Friday, May 06, 2005

Women in Science and technology - 20 years later?

In almost all of the cases that I know - from school days to the
present, it has been social pressure that has caused women to shift
form the technical to the non-technical or less technical field. The
standard - it's not a female thing to do... I was lucky in that both
my parents were really supportive of my decision to go into engineering.
I've also noticed that with teenage girls, the lack of female role
models in the field is also a big factor. I've done some school
visits, and one of the things cited by most of the girls was that they
had never seen a female engineer (on TV, in the movies, in real life,
etc) so they didn't consider it a viable career choice.

A question to consider is:
Do you consider the move into management in a technical field to still
be "women in science and tech" or not?

For my part, I prefer doing hands-on tech, but have moved to a less
hands-on more intellectual/mangement tech position as I have gotten
older and moved up - it's basically the management dilemma- do well
enough at what you like and eventually you'll get promoted and not be
able to do what you like - just supervise those who are doing it.
Jacqueline

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