T.D. writes:
I am an engineer in a family of scientists and academics. My father, for example, is a research scientist with a PhD in physics. For the past 25 plus years, he has worked at a prestigious academic laboratory in Boston. Growing up, I was surrounded by scientists and other academics. My father also helped me get summer jobs working in labs. In many ways, I had a very privileged upbringing.
The life of an academic scientist is, in many ways, monastic. You are sequestered in your lab and free to pursue intellectual curiosity. Of course, applying for grants can be stressful, but once you get your funding you are pretty much left to your own devices. The outside world, with its vulgar demands, rarely intrudes upon the academic cloister. The scientists I have met tended to be sensitive, curious individuals.
Engineering is a completely different profession. The focus is not on intellectual curiosity or discovery, but on real world, real time problem solving. If scientists are monks, engineers are parish priests; we work on the front lines, where theory meets reality. Engineering requires a thick skin. Much of the job entails telling managers and salesmen why something will NOT work. You often have to present physical reality to individuals who have no conception of how the universe operates.
I have come across several female engineers in my time. A few were genuine engineers, physically and emotionally capable of holding their own in a masculine profession. But most were poseurs, women who got their ticket punched at engineering school but with little or no aptitude or ambition. These women tend to leave the trade sooner rather than later. Some even end up making videos encouraging girls to pursue an engineering career. Unfortunately, they spend years in a profession where they are unhappy and unfulfilled. Perhaps, in a sane world that acknowledged differences between the sexes, we would not encourage young girls to pursue careers for which they were emotionally unsuited. But there are gaps to be filled, and who are we to question the wisdom of Goldieblox.
— Comments —
Alan writes:
An episode of television’s “Father Knows Best” in April 1956 was called “Betty, Girl Engineer”. In the story, Robert Young’s high school-age daughter Betty (actress Elinor Donahue) announces she wants to be an engineer. So she applies to get some practical work experience on a surveying team. She puts on a shirt, work jeans and boots.
When she appears for work, the young engineer in charge of the team is not impressed. “You’re a girl,” he tells her, “and a girl has the obligation to be one.” She resents that and lectures him about women’s rights and abilities. That evening, he calls on her at her home. He likes her as a girl but not as an aspiring engineer. He explains the situation to her father (Robert Young) and says: “I don’t know, maybe I’m old-fashioned. But you know the way I look at girls….I like to think of somebody in a pretty dress, somebody you can give a box of candy to, not a sack of grade stakes and a sledgehammer.”
Betty overhears their conversation and realizes her mistake. She reappears wearing a pretty new dress and a ribbon in her hair, and she agrees to a date with him.
That was the kind of wisdom, sensible judgment, and good writing that could be found on American television in the 1950s.
Please follow and like us:
