Talk:Women in engineering in the United States

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2019 and 18 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mlewi13.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:07, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Alternative Reasons for Lack of Women in Engineering

" Several issues were not discussed as why women may eschew engineering as a career choice.

• Education requirements: A typical engineering degree on average may take up to five years to complete (the lights rarely go off in the computer labs) and if there ever is a lapse along the way (childbirth, marriage, unemployment, etc.) recovery maybe difficult, especially in a fast changing field. Engineering schools and employers look at any interruptions or gaps in education as a negative.

• Work Environment: Engineering may require 80+ hours weeks (just like college) and telling the employer that you have to take a month or more off for children or leaving work to no less feed a child (or even having a child) will interfere with their dead lines. If there is a project and an engineering person leaves for several months, they would most likely be unusable on this same project resulting in a reassignment to another project. This flexibility requires larger companies with multiple projects and many of those employers are going overseas to do their engineering or cutting back.

• Unemployment, lower pay, and re-education: As engineering becomes more short term "contract" work, women may find themselves in a glutted engineering market with greater unemployment, lower paychecks than expected, or requiring more re-education because of gaps in employment caused by family obligations and unemployment.

All in all, women (and men) who are smart enough to be an engineer are smart enough to see that engineering may not be a good career choice for anyone who wants a life that involves a family, or even a life. The high tech community is not family friendly and very unforgiving of those who have a family or are not driven to "own their job". This is an industry wide problem that is devoid of childcare facilities and increasingly less health care the further one gets away from the top companies. As more competition from overseas comes into play, wages and benefits will decrease, thus making an engineering career choice for women even more unattractive. Other, non-engineering professions are more forgiving of people taking sabbaticals and smart women are more likely to seek those choices. What needs to be done to attract more women into engineering is to improve equal pay, flexible work hours, childcare, career re-entry, re-education, maternal leave, and health benefits in all high tech companies. This would reassure women that engineering is a valid career choice and not just a horse race.Septagram (talk) 04:08, 27 September 2008 (UTC) " -The above information is both lacking citations and does not follow from Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View - suggest not including in main article A3camero (talk) 02:50, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

A user has requested mediation on this issue. A mediator will be here shortly to assist you. The case page for this mediation is located here.

Inappropriate reversion

The reversion by "Wtmitchell" was inappropriate and since my edit was reverted after only 2 minutes, appears to have been done after only superficial examination of the article (and history).

Firstly (and most obviously a flagrantly inappropriate reversion): I removed the external link: "http://whatanengineerlookslike.blogspot.com This is What an Engineer Looks Like"

This has been posted (by Tricia20) and removed (by XLinkBot and me) 4 times. Tricia20 continued to post the link (coincidentally run by a person with the name of Tricia) even after being warned not to.

Secondly: I changed:

  "Differences between males and females in spatial ability..."

to:

  "Male superiority in spatial ability..."

I don't see how this should have been reverted. It seems obvious to me that the point that males have better spatial abilities than females needed to be clarified (saying only that there are differences could be understood equally to mean that females had higher spatial ability). If you don't like the word, "superiority", you are welcome to change it to a synonym, but most medical literature uses that phrase.

Thirdly: I added the sentence:

  "Innate biological differences in ability contribute to the under representation women in engineering."

This is just common sense and is supported by piles of supporting evidence. It also follows directly from the fact that females have inferior spatial ability and spatial ability is widely understood to correlate with potential in engineering.

I take your edit in good faith and sincerely hope you will attempt to address my points before reverting the edit again.

--66.189.98.178 (talk) 06:47, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

It looks like you're right. Apologies. I was doing vandal patrol with WP:Huggle, and apparently going too fast. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 07:08, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Tricia20 here: This is a blog and I do understand that under typical situations this is not an appropriate link to provide. The reason that I changed it 4 times was because I am new to this and I was unsure how to properly undo what the XLinkBot had done (but read that I could undo it if I disagreed with the revision). I would like to encourage you to review the blog. Wikipedia does not allow blogs under most conditions, however, I do believe that this blog legitimately belongs in this collection of links. The blog is a collection of posts by current women in engineering about their experiences. The best way to understand the experiences of women in engineering is through hearing their stories - which the blog highlights. My only motivation for posting the link is that I believe it is relevant for anyone interested in women in engineering. I stand nothing to gain by increasing traffic to the site so I have no ulterior motive for posting the link. Please reconsider this. Tricia20 (talk) 23:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

It's pretty important that it's YOUR blog (see Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest and Wikipedia:External_links#Links_normally_to_be_avoided ).

--66.189.98.178 (talk) 06:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the sentence:

  "Innate biological differences in ability contribute to the under representation women in engineering."

Innate biological differences have not been proven to contribute to the under representation of women in engineering nor is it common sense that this would be true. Tricia20 (talk) 23:19, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the following sentence:

"Innate biological differences in ability contribute to the under representation women in engineering."

Same reasons as above: Innate biological differences have not been shown to contribute to the under representation of women in engineering. Tricia20 (talk) 23:26, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the following sentence:

"Male superiority in spatial ability (a strong indicator of ability in engineering fields) is significant and widely acknowledged."

The links provided show no connection between spacial ability and success or enrollment in engineering. The first reference provided makes only one reference to engineering by saying that their tests were performed on current engineering students - but does not provide any support for the comment that spacial sense is significant to performance in engineering. The second reference is to an invitation to participate in a study on spacial sense and makes no conclusions at all. The third reference is an abstract for a journal article that describes that there is some evidence that the magnitude of sex differences on spacial sense has decreased over the years - which counters the notion of "innate biological differences". The final reference is another abstract for a journal article which again makes no reference of engineering. Because no evidence has been provided to support the claim that this is relevant to the number of women in engineering it has been removed. Tricia20 (talk) 23:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

You're right, I didn't add two of those sources and I have removed them, one for obvious reasons, the other because it doesn't seem to be an authoritative source. Also, I have added more piles of evidence for the linkage between mathematical ability (which nobody would deny is necessary for engineering) and spatial ability.

--66.189.98.178 (talk) 06:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Further,

This is just common sense and is supported by piles of supporting evidence.

these are weasel words. Tricia20 (talk) 00:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, weasel words are ambiguous, I don't see how somebody could misunderstand what is meant by "piles of supporting evidence", unless maybe you thought I was talking about evidence literally piled up on the floor. By common sense, I simply meant that my contentions are universally accepted. The connection between mathematical and spatial ability has been studied for many years and is uncontroversial. Besides, I used these words as part of my discussion with Boracay Bill , not as part of the article.

Please note, I am not saying that the differences between males and females in engineering is only due to biological differences. I am simply adding that this is a theory that is well supported by evidence. Please don't remove information which is supported by (authoritative) citations.

--66.189.98.178 (talk) 06:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

note: For clarity’s sake I have copied your references here to facilitate this discussion.

The references that you have provided do not display any link between spatial ability and performance/enrollment in the field of engineering. Your argument appears to be that spatial ability is a predictor of mathematical ability which is a predictor of engineering; however, your own references demonstrate that males only significantly outperform women on measures of mental rotation [6]. None of these references make any link between mental rotation and enrollment/success in engineering. Your references also state that there is no evidence that females are less analytical than males [1]. Your third reference states that males outperformed females on the SAT-M test, however your second reference clarifies that “With spatial visualization statistically controlled, no significant sex differences in Quantitative Scholastic Aptitude Test scores were found” [2]. Your fourth reference is to an aptitude test which concludes nothing (why was this included in the first place?). The fifth reference states that “Partial support was found for the notion that the magnitude of sex differences has decreased in recent years” [5] – which would seem to imply that these differences are not innately biological but rather socially impacted.

None of your references support your claim that spatial ability is a significant factor in under representation of women in engineering and in fact seem to imply that these differences may be quite insignificant [1][2]. Your references are so far from proving your allegations that I wonder if you actually read the abstracts.

Just because you believe something to be true, even if many people share your misconceptions, does not make it fact. Please verify your assumptions before posting them as fact. When providing abstracts as references please read the complete abstract, especially the concluding results, to ensure that you are correct and that they are relevant.

[1] Hyde J.S., Geiringer E.R., Yen W.M, On the empirical relation between spatial ability and sex differences in other aspects of cognitive performance.Multivariate Behavioral Research, 1975, 10, 289-309.

[2] Burnett S.A., Lane D.M., Dratt L.M. Spatial visualization and sex differences in quantitative ability. Intelligence, 1979,3, 345-354

[3] CASEY M.B., NUTTALL R., PEZARIS E., PERSSON BENBOW C. The influence of spatial ability on gender differences in mathematics college entrance test scores across diverse samples([1]) Developmental Psychology, 1995

[4] Bennett G.K., Seashore H.G., Wesman A.G. Differential Aptitude Test (5th ed.). New York: Psychological Corporation, 1974

[5] Voyer D, Voyer S, Bryden MP., Magnitude of sex differences in spatial abilities: a meta-analysis and consideration of critical variables

[6] Linn MC, Petersen AC. (1985), Emergence and characterization of sex differences in spatial ability: a meta-analysis. Child Development, 56, 1479-1498. Tricia20 (talk) 03:48, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

  "your own references demonstrate that males only significantly outperform women on measures of mental rotation [6]"

Not so, I can see that you are only reading the abstracts of these articles, but even there it says that there are "largesex differences are found only on measures of mental rotation" and "smaller sex differences are found on measures of spatial perception". Something smaller than something large, may still be very significant. If you mean statistically significant, then it is clear that there are statistically significant differences on measures of spatial perception.

Please see the new reference I have provided to strengthen this point. Tricia20 (talk) 21:53, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

  "None of these references make any link between mental rotation and enrollment/success in engineering."

You're right, I have added a citation to the paper, "Is the gender difference in mental rotation disappearing?", which states that, "Mental rotation tests such as the one we have described are used ... for selection of candidates for drafting, architecture, and engineering programs".

In no way is this an appropriate reference. Firstly, the paper is not on the effectiveness of mental rotation as a predictor of enrollment/success in engineering. Secondly, many different things are used for selection of candidates for engineering programs - I remember as a part of my application process, I had to write a book review. In no way does this make conclusions on the effectiveness of reading comprehension as a predictor of success/enrollment in engineering. Please find a source which makes direct conclusions on the effectiveness of enrollment/success of women in engineering based on their mental rotation abilities. Tricia20 (talk) 21:50, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

  "Your references also state that there is no evidence that females are less analytical than males [1]."

I never said they were.

  "Your third reference states that males outperformed females on the SAT-M test, however your second reference clarifies that “With spatial visualization statistically controlled, no significant sex differences in Quantitative Scholastic Aptitude Test scores were found” [2]."

This is exactly my point. This means that the group differences on the SAT-M can be attributed completely to differences in spatial skills. In other words, if we compare women and men with the same spatial skills, both will do equally well on the SAT-M test. This is what "controlled for" means. Statistically controlling for a variable is another way to do this using statistics, so that we don't need another experiment with individuals from both sexes with equivalent spatial skills.

I am fully aware of the meaning of "controlled for". Tricia20 (talk) 21:50, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

  "Partial support was found for the notion that the magnitude of sex differences has decreased in recent years"

"Partial" being the key word. See, "Is the gender difference in mental rotation disappearing?". This paper categorically dispelled this myth. Part of the problem from the meta-analysis which you refer to, is that the apparent decrease is most likely related to the different effect sizes of the different tests used. From the abstract, which I assume you have access to, "Neither the Pearson correlation relating the d's to the publication dates of the studies nor the Z test of the linear contrast relating the publication dates of the studies to the effect sizes showed a linear change in the size of the gender difference over time.".

I have added a citation to this paper and an explanation for clarity.

I will remove this. Tricia20 (talk) 21:51, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Note that you did not even talk about many of my other sources, one of which I quoted from directly.

They make no conclusions on the effectiveness of spatial ability as a predictor of enrollment/success in engineering and hence, are irrelevant. If you would like to start a topic on gender differences in spatial ability - please do so. However, until you prove that this is relevant to women in engineering it does not belong on this page (no matter how many articles you reference). Tricia20 (talk) 21:50, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

--66.189.98.178 (talk) 20:23, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Tricia, Since it seems we can't resolve this, I have asked for mediation (i would appreciate it if you would fill in the case page--since only a registered user can here [1])

In the meantime, please don't remove any existing material.

Thanks, --66.189.98.178 (talk) 00:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Resolving this issue simply requires you to provide one source which proves there is a link between spatial abilities and under representation of women in engineering. If this is such a well established fact as you have implied, I don't understand why it is such a challenge for you to provide a study dedicated to this.

I will fill in the case page, however, I am removing your material until this has been mediated (however, I will leave my material off as well). Tricia20 (talk) 00:20, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Mental rotation tests are used for selection of candidates for drafting, architecture, and engineering programs[11].

--66.189.98.178 (talk) 01:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Some comments on the dispute.

I looked at being an arbitrator for this discussion, but I have too much involvement to seriously consider it. As such, I'll just provide by 2 cents.

I think the question of if biological differences impact WIE is a controversial issue and should simply be addressed as such. Link to the papers as needed and acknowledge there is a debate and move along.

Personally, as an educator in engineering and having a wife who is an outstanding engineer (4.0 student from major school etc.), I have no doubts that males and females tend to have different skill groups. But what makes a good engineer isn't any one ability any more than one gene makes for a good engineer. Rather it is the gestalt that is the person. Passion, interest, and solid logical thinking will get you pretty far even if you lack many of the skills traditionally associated with engineers. Heck, even solid math skills can be negotiable in certain disciplines of engineering. Hobit (talk) 02:03, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Article Update Proposal

This article hasn't seem to have attracted any contributions within nearly the past three years and is already an insufficient stub. Thus, I will personally undertake a significant revision of this article and accomplish the following points along the way

1) I wish to give an historical analysis of female engineers, with special emphasis on the barriers women have faced in this traditionally male-dominated field. These barriers include discrimination towards women being inherently less intelligent than men and thus unable to be effective engineers; and further workplace discrimination towards women engineers which results in fewer job opportunities and lower wages than men. I wish to combine both a solid foundation of theory and empirical evidence in this section. Additionally, I wish to include a timeline towards the end of the article which notes exceptional female engineers throughout history and some of their notable contributions. This article currently has such a list, but it is wholly inadequate and needs major additions.

2) Furthermore, I wish to include another section specifically regarding the discrimination women engineers face in college and the workforce, but with a much larger empirical focus and more recent (as opposed to the historical sources above) evidence. For instance, I could draw information regarding women’s enrollment and retention rates across ethnicity, socio-economic status, parental occupation, and more if sufficient sources are found. Additionally, I wanted to discuss sexism's effects towards women’s decreased confidence levels in mathematical and science ability. This gives rise to a host of self-fulfilling prophecies in which women who may have otherwise been competent enough to complete the program otherwise don’t because of lack of confidence.

3) As just mentioned, I will also include another section about recent discrimination towards women engineers in the workforce. All things being equal, such as skill level and seniority, women engineers still receive lower wages than men across the board. This is especially true for female, minority engineers. Likewise, women as a whole do not seem to be viewed as seriously as men for leading engineering research positions. This leads to a devaluation of women engineers which could potentially affect both confidence and productivity.

4) Before the closing timeline, I wish to expand the “initiative to promote engineering to women” section in this article. I feel this section already has a respectable number of organizations listed, but special emphasis should be placed on “The Society of Women Engineers”. Created in 1950, SWE currently has over 17,000 members across 300 college campuses and has a meaningful role in recruiting female Engineers in America and promoting awareness. The importance of mentors should also be noted in this section. Studies show that mentor-like figures in women’s lives (parents, teachers, etc) can have huge impacts on their decisions to major in such a male-dominated field.

This small outline is currently a work in progress and will likely undergo a fair amount revision as the article fleshes out some. I am open—and actually hoping for considering the last contribution made on this discussion page—for suggestions while I work on this article. Furthermore, I also plan to align the article with two more Wikiprojects: WikiProject Feminism and WikiProject Discrimination. Given the major refocus I have envisioned for this page, this is a necessary move. So if anybody happens to run across this contribution within the next several weeks, please bounce some ideas off me.

J hernan26 (talk) 04:00, 9 March 2012 (UTC)J hernan26

All I'll say is that the references in this article are appalling, as is the format of it. You ought to read other articles and observe how references are formated; I for one, have not seen articles that say "(source 3)" as a reference. The reader has no idea what source you are referring to and thus cannot verify your claims. Wikipedia articles also have internal links to related articles within the text.

Furthermore, this article explains the views on this subject only from a feminist point of view. Wikipedia follows a neutral point of view, and therefore you ought to be writing opposing views on the matter also. JaumeBG (talk) 11:05, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the information, and I'm well aware of the complete lack of proper citation formatting. It's just that this article had not seemed to have generated any meaningful traffic in years, so I figured that this page would serve as a work-in-progress rather than my sandbox. I will surely take all of your suggestions into account, and by early April (the wiki deadline for my college class) I guarantee this page will have seen a complete 180. Thank you again, and is there any information I can supply you with so that you may aid me in revising? I could certainly use a hand here, and it would be well within our class project's rules.

J hernan26 (talk) 19:09, 20 March 2012 (UTC)J hernan26

Citations and source referencing

All content should meet the guidelines listed in WP:V as well as WP:OR and the citations should be formatted in accordance with WP:CITE. What I'm seeing is a lack of inline source reference, and only two sources for an article big enough to most likely need more.Kyleshome (talk) 17:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

So I've made some majorly needed revisions concerning my citations on this page. As you can see, everything is now cited properly. Thus, I will remove any citation-related warnings that were previously on my page. Additionally, I've revised all the wording in my page so that it no longer sounds as inherently biased. Now I actually have to go back and put in whole chunks of information that would express a non-feminist POV. J hernan26 (talk) 06:12, 29 March 2012 (UTC)J hernan26

A couple suggestions

I would like to see some counter-arguments to the "biologically unfit" argument, as well as some information on women in engineering outside of the U.S. Kaldari (talk) 18:39, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

There are a few options to choose from:

1. Retitle the article Women in engineering in the United States
2. Try to integrate some non-U.S. sources into the existing structure of the article. Doesn't have to be much, but at least some token mentions would be needed.
3. Move most of the existing content (especially statistics) into a "United States" section so that it is clear you are only covering the United States with the existing material. Other people could then add sections for other countries at a later date.

I would avoid creating an "outside the U.S." section, as other editors would then complain about the U.S. being the default (and they will complain). Hope that's helpful. Kaldari (talk) 23:45, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

To do's for potential editors

This is to anybody in Professor Hoang's class who will potentially contribute to my page for next Monday's assignment. Here's a list of things that need to be done:

1. Add the counter argument to the "biologically unfit" argument, as stated above. You will find this in the "explanations" section, and I feel a couple of sentences or so will suffice.
2. Follow "option two" from the post above regarding the addition of information regarding foreign female engineers. Token mentions throughout the page will suffice-- just a few sentences in each of my sections should do.
3. Add a relevant picture or two (or three?) to my page. Everybody love's pictures, right?
4. Add my project to the wikiProject Discrimination. This is something that I've been getting around to doing, but just never quite did.

I planned on doing all this myself over the next couple of weeks before the final deadline, but these should make for decent tasks for any of you guys. And as always, please use proper citations and their corresponding references at the bottom of the page. And please mention in this talk box what exactly it was that you did.

J hernan26 (talk) 03:01, 4 April 2012 (UTC)J hernan26

Potential Revisions

Juan, I think that the topic of this article is very interesting an incredibly important. A few thoughts/suggestions:

1) I think that, given the time constraints for this assignment, it would be better to somehow indicate that this article is focused on women engineers in the United States. While I think that, eventually, it would be incredibly beneficial to include the experiences of women engineers in other countries, I don't think that a few token mentions are really going to do the job. I fear that they may actually weaken the article if people believe these few mentions to be sufficient and then fail to expand upon them. I would either re-title the entire article or, as the above comments suggest, create a "United States" heading to indicate that the bulk of the information is U.S.-focused but also to indicate the need to go into more depth about the experiences of women engineers in other countries.

2) For the section "Explanations for low participation rates," where you talk about the lack of role models/mentors for women in engineering, you may want to look up studies on the black-sheep effect and the queen bee effect. I know there are psychology studies out there that have found that sometimes successful women in male-dominated fields are MORE likely to discriminate against other women who are trying to enter these fields. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/0144666042037999/abstract (this study was actually done in Italy, if you're going for a more international perspective) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/014466610X525280/full?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4d91a653ee37ec04,0

3) In either the "Explanations for low participation rates" or the "Socialization and societal outcomes" sections, it might be beneficial to include a mention of stereotype threat. There are many studies showing that women and girls often experience stereotype threat when faced with tasks that are said to be diagnostic of math or science ability. This stereotype threat can lead women and girls to de-identify with STEM fields and may explain women's lower rates of participation in these areas. http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/09/29/0963721410383241.abstract

4) You may also want to look up works by Virginia Valian who discusses how small injustices add up, explaining the "leaky pipeline" in STEM fields.http://bc.barnard.columbia.edu/~schapman/thesis/women/Valian.pdf

5) A possible source for providing a counter argument to the "biologically-unfit" explanation: http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/09/29/0963721410383241.abstract

6) Another source for the section on role models: http://spp.sagepub.com/content/2/6/656.abstract

Overall, great job! This is an ambitious article to write, but one that is very necessary. Good luck with the revisions! Naomi FK (talk) 01:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the suggestions, Naomi. I will be sure to take most, if not all, of these tips into consideration. At this point, I think I will just rename the article "Women in Engineering in the United States" I was really hoping to expand upon that one area, but maybe I'll do so in the future when I'm no longer facing deadline pressures. I'm definitely familiar with the "black sheep effect" but not with the "queen bee". Nevertheless, it sounds interesting and I'll see if I could include a bit in my explanations area. Hopefully the "leaky pipeline" can be used in my upcoming section on workplace outcomes. I feel that when women do spend potentially decades working for an employer, such discrimination effects can certainly add up. And I'll be sure to take advantage of the " biologically unfit" counter-argument source you gave me. As I just needed perhaps a couple of sentences, this should be sufficient.

Thanks again, J hernan26 (talk) 04:24, 10 April 2012 (UTC)J hernan26

Suggested Edits

Juan, I felt that your article was very eye opening. As a science major here at Rice I have witnessed the discrepancies in enrollment of males and females in the engineering, mathematics and hard science tract. However, I was not as aware of the processes of socialization which deter women from such a career path. The portion of your article which discussed how women shied away from engineering because they believed that they were not good enough at math was very interesting. I think that you could reference specific programs or strategies that were successful at promoting women’s involvement in engineering and boosting their self-esteem. Do such agencies or programs exist? You could discuss a few and describe how their program made a difference. Your material kept my interest and it was presented very well. B4change1 (talk) 01:57, 11 April 2012 (UTC)b4change1

Response

Thanks for the suggestion and compliments. And yes, socialization is everything when it comes to the lack of women in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering. Regarding the disproportionate number of women in Humanities courses, saying that they chose to be in such courses doesn't really say a whole lot in light of these facts. In fact, saying that people have free choices period means almost nothing unless the factors which influenced those choices are investigated first. There are several programs that aim to promote women's involvement in the S/E courses that I have listed in my "Organizations" tab. Maybe I could expand on each one for a couple of sentence , but I don't want to get too in depth there since that section was just supposed to read more like a list rather than prose. Nevertheless, all suggestions are welcome and I'll try to implement as many as I can between now and Friday. Thanks.

J hernan26 (talk) 02:15, 11 April 2012 (UTC)J hernan26

Statistics and relevant data - Wrong Info on computer science and not sourced

Wrong info: "The percentage increase in the computer science industry displayed was larger, increasing from approximately 10% in 1989 to 21% in 2008."

There has been a SIGNIFICANT decline in the percentage of women obtaining computer science bachelor's degrees. The percentage of women in Computer Science peaked around ~37% in 1984 and has been declining ever since.

K00kykelly (talk) 18:36, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

References

Proposed new section: Retaining Women Engineers

Retention of Women in Engineering is a major issue when looking at the low rates of women in engineering and it's got half a sentence in the current article. Women leave engineering at twice the rate of men.

It’s estimated that 40 percent of women who study engineering either leave the field or never enter it at all, and women quit jobs in tech at twice the rate that men do. ... But what if the pipeline isn’t the problem? What if, after arriving, it’s just too unbearable for women to stay in the water?

Women’s Reasons for Leaving the Engineering Field

In order to curb the high rates of women leaving the field, engineering programs need to address gendered tasking and expectations among teams, in class and at internship work sites. The culture has to learn to take women seriously.

Overall, about 20 percent of undergraduate engineering degrees are awarded to women, but only 13 percent of the engineering workforce is female. Numerous explanations have been offered for this discrepancy, including a lack of mentorship for women in the field; a variety of factors that produce less confidence for female engineers; and the demands for women of maintaining a balance between work and family life.

K00kykelly (talk) 18:59, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

References

New Reasons for Lack of Participation

Hello, I was thinking on adding some information to this page regarding other reasons why there is a lack of participation among women in this field. I recently worked on a research paper about the underrepresentation of women in the engineering field and reasons behind it and I found a lot of the information that I had found to be useful. Some of these reasons included the lack of professional role confidence among women and more specifics about gender stereotypes that could be added to what is already written. I was thinking on just continuing the information under the heading "Explanations for low participation rates." I wanted to get your thoughts on if this information would be beneficial to add to this article or if it would even be a good idea to add in the first place.Mlewi13 (talk) 19:17, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Rice University supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2011 Q3 term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from {{WAP assignment}} by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:16, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Intentionally misleading description of barriers to entry

Article omits in entirety that in the United States, most universities did not admit women in engineering until the 1970s. Article claims women did not choose to enter the field and that "no formal discrimination occurred" which is factually incorrect - women were legally disallowed from applying and being admitted to all US engineering schools for the entire history of the United States until, at the earliest, the 1950s at a couple institutions and in the 1970s in most institutions. This entire article needs attention. 46.248.134.29 (talk) 08:22, 30 November 2023 (UTC)