Title: Mens network and other barriers for womens career in engineering. Results from EUproject WomEng and
1Mens 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
22 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)
3Focus 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)
4Outline
- WomEng women engineers in companies
- State of the art
- Hypotheses
- Methodology
- Results
- PROMETEA women engineers in research
- State of the art
- Hypotheses
- Methodology
- Conclusion
5State 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).
6Hypotheses
- 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).
7Methodology Instruments for women engineers
investigation in professional sphere
per country
8Dominant 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).
9Dominant 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.
10Coping 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.
11Women 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.
12Women 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.
13Women 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.
14Mens 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).
15Barriers to career
- gender stereotypes,
- traditional ideas about role concepts and
gendered division of labour, - overtimes,
- mens networks and
- restricted entrance of women
16State 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
17State 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).
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19Hypotheses 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).
20Hypotheses 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
21Hypotheses 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
22Methodology
- 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
23Research and Theory
24PROMETEA 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)
25PROMETEA 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)
26Conclusion
- 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.
27Thank 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