Why are engineering schools only 10% women?

Question

An ultra feminist was lamenting this fact. A man told her he was with her and supported a strict 50/50 male female quota in all schools admissions systems including nursing school and dental hygiene school. The ultra feminist never brought up the issue again.

Answer 1

Engineering schools are 10% female?  Tell that to my undergrad school. . . it was about 25% female.  I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but it can make quite a bit of difference.  My program was more like 35% female, and some other engineering majors at the same school were 5%.

Around 10% of engineering *professors* are female, though, at least as I've often heard that quoted.  I didn't have a class taught by one until about a year into grad school, and that still wasn't in the department where I was studying at the time.  

Women at engineering schools are such a minority because a lot of women simply don't want to a) major in engineering and b) then go to an engineering school if they do.  

Therefore, I'd totally be opposed to such a thing as a 50/50 quota. . . if you aren't cut out for and won't be happy at that school or in that field, then don't go there.  We'll honestly be fine if you take your contributions to society to some other area where you'll be happier, and take the extra guys in return.  It's not like the boys have cooties or anything such that you can't work with them just the same.

Answer 2

The answer is simple... Engineering schools are sexist!  It couldn't possibly be that men are amazing at engineering and women are amazing at...?

Answer 3

I don't want a quota, I want people to feel equally welcome to become whatever they want, regardless of gender. You know that a female engineer & a male nurse would both be seen as "weird".

12k Kcal per day: Shakespeare really isn't an integral part of nursing, in case you weren't sure.

Answer 4

1- Women are obviously not very interested in engineering if those stats are true.

2- Quotas only help the lazy people.  

Answer 5

Girls are not encouraged to explore that side of their natures.  I grew up in the 60's.  I was encouraged to be a doctor, but most girls in my era were not.  (I was an exception because my mother was a doctor.)  Most girls were encouraged to be teachers or nurses.  

I did not discover until I was in my 50's that I should have been an engineer or a space planner, when a contractor I was working with told me I had a natural talent for it.

The colleges don't tell people to apply.  That has to start at home.

Quotas are sexist and unfair.  It should be the first-est with the

most-est.  You comment about feminists not wanting to share the traditionally female jobs is not true and totally unfair.  We would be happy to share the low pay and lack of appreciation.

Answer 6

How does a 50/50 quota correct the problem ? That would merely force most schools to cancel all engineering programs having only 20% of capacity for their classes (the previous 10% women and now 10% men to match, if your statistics can be assumed to be accurate)...

The problem is not that women are not being admitted and screened out, the problem is that they are not interested in those fields, the same as men are not interested in nursing... (far as I know, Dental Hygiene is actually dominated by men, I'm not sure why)

Answer 7

Um... please take Logic and Reasoning 101 (repeat until mastery is achieved)

Your conclusion is faulty.

You cannot conclude that women desire selective equality from the evidence presented in your question.

So which is your question - the percent of women in engineering or the assertion that women want selective equality?

Answer 8

Quotas are just as sexist as turning people away.

Answer 9

They are not.

20% of engineering degrees are earned by women in the U.S., and the number is rising (stats from the National Academy of Engineering) as the stigma and cultural perception that women shouldn't work in math and science fields disappears.

In places like Russia, much higher percentages of women become engineers. If there was one good thing about education under communism it's that it was truly gender-blind.

Answer 10

In Delft (one of Europe's premier engineering schools is there) the percentage of female students is about 35%.

Answer 11

Because girls are not encouraged to blah blah blah.... Discrimination!