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Mens network and other barriers for womens career in engineering. Results from EUproject WomEng and

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... engineering as traditional masculine without chances for change, ... values and norms of the dominant masculine working culture and how they cope with it. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Mens network and other barriers for womens career in engineering. Results from EUproject WomEng and


1
Mens network and other barriers for womens
career in engineering. Results from EU-project
WomEng and perspectives of EU-project PROMETEA
  • 2006 Australian Technology Network Womens
    Executive Development Conference Change in
    Climate? Prospects of gender equity in
    universities, Adelaide, April 11th 13th 2006
  • Dr. Felizitas Sagebiel, Department of Education,
    University of Wuppertal, Germany
  • Email sagebiel_at_uni-wuppertal.de

2
2 European Projects on women engineers and career
  • WomEng Creating Cultures of Success for Women
    engineers (website www.womeng.net), a European
    Commission Project out of the 5th Framework
    Programme (2002-2005)
  • PROMETEA Empowering Women Engineers in
    Industrial and Academic Research a new European
    Commission Project out of the 6th Framework
    Programme (November 2005 to December 2007)

3
Focus gendered organisational cultures of
engineering
  • In both projects the author has been responsible
    for work packages on gendered organisational
    cultures of engineering with focusing
  • women engineers in industry (WomEng)
  • women engineers doing research in academia,
    public organisations and industry (PROMETEA)

4
Outline
  • WomEng women engineers in companies
  • State of the art
  • Hypotheses
  • Methodology
  • Results
  • PROMETEA women engineers in research
  • State of the art
  • Hypotheses
  • Methodology
  • Conclusion

5
State of the art - WomEng
  • International knowledge of many barriers and
    promoters for more equal opportunity for women
    engineers (eg Armour 2003 de Bruin 1997 Holmes
    and Ecsedi 2003 Martinson and Smandych 2003)
  • The culture of construction engineering as
    traditional masculine without chances for change,
    even not with concepts diversity (Bagilhole 2005)
  • Women engineers, leaving their professional field
    blame most of all working culture, oriented to
    dominant masculinity and discriminatory
    experiences (Erlemann 2002)
  • Women engineers sometimes devaluate their
    competence in comparison to men and see
    themselves as less competent (Erb 1996).

6
Hypotheses
  • Being a minority in engineering it is interesting
    to what extent women integrate and adapt values
    and norms of the dominant masculine working
    culture and how they cope with it.
  • Because women in engineering are in a minority
    situation the first question is if they feel
    comfortable with the organisational culture of
    their company or marginalized.
  • Gendered mechanisms of male management in
    industrial organisations are connected with a
    macho culture or hegemonic masculinity
    (Connell 1999) characterized by long hours,
    competitiveness, lack of mutual support, lack of
    team work.
  • The question is, to what extent formal and
    informal barriers for career are connected to
    this culture in the view of women engineers and
    what role mens networks play.
  • Programs like gender mainstreaming and
    diversity in companies are installed to weaken
    this culture. So one question is if they work
    effective, second question is if they are
    welcomed by the women engineers.
  • The copied picture gives an overview of
    interdependencies between variables, even though
    not all mentioned in hypotheses above (Sagebiel
    2005b).

7
Methodology Instruments for women engineers
investigation in professional sphere
per country
8
Dominant mens working culture
  • Women engineers are conscious of working in a
    male domain
  • Women engineers constantly have to prove that
    they
  • are competent,
  • working hard,
  • know what they are doing and
  • that they want to be taken seriously
  • I had to fight to convince the company that as a
    woman I could make it! (an asked French woman
    engineer who quit).
  • It is a mens world and women have to accept
    that it is a mens world. (an asked Austrian
    female engineer).

9
Dominant mens working culture
  • Men engineers show much more self assurance
  • Men have a gigantic self-assurance. Even if they
    know nothing they open their mouths. Women open
    their mouths only if they really know something.
    That is where we do not match at all (as one
    Austrian woman pointed out).
  • If a woman spoils something the reaction is
    usually well, she is just a woman, what else
    could we expect from her? (Slovak women
    engineers)
  • If there is a problem caused by a man the
    reaction is well, it could happen to anybody.

10
Coping strategies
  • One of the coping strategies is to show great
    self-confidence, Austrian women clearly stated
  • A woman engineer from Finland said Im working
    like a man!
  • A younger manager in Germany said I send the
    jokes back, but better!
  • In France and Germany telling about experiences
    with dominant masculinity, they tell at the same
    time that they have no problems with this
    situation.
  • Only women engineers who quit told about dominant
    masculinity and minority situation of women being
    one main reason for leaving their jobs.

11
Women engineers career conceptand professional
priorities
  • Most women engineers were satisfied with their
    job.
  • They do not necessarily drop out from the job
    when having children (Germany, Austria, Slovakia,
    France and Finland).
  • But they are sceptical about combination of
    career progression and preferred
    work-life-balance, viewing this as a decision
    between two not compatible choices.
  • Career demands to pay a certain price!
  • A career you can only have if you completely
    sacrifice yourself.
  • I think that women are not ready to pay such a
    price!
  • Women engineer managers who combined work and
    family life could be role models but they are
    normally unknown by women engineers.

12
Women engineers career conceptand professional
priorities
  • Objection to male culture of overtimes
  • The fear of the pressure doing overtimes when
    having a management position can partly women
    engineers prevent from career aspire.
  • On the other hand overtimes culture can be a
    show, intended to impress the superiors (Austrian
    women)
  • Womens culture of part-time working?
  • Women prefer part-time working for work-life
    balance,
  • through pregnancy and/or taking parental leave
    they meet reduced career aspirations defined by
    themselves or by their superiors, for women who
    were aspirants for reaching the next career
    level, the promotion of superiors stopped.
  • Superiors assumption that all women will have
    children and focus on childcare and
    work-life-balance is a prejudice and
    discriminates those who decided to live without
    children. And this prejudice causes the loss of
    support for women or more support for men.

13
Women managers leadership style
  • Asked women engineers manager see team work,
    working atmosphere and fewer overtimes as
    central, in contrast to male colleagues in the
    same position.
  • While asked engineers in France and UK explain
    differences in leadership behaviour with
    personality traits, many of those asked in
    Germany, Austria, Greece, Finland and Slovakia
    tell about different styles by gender.

14
Mens networks
  • The old boys network is still working very well
    and is necessary for career making and
  • you enter networks only because of your
    competencies (one French woman engineer).
  • Mens network can function as informal meetings
    while drinking a coffee or smoking a cigarette,
    continuing to so called informal meeting after
    work .
  • Women have restricted entrance.
  • Womens networks are not as powerful as male
    networks, because of the few women engineers and
    fewer women engineer managers,
  • You need someone to push and you need someone to
    pull (a German woman manager told).

15
Barriers to career
  • gender stereotypes,
  • traditional ideas about role concepts and
    gendered division of labour,
  • overtimes,
  • mens networks and
  • restricted entrance of women

16
State of the art 1- PROMETEA
  • European situation of women in industrial
    research has been overviewed in two reports
  • WIR-Report 2003
  • ENWISE-Report 2004
  • Recommendations on retention and career of women
    in industrial research
  • not investigated women engineers
  • not investigated tacit and informal factors

17
State of the art 2- PROMETEA
  • Academia
  • ATHENA project
  • PhD student in physics in academia and their
    career possibilities,
  • found still a mens culture, excluding women from
    their networks,
  • the older having experienced discrimination,
  • the younger fearing it when having children
    (Hodgson/Whitelegg/Scanlon 2003)
  • For changing the institutional structures in
    academic engineering
  • critical mass is meaningless and
  • women have yet not developed sufficient
    network, and that
  • affiliation with other women is too stigmatising
    while
  • the available female faculty model reflects
    an archaic, male stereotype, impossible to
    emulate or incorporate into a contemporary
    professional identity (Etzkowitz et al 2000
    245).

18
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19
Hypotheses formal factors for Research Career
  • Resources (eg time, money, personnel, equipment,
    possibilities for publication)
  • Research steps (eg getting and formulation of
    ideas, funding, conduction, outcome formulation
    and dissemination)
  • Cooperation (eg feedback possibilities,
    conferences, team projects, publications, policy).

20
Hypotheses other activities as formal factors
for Research Career
  • Supervising research from others
  • Work for research from others
  • Teaching
  • Advising of students
  • Writing of proposals for research
  • Consulting
  • Administration
  • Leadership activities

21
Hypotheses mens networks as informal factor
for womens career
  • Entrance to mens network (amount, areas)
  • Information,
  • Feedback and
  • Offer for cooperation et.al.
  • Exclusion from mens network
  • Networking and work-life-balance

22
Methodology
  • Sample of different research organisations
  • Homepage analyses
  • Semi-structured interviews with women engineers
    in research
  • Focus group discussions with women and men
    engineers in research separately
  • Semi-structured interviews with gate-keepers
  • Interviews with women at top of research
  • Case studies of good practice

23
Research and Theory
24
PROMETEA 1 Research and Theory
  • Gender as social factor for research on science
    hardly investigated (Krais 2000),
  • Gender in governmental research institutions
    (Wimbauer 1999, Matthies u.a. 2001) (but not on
    women engineers)
  • Culture of dominant masculinity (Connell 1999,
    Höyng/Lange 2004)
  • Gender in academia (Husu 2005, Morley 1999)

25
PROMETEA 2 Research and Theory
  • Feminist technology research (Faulkner 2000,
    Wajcman 1991, 1996)
  • Gender segregation and career (Allmendinger and
    Podsiadlowski 2001 Wetterer 1999)
  • Organisation and gender (Acker 1990 Wilz 2004)
  • Women engineers career in a male domain (eg
    Sagebiel 2005)

26
Conclusion
  • Genderedness of engineering and organisations
  • Women engineers tend to taboo this genderedness
  • Dilemma between avoiding to reflect on gender
    differences in daily reconstruction processes,
    but experiencing discrimination
  • Gender mainstreaming/diversity programmes cannot
    work if discriminatory practices are tabooed.

27
Thank you for your attention!
  • More information on
  • websites www.womeng.net,
  • www.prometea.info or
  • you send an email to
  • sagebiel_at_universität-wuppertal.de
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