International Women In Engineering Day

Sorry to hear that. Frustratingly familiar story! As my friend once said of this "you can't get new growth from old wood". The more women who come through and start their own firms the better. That's why I am rather cynical about these events for INWED etc because there are rarely any attendees under 35 and the speakers are usually chosen for their bubbly appeal to the young, rather than the genuine role models who have done stuff, who may have opinions and tougher things to say. Ho hum!

@KnottyAuty But I was usually made to feel welcome esp as worked harder than the chaps usually

Yep - having to work harder to prove that you could do the job AND getting paid less than the men.

I shifted into a related area, went on mat leave and came back (part time) to find that the role had been moved 200 miles away and I had been given a completely different job. Was so glad that not long after DH’s company moved us overseas for a while as it was the perfect excuse to leave.

I’ve ended up doing something entirely different, not at all lucrative (DH was always the big earner) but really interesting and challenging.

Data from the Engineering Council suggest women are leaving the profession by their mid 40s, through lack of support, gender bias, struggle with work / life balance etc. Although I doubt any of those issues will affect Floppy Hat.

I always found everyone fine - apart from one old boy who shouted and a crane driver who I think purposefully dropped a tiny amount of concrete on my hard hat to give me a fright! So I’d say that the biggest battle was probably in my own mind all the way up to age 30-35. Doing something different requires extra determination doesn’t it? But I was usually made to feel welcome esp as worked harder than the chaps usually. There were always small signs that I was “the other” though - not invited on holiday with a group of colleagues was the biggest thing. But small in the grand scheme of things. The initial 20% pay discrepancy was a surprise when I discovered accidentally and that got resolved - although I suspect it crept back in after my original boss retired.

But after age 30-35 / motherhood the game changed and I had no idea how much more hostile the environment slowly shifted to be. Older women with authority - especially if they are part time and have a younger, and less well known boss - are perceived to be very threatening it seems!? Obviously places at the top of a private firm are going to be competitive but it really gets into boys’ club territory at that point. Who looks the part based on an old template becomes important and then the need to find large sums of cash to buy equity. Much more tricky territory all around for a part time woman. So glad I now work for myself - so liberating and fun again! (And even better - more lucrative).

So that’s why this INWED hat person has me fucking incensed! There is zero justification for them being at this event - they should get their own trans one and celebrate that instead of gate crashing the women’s. Especially if as OP says they are NB and not even committed to womanhood. Grr

I would add that the sexism was mostly from the middle managers. The trades guys were usually supportive and respectful (at least to my face).

Obviously the only hat that should be worn indoors in a professional engineering setting is a hard hat.

This is all really quite infuriating. I do hope None Binary Bloke isn’t there to ‘expand the bandwidth of being a woman engineer’ .

God, the amount of sexism I faced as a female fresh graduate going into engineering in the 1980s.

It's rather galling that the sponsors' say '... we are proud to have so many talented female engineers helping us solve complex issues to ensure a safer future for all.'

and '...who have championed diversity throughout their careers was both inspiring and motivating' what the hell has any of that to do with engineering.

Can you imagine if I turned up (as a white woman” to a BLM meeting and got my white face front and centre of a photo? I would be roundly criticised and quite rightly called out! Why is this behaviour acceptable if it’s males at a female event?

Exactly. The hat wearer has literally had zero barriers to entry. And the women who have opted into this subject have already proved their gender non conforming credentials many times over. I wonder if the hat wearer is being paid 20% less than male colleagues like the women will be? To get the full female engineer experience the hat person needs to offer to take a 20% pay cut. If they haven’t done that then I feel like they’re just play acting and not committed enough…

How wonderful that a physics course is now 25% women! Great progress over the last 30 years - onwards!

I likewise bear the scars from my career in this space.

If a chap wants to wear a dress and a hat, have at it, I don't care. If he/they make sexual choices with consenting adults I truly couldn't be less interested.

However, if it were to get to the point where a chap wants to win, or wins, a Women in Engineering award I would be spitting feathers.

This doesn't seem to be the case here (yet) but men in women's sports, for example, have made me pre-emptively defensive.

Thank you for posting this reply, you've summed up my feelings rather nicely. As a women (yes, a real one) and a chartered engineer with the IMechE (whose logo does indeed appear in the background), I hate these sorts of scenarios. I don't look too different to the lady on the far left: tall, not much in the boob department and long limbs. I would be ashamed and embarrassed if people were scrutinising my appearance to work out if I was actually a man. I've battled enough in my career to be taken seriously, and it fucks me off that these men can slap on a floppy hat and skirt and appropriate our spaces and then, to add insult to injury, cause suspicions to be rasied about the actual women who have every right to be there.

I have reported my post to MNHQ & asked that it be deleted.

I didn't actually speculate whether any of those in the photo were male although now I see how my comment has been misinterpreted it's better to remove it.

Well at my DD’s work they got a lovely meal and their photos were taken for publicity, my dd as usual attempted to hide from the cameraman but he didn’t let her get away with it. They are all natal women doing a job which 13 years ago women weren’t allowed to do!

The only barrier is what you wear, everyone knows that. If you just dress like a man, then all the problems with girls school education, the peer pressure to conform to stereotypes, the structure of further education, the quite aggressively competitive nature of research, the misogyny in the workplace, casual sexual harassment, maternity leave penalties, everything. It all goes away.

Or… you can just be a man dressed like a woman and then you understand the whole situation perfectly and you can speak about how you feel as a fellow skirt and hat wearer in engineering.

Yes, if you know, that's fair enough. It was the speculation about the woman in the photo that I found quite distasteful.

An article she's written on her experience as a woman in physics...
freyasgrant.medium.com/my-experience-as-a-woman-in-physics-344ebf440b43

Thank you.

Having seen the original, and Googled, I think it's clear that the person on the left is a woman, who went to a girls' school and achieved fantastic results (thank you, Linkedin). Women can be tall and do not have to have large breasts. It is totally inappropriate to speculate with no evidence, and I hope those that have done so ask to have their posts deleted.

That leads me to wonder whether the person in the hat is a transman, in which case it's totally appropriate that they appear here.

I'm GC, but come on, this thread is totally inappropriate without any evidence.

Is this even a genuine photo? Where's the link to the original on the internet?

If you're upset about "stolen valour", OP, then please could you link to, or upload, a better version of that photo.

Because I reckon three men are stealing female spaces, there.

if you search #INWED25 on Twitter you'll see lots of pics and stories about real women in engineering. The interesting bit for me is - why aren't TRAs shouting at all these women and telling them that if they like doing manly jobs then they were obviously born in the wrong body?