Introduction and Context
Generalizations have received a lot of slander in the past for not taking into consideration that there are people within that community that don’t necessarily fit that generalization. The point of this essay however, is to do just that, see if a generalization can be created for a specific community, therefore making it a discourse community.
Engineers are their own discourse community with specific characteristics, but are female engineers part of it or are they their own discourse community? This question will be explored and answered through in this paper by utilizing the forms my research, observations, and interviews.
Directly following this will be a brief history of engineering, followed by an overview of my observation notes, textual research, and interview responses. Afterwards will be a discussion on whether or not the gathered research supports my claim that female engineers are a discourse community.
Engineers have been around since the beginning of time, whether they were labeled as an engineer or something else entirely. These people are the ones responsible for designing and building almost everything tangible object from the very first wheel to the hover board. Engineers even back then, were always considered to be a perfectionist, feel a need to be right, and be sensitive to criticism (Goshen). Those “engineers” from long ago were mainly men and it wasn’t until the twentieth century that women really started to be involved in engineering.
Women first started being involved in this field of work during World War II. When the men were drafted for the war, it left many unfilled jobs and, because engineers were mainly men, hardly any engineers remained. The lack of engineers created desperateness in the United States for the positions to be filled. The pressure for women to take up these jobs led to the opening up of engineering classes and training for women (Partners in Winning the War: American Women in World War II). This was the real start of women in engineering. These classes and training opportunities opened a new door to careers never before considered plausible for women.
The number of women studying engineering steadily increased after World War II, but the rate recently slowed down. The percentage of female engineers has not changed much in the past few decades. In 2011, only 18.6% of engineers were women (Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering). Since then the percentage has increased slightly but still remains under twenty percent.
Part of the reason these numbers are so low is implicit/unintentional bias. We all have reasoning for doing something, but a lot of the time it is hard to point out exactly what that reasoning is. Usually that hard-to-decipher meaning is the implicit bias. For example, if a man and woman had the same exact resume down to every detail, an employer in the math/science field would chose the male because unintentional bias “affects the ability to accurately judge” (Carpenter). The reason this is responsible for the low numbers of women in engineering, is because women are more emotional than men and are easily discouraged by occurrences like these.