But you know what I noticed sitting in that class full of both our up-and-coming as well as seasoned leaders? In a 30+ participant room, there was not a single woman represented in the program management or engineering chains. The only 2 women that fell into this category? The Senior director of program management who was the moderator of the course and myself (training to be a trainer).
WTF?? Like seriously... WTF? WHERE ARE MY LADIES AT??
It was such a distinct observation, I sent the senior director a hangout asking this exact question. The depressing response I got? "This is what all the classes look like." So I leaned over to my peer department manager male colleague sitting next to me and asked him, "What don't you see in this room?" He did a quick scan, and he instantly called it. No Women. A roster of 30+ people, and not a single woman engineer. Then we both did a quick comparison of our respective departments. We are both similarly sized at about 85-90 people. I could think of 6 people in my department that are women (including me), he could think of 5.
Do not sit here and tell me we've addressed gender diversity. I live this every day. We haven't. Are we farther than we where we were 100 years ago? Yes. But we are not nearly as far as we should be in this day and age of enlightenment.
One of the core tenants we teach in this training class is, "if you see something, say something". Have the conversation that needs to be had. Acknowledge that men and women have very different perspectives and that by bringing them BOTH to the table, we all gain for it. Not to mention the very real fact that as boomers retire, we are starving for talent to feed our nation's engineering needs. With women graduating at a rate higher than men, this is a key source for bridging that very real technical gap that we as a country cannot afford to lose.
How do we fix this problem? As much as I want the grass roots method to be enough, it is NOT. This starts at the top. With 1% of fortune 500 companies led by women, its time to engage men. They are the shadow of leadership that exists today and without their active involvement, we will not achieve our potential. Jeff Tobias' video on Male Engagement is 14 minutes long and I urge every one of you fathers out there to watch this. You owe it to your wife. Your mother. Your sister. Your daughter. Your son. And then take a stand and make a pledge. Your daughter is not worth 80% of your son.
Light the fire, be the change.
Finally got around to walking the youtube video. It was good and I sent it to Joe.
ReplyDeleteI've been getting back into SWE and recently talked with other MDT engineers about being a woman engineer. I have determined that my department is a bit of an anomaly. We are 30-35% women at engineer and manager levels. It's been this way since I started in 2003. I think one reason for the higher than usual percentage of women is because of the products we make. I know being drawn to saving lives is independent of gender, but I can see it being a large draw for women over other industries. But additionally, I think my department's culture plays a large factor because other engineering departments have far fewer women engineers. There’s trust between the different levels and a feeling that we’re valued and not just a resource to be plugged in where needed.