Introduction
Women have been leaders in the political arena and other sectors but in science and technology, although the number is advancing, many barriers still exists. This paper is a review of the article "Women and Minorities in Engineering: Why Do We Need to Fix the Gap?" that appeared in the Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering and dated 6th June 2012. By reviewing this article, the paper looks at the objective of the article and how the authors put their point across (Diana, et al. 2012).
Women and Minorities in Engineering
The main objective of the article was to analyze how women and minorities have been represented in the engineering industry. The author notes that since the formation of the Foundation Coalition in 1993, the organization have sought to enroll more women and the minority in engineering. He however notes that the number of women in the engineering industry is still far below their male counterparts. The author accentuates the need for more women to join the industry in order to fill the gap being established by advancement in technology. The article gives an example of women in Korea. A 29 year old Korean woman named Yi So-Yeon was the first female mechanical engineer to go to space. The author notes that although women in Korea are nowadays sharing an important feature in the society, they still have a challenge to compete and find their way in the society. This is the same trend in majority of developed countries where majority of industrial engineering companies and institutions have been categorized to dis-value the women’s capacity in engineering (Burke, 2011).
The authors of the article are trying to air their concerns over the shortage of skilled women workers in the industry. They note that the majority group which are men can no longer offer sufficient number of engineers that are needed stating that “Technology and engineering is an industry growing exponentially with time” (Burke, 2011). The authors suggest that in order to fill this gap, engineering must be promoted among women and minorities so as to increase the number of graduating engineers in the United States. The article notes that the main reasons why women and minorities have trouble entering engineering field is due to the cultural views, conservative expectations and stereotyping. The article traces the barriers which prohibit participation of women and minorities from pursuing engineering field as their educational experiences and family backgrounds. The authors propose the problems that face women and minorities to be discussed in details and appropriate solutions be developed to tackle the problems.
For the minorities, the article says that they suffer cultural stereotyping and alienation and therefore shy themselves off from joining in the engineering field. Women on the other hand experience discriminations on the basis of their performance in the workplace and the assumptions imposed upon them by their employers and male colleagues (Burke, 2011). The authors note that solving this issue to be a difficult task. They therefore recommend that the government should take it as a national priority. According to Burke (2011), “The government should not look at the problem just on the surface, but find the core problems why participation of women and the under-represented groups in engineering is low” (Burke, 2011). The government should then enact strategies and policies to empower women and the minority group’s participation in the engineering industry. Despite the obvious differences in the choice of professions between men and women, which has been subject to changes from the beginning of mankind, men should not be said to be superior to women”( Diana, et al. 2012).
References
Burke, J., & Mattis, C. (2011). Women and Minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Upping the Numbers Edward Elgar Publishing, Northampton.
Diana B., & Simy, J. (2012) Women and Minorities in Engineering: Why Do We Need to Fix the Gap? Retrieved on 24th August 2012 from www.begellhouse.com/journals/00551c876cc2f027.html
