Mechanical Engineering Micronarratives and/as Changing Stories of Women in STEM

Abstract

This chapter reflects on the story of Women in STEM in the USA, as we come through the Covid-19 pandemic and as fields such as mechanical engineering face challenging, multifaceted global energy and climate crises. Drawing on narrative theory and feminist science studies, it explores how micronarratives written by contemporary women at the forefront of mechanical engineering research, professional, and educational practice, such as those included in this collection of essays – Women in Science and Engineering: Energy and Environment – introduce important dimensions to, and register potential shifts in the larger story of Women in STEM. It argues that personal, local, situated narratives provide an important point of entry into changing stories of women mechanical engineers. They can address technical, social, and emotional dimensions of the field, differences between women’s experiences due to intersectional identities, as well as providing experientially rich, highly contextualized models of importance to women, nonbinary gendered, and other mechanical engineering minorities. Combined with existing data-driven national efforts at the macro-scale, micronarratives move the story of Women in STEM beyond the binary question of inclusion or exclusion and forward to address remarkable new directions women are introducing to mechanical engineering and their continued disadvantages.KeywordsGathering storiesMicronarrativesSituated knowledgesWomen in STEMNarrative affordances Hidden Figures Margot Lee ShetterlyChanging narrativesFeminist science studiesWomen in mechanical engineeringEngineering educationStory-driven engineeringFeminismWomen’s and gender studiesScience narratives