Readers letters
As an aged female member of the IMechE, I read with interest your article on “The Missing 51% by Holly Else (PE, October 2011). Having been concerned about the scarcity of women engineers for most of my life, I feel that the article hits the nail on the head when it talks about the top-down approach only going so far and that it needs to be combined with grassroots initiatives.
Consider what the average schoolgirl's view of engineering is. The chances are that she's never even thought about it, certainly not as a career. Why? It's the old story of schools not even beginning to understand; for them it's the 'greasy overalls and industrial boots' syndrome. What is needed, apart from accurate information, is a quantum shift in image. Nowadays we are all bombarded with information from screens ranging from mobile phones to enormous televisions, all pouring out instant images. What the engineering professions need to do, particularly the IMechE, is to develop a popular engineering image that not only informs but appeals. No one seems able to put over the fact that engineering is not only a science but an art, that creativity is as necessary to design and build a machine as it was to Leonardo da Vinci's paintings. (Remember da Vinci was also an engineer). The Victorians understood this very well and they also understood the value of image – think of Brunel and the two Stephensons, of Bazalgette knighted for building the modern London sewers, for heaven's sake!
One way, both entertaining and informing, to reach our young people is through television. There has been no significant TV series using manufacturing since the 70s. Why not suggest a series (somebody in the Institution must know a producer!) based on professional engineering, even if the hero has no home life and the heroine wears 5 inch heels and sports long flowing hair liable to contravene Health and Safety regulations. A glance at the box shows it awash with medical, legal and police soaps (sorry, dramas) so why not engineering?
Seriously, there is a need to get over a recognition, in the youngster themselves – both girls and boys – and the adults around them, of the possibilities of a career in engineering. I'm not talking about those to whom an engineering qualification is merely a step to Other Things but a real engineer moving from instant attraction, otherwise our missing engineers will remain missing.
When I became a Member in the mid-sixties, a female member was a rarity. There were pressures on a young woman that today's schoolgirls cannot even guess at. I was buoyed up by the encouragement from engineers of two generations who recognised in me the vital spark that they themselves possessed. I am happy to say that is has lasted through forty years of full time work and several of part time and I have no regrets. Although I no longer work it would be inaccurate to say I am retired. Engineers, once up and running, do not retire. I only hope that, if I get through the Pearly Gates, there will be some corner where there will be others arguing happily and drawing on the backs of celestial envelopes.
Ann Armstrong, Chipping Norton, Oxon
Next letter: The true engineer