wife's office alone there are more than
4 =PEs= on her floor, including the chief of the structural
engineering
section (imagine that, a lady tower engineer). Had my wife gone
through the paperwork as she talked about twenty years ago she, too,
would have been a PE.

Our contesting club alone has
three female members, an old girlfriend is a ham and I met W3CUL. Out
of Lord only knows how many engineers and hams I've met over the
years.

In our club, the largest radio club in the state if not in the
Pacific Northwest, about 1/3 of the hams are women, and of them,
about half are active on the air in some fashion or other.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

Phil Kane wrote:
On 15 Jun 2005 17:01:18 -0700, wrote:

In all my 43 years in engineering I've met a grand total of four woman
engineers, two MEs, one EE and a Chem E.

In my 50 years in engineering I've =dated= more women engineers than
you seem to have met, was engaged to one (nuclear engineer) and
married another (EE). In my wife's office alone there are more than
4 =PEs= on her floor, including the chief of the structural engineering
section (imagine that, a lady tower engineer). Had my wife gone
through the paperwork as she talked about twenty years ago she, too,
would have been a PE.

Our contesting club alone has
three female members, an old girlfriend is a ham and I met W3CUL. Out
of Lord only knows how many engineers and hams I've met over the years.

In our club, the largest radio club in the state if not in the
Pacific Northwest, about 1/3 of the hams are women, and of them,
about half are active on the air in some fashion or other.

This topic is getting interesting, I'd like to take it a bit further.
I'm at a complete loss to understand why there's such an obvious
disparity in the numbers of woman hams & engineers in this part of the
country vs. in your part of the country.

With respect to the socioeconomicpolitical mindsets Oregon is well
known for marching to it's own occasionally quirky liberal drummer
while PA is a typical old-form mid-Atlantic centrist sort of place. I
'spose there are some of the usual left coast / right coast differences
which sort of favor left coast women and might explain part of it. But
good grief, we're not talking Albania and Sweden here.

I've mulled the matter off and on for a few hours and it occurs to me
that maybe, just maybe our exposures to women engineers in particular
have been quite different. As in where you've churned your coin vs.
where I've gotten mine over the years. I've only spent a total of ten
years working for large entities, six as a Navy employee back when
woman engineers simply didn't exist for all practical purposes, then
much later I did four with the DuPont central engineering center in the
mid-1980s. Three of the four woman engineers I've met and cited were
DuPont employees, the fourth was a short-time part timer I ran into on
a specific small-biz project whose real job was with some large firm or
another.

Except for the six I did with the Navy, a gig I loved and was enormous
fun I've spent most of the rest of my career in smokestack small-medium
size busineses. I have allergic reactions to huge employers for a
number of reasons and generally avoid them. I despise corporate beige
with a purple passion

If I have it right you spent most of your career with the FCC, another
huge entity. Is it possible that women in engineering tend to gravitate
in large numbers to major entities where fair employment practices are
actually practiced and you've gotten involved with more of them than
I've ever managed to meet?

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

w3rv

Out here in the smokestacks of Delaware County PA

wrote:
Phil Kane wrote:
On 15 Jun 2005 17:01:18 -0700, wrote:

In all my 43 years in engineering I've met a grand total of four woman
engineers, two MEs, one EE and a Chem E.

In my 50 years in engineering I've =dated= more women engineers than
you seem to have met, was engaged to one (nuclear engineer) and
married another (EE). In my wife's office alone there are more than
4 =PEs= on her floor, including the chief of the structural engineering
section (imagine that, a lady tower engineer). Had my wife gone
through the paperwork as she talked about twenty years ago she, too,
would have been a PE.

Our contesting club alone has
three female members, an old girlfriend is a ham and I met W3CUL. Out
of Lord only knows how many engineers and hams I've met over the years.

In our club, the largest radio club in the state if not in the
Pacific Northwest, about 1/3 of the hams are women, and of them,
about half are active on the air in some fashion or other.

This topic is getting interesting, I'd like to take it a bit further.
I'm at a complete loss to understand why there's such an obvious
disparity in the numbers of woman hams & engineers in this part of the
country vs. in your part of the country.

Me too!

With respect to the socioeconomicpolitical mindsets Oregon is well
known for marching to it's own occasionally quirky liberal drummer
while PA is a typical old-form mid-Atlantic centrist sort of place. I
'spose there are some of the usual left coast / right coast differences
which sort of favor left coast women and might explain part of it. But
good grief, we're not talking Albania and Sweden here.

But there are other differences. Population density in BosWash is
much higher than in the Pacific Northwest. Things like telephones
and TV were here sooner, particularly in terms of "most people have
them". And most of this area has been "settled" by non-Native Americans
for 300+ years.

I've mulled the matter off and on for a few hours and it occurs to me
that maybe, just maybe our exposures to women engineers in
particular
have been quite different. As in where you've churned your coin vs.
where I've gotten mine over the years. I've only spent a total of ten
years working for large entities, six as a Navy employee back
when
woman engineers simply didn't exist for all practical purposes, then
much later I did four with the DuPont central engineering
center in the
mid-1980s. Three of the four woman engineers I've met and cited were
DuPont employees, the fourth was a short-time part timer I ran into on
a specific small-biz project whose real job was with some large firm or
another.

Another factor is which engineering disciplines and sub-disciplines you
encounter. There may be a lot more female
ChemEs than MechEs. Etc.

My class of 33 at Penn (1976, Moore School of Electrical Engineering)
graduated 3 women - all specializing in computers. I don't think Towne
School graduated any female engineers that year.

Of course that's ancient history compared to today's ratios, but
it shows a starting point almost 30 years ago.

Except for the six I did with the Navy, a gig I loved and was enormous
fun I've spent most of the rest of my career in smokestack small-medium
size busineses. I have allergic reactions to huge employers for a
number of reasons and generally avoid them. I despise
corporate beige with a purple passion

If I have it right you spent most of your career with the FCC, another
huge entity. Is it possible that women in engineering tend to
gravitate
in large numbers to major entities where fair employment
practices are
actually practiced and you've gotten involved with more of them than I've ever managed to meet?

Perhaps not so much "gravitate" as in "are forced by circumstances"?

All of which is and has been changing. But it takes a long
time for such trends to make their way through the workforce.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

w3rv

Out here in the smokestacks of Delaware County PA

Ditto if you can say Radnor has smokestacks.

73 de Jim, N2EY

wrote in message
ups.com...
wrote:
Phil Kane wrote:
On 15 Jun 2005 17:01:18 -0700, wrote:



[sni]

My class of 33 at Penn (1976, Moore School of Electrical Engineering)
graduated 3 women - all specializing in computers. I don't think Towne
School graduated any female engineers that year.

Of course that's ancient history compared to today's ratios, but
it shows a starting point almost 30 years ago.


I will add some anecdotal comments to that. At my school we graduated
approx 200 engineers and about 10% were women.

[snip]
If I have it right you spent most of your career with the FCC, another
huge entity. Is it possible that women in engineering tend to
gravitate
in large numbers to major entities where fair employment
practices are
actually practiced and you've gotten involved with more of them than
I've ever managed to meet?

Perhaps not so much "gravitate" as in "are forced by circumstances"?

All of which is and has been changing. But it takes a long
time for such trends to make their way through the workforce.

Keep in mind that the majority of engineering jobs are at major entities in
major cities. Thus they will be more apt to be statistically
representative. In small companies and/or rural areas the numbers are going
to be skewed. I've worked at several companies where I was the only female
engineer out of a staff of from 5 to 10 engineers.

I've been in engineering for 30 years. I've seen virtually no
discrimination in this field as this country remains chronically short of
engineers. Oh there are spots in the country where it is difficult to find
a job and sometimes the economy slumps but that does not mean engineers are
not needed but that the companies make do with a short handed staff (been
there done that).

Instead I believe that women are more prone than men to select jobs more on
the perceived desireability of the job location. They are more prone to
select the office jobs rather than the plant jobs, thus placing themselves
at the headquarters and technical offices rather than the factories out in
the boonies and so on. Also there is a difference in what defines a
desireable location. A higher percentage of the men will look at a facility
in a rural location and say "now I can go fishing more often." There's
probably a whole raft of reasons having nothing to do with discrimination
that contribute to the disparity.

Dee Flint wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
wrote:
Phil Kane wrote:
On 15 Jun 2005 17:01:18 -0700, wrote:



[sni]

My class of 33 at Penn (1976, Moore School of Electrical Engineering)
graduated 3 women - all specializing in computers. I don't think Towne
School graduated any female engineers that year.

Of course that's ancient history compared to today's ratios, but
it shows a starting point almost 30 years ago.


I will add some anecdotal comments to that. At my school we graduated
approx 200 engineers and about 10% were women.

[snip]
If I have it right you spent most of your career with the FCC, another
huge entity. Is it possible that women in engineering tend to
gravitate
in large numbers to major entities where fair employment
practices are
actually practiced and you've gotten involved with more of them than
I've ever managed to meet?

Perhaps not so much "gravitate" as in "are forced by circumstances"?

All of which is and has been changing. But it takes a long
time for such trends to make their way through the workforce.

Keep in mind that the majority of engineering jobs are at major entities in
major cities. Thus they will be more apt to be statistically
representative. In small companies and/or rural areas the numbers are going
to be skewed.

Phila. and it's surrounding five-county region is a huge and
technology-diverse Gotham City with hundreds of small
engineering-based employers and the numbers are *really* skewed - in
the direction of the very small number of woman engineers I run into
where I work.

I've worked at several companies where I was the only female
engineer out of a staff of from 5 to 10 engineers.

Can't imagine any such thing around here . . As an example go back to
when I popped out of Drexel which in 1963 was the biggest private
undergrad engineering school on the planet. Probably still is. There
were 87 ME grads, 89 EE grads and significant numbers of civil,
chemical and metallurgical engineers plus the physics and chemistry
majors. Maybe 400 all told. There was ONE, uno, singular woman in the
whole bunch and she was chem major. I haven't seen any huge shift since
then either, one female engineer out of ten in a small organization
where I've been are still true oddities.

I've been in engineering for 30 years. I've seen virtually no
discrimination in this field as this country remains chronically short of
engineers. Oh there are spots in the country where it is difficult to find
a job and sometimes the economy slumps but that does not mean engineers are
not needed but that the companies make do with a short handed staff (been
there done that).

.. . . Tell me . . ! I think you've brought up an important side issue.
My experience strongly indicates that many in the general public
consider engineering a lousy biz to get into as far as employment
stability is concerened. They're right, and it's gotten much worse
over the years. I'd have a hard time today recommending engineering to
a kid male or female considering career options.

Instead I believe that women are more prone than men to select jobs more on
the perceived desireability of the job location. They are more prone to
select the office jobs rather than the plant jobs, thus placing themselves
at the headquarters and technical offices rather than the factories out in
the boonies and so on.

I think you just hit the nail on the head Dee, the skew is in my court.
I work in areas women simply don't get into. Schlepping around
neighborhood machine shops for a living like I have is obviously not
"woman's work" for any number of valid reasons which go 'way beyond the
fact that they happen to be engineers. So of course woman engineers are
scarce the way I see the engineering biz.

Also there is a difference in what defines a
desireable location. A higher percentage of the men will look at a facility
in a rural location and say "now I can go fishing more often."

I'd like to be there when some lady engineer/ham lusts for a nice quiet
antenna location out in the boonies and is married to some city boy . .
..

There's
probably a whole raft of reasons having nothing to do with discrimination
that contribute to the disparity.

Indeed: The code has been cracked.

w3rv

wrote in message
oups.com...
Dee Flint wrote:

[snip]

Also there is a difference in what defines a
desireable location. A higher percentage of the men will look at a
facility
in a rural location and say "now I can go fishing more often."

I'd like to be there when some lady engineer/ham lusts for a nice quiet
antenna location out in the boonies and is married to some city boy . .


Well I'm a lady engineer/ham who lusts for a nice, quiet antenna farm in the
country and am married to a city boy. However, he's also a ham and happens
to like the quietness of the rural areas. But the work is in the cities.
Oh there's some engineering jobs in rural areas and I used to take those.
But then when the company cuts back, you are automatically slated to move
when you find a new position as it sure isn't going to be in that rural area
where you worked at the only firm using engineers. Moving every 5 years or
so got old fast.


There's
probably a whole raft of reasons having nothing to do with discrimination
that contribute to the disparity.

Indeed: The code has been cracked.

w3rv

That is my opinion too. There's another factor that crops up. Women do not
like to just arbitrarily change jobs in search of higher pay or a promotion.
They prefer stability. So they seek out and stay with those firms that seem
to fit that bill. There's been some sort of study that I read somewhere on
that. The end result is that they rise up the wage scale and promotion
scale more slowly. The men who get ahead rapidly are usually those who make
judicious job changes every 5 years or so in the early years of their
careers.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE