Abstract
Women in engineering continue to experience bias in the field. This constructivist case study uses feminist theory to examine the gendered experiences of graduating senior women engineering students in academic and workplace environments. In each setting we identified three subthemes; in academia: “I don’t think my education is any different,” “Being underestimated constantly,” and “You don’t want to be seen as getting advantages”; in the workplace: “Oh, you’re a girl,” “There’s a lot of sexism,” and Benefits of “girl power.” Overall, findings indicate that women experience bias in both settings, often via implicit bias in academia and with instances of implicit bias, sexism, and sexual harassment occurring even more often in the workplace through internship experiences. The article concludes with suggestions for practice, future research, and strategies to create supportive academic and workplace experiences and environments for women engineers.
Highlights
Despite the growing numbers of women earning degrees in engineering, women remain vastly underrepresented in engineering fields
The present study provides continued evidence of power disparities, as well as examples of implicit bias, sexism, and sexual harassment experienced by women engineering students in both academic and workplace settings
While a growing body of literature focuses on the experiences of female engineering students in academic or work settings, the present study is novel in its deep examination of gender dynamics within two environments where undergraduate students are most likely to gain field-relevant knowledge and career experiences
Summary
Despite the growing numbers of women earning degrees in engineering, women remain vastly underrepresented in engineering fields. Women comprise only 20% of students graduating with bachelor’s degrees in engineering (National Science Foundation 2017) and just 12% of the engineering workforce (Corbett and Hill 2015) This underrepresentation is two-fold; are women entering these fields at far lower rates than men (Sassler et al 2017) but they are leaving them at higher rates as well (Buse et al 2013; Frehill et al 2008; Garibay et al 2013; Xu 2017). Throughout the literature on women’s persistence in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, a host of structural and cultural barriers contribute to the high prevalence of gender bias in these fields, with direct implications for women’s self-efficacy, experiences, opportunities, and success, in engineering (Buse et al 2013; Haines et al 2001; Hall and Sandler 1982, 1984; Morris and Daniel 2008; Sax et al 2015; Xu 2013, 2015, 2017)
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