Engineering gender equity

This study analyzes the under-representation of women in engineering occupations and investigates different types of discrimination that drive women from engineering careers. A male/female interaction continuum created by New Dynamics Consulting is introduced to provide a visual representation of the range of behaviors exhibited by both men and women. The continuum shows a progressive path that describes a range of non-collaborative to collaborative behaviors which begin with dominant and subordinate stereotypes and transitions to mutual colleagueship between the genders. By understanding how an organization falls on the continuum, corrective actions may be established for individuals and groups in an effort to modify and eliminate the behaviors that do not support colleagueship and that contribute to the attrition of women engineers. The national gender wage gap between men and women is analyzed and further broken down into its main contributors and is offered as a metric to be used to determine the success of eliminating inherent gender discrimination. A root cause is then presented based on men’s core beliefs and attitudes towards women in the technical workplace. Suggested corrective actions are itemized to prevent extensive litigation such as the nation’s largest class action gender discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart.