Firstly, I agree with Alex's comments. Secondly and more generally: I think that where there is a huge difference between the mix of people employed in a profession compared to the mix of people in the society in which it operates, then that profession definitely should be considering whether it is becoming too insular, too narrow minded, too unwelcoming. We're not (or shouldn't be) a self selecting social club of people who all think the same way, we are (or should be) a profession where - as Alex says - we just want to attract the best people for the job. Otherwise the profession is not going to excel.


I now work entirely for women engineers (i.e. my technical and commercial managers, and their overall manager). That is not an issue, not better, not worse, not different. What is an issue is the heavy, and completely unfounded, misogyny I have seen in other areas of UK engineering, particularly (in my experience) in manufacturing.


How 50% of the population interact with the other 50% in their private lives is a whole different (very complicated, and occasionally really quite fun) issue. But in the workplace a human being who is a good engineer is exactly that. Unfortunately many UK engineers (and indeed those such as teachers surrounding the industry) do not seem to understand this. At this point we unfortunately start getting into quite heavy psychology about how we let our 'social' behaviour and attitudes (being very delicate and careful here) interact with our 'work' behaviour and attitudes - remembering that human beings are extremely good at inventing and genuinely believing completely erroneous reasons and justifications for these behaviours and attitudes. We've had 300,000 years as Homo Sapiens, let alone everything that came before, to condition our social behaviour, whereas the workplace is a ridiculously new phenomenon. BUT other professions - and, as Alex points out, other countries - have managed to cope with this. So unless we think UK engineers are particularly socially inept (!) we really ought to be able to adapt as well.


But anyway, whether we decide to drive change because it will increase the pool of excellent resource, or we drive it because we don't want to work in a profession holding attitudes from (theoretically) a bygone age, I believe we do need to actively make change happen.

Firstly, I agree with Alex's comments. Secondly and more generally: I think that where there is a huge difference between the mix of people employed in a profession compared to the mix of people in the society in which it operates, then that profession definitely should be considering whether it is becoming too insular, too narrow minded, too unwelcoming. We're not (or shouldn't be) a self selecting social club of people who all think the same way, we are (or should be) a profession where - as Alex says - we just want to attract the best people for the job. Otherwise the profession is not going to excel.


I now work entirely for women engineers (i.e. my technical and commercial managers, and their overall manager). That is not an issue, not better, not worse, not different. What is an issue is the heavy, and completely unfounded, misogyny I have seen in other areas of UK engineering, particularly (in my experience) in manufacturing.


How 50% of the population interact with the other 50% in their private lives is a whole different (very complicated, and occasionally really quite fun) issue. But in the workplace a human being who is a good engineer is exactly that. Unfortunately many UK engineers (and indeed those such as teachers surrounding the industry) do not seem to understand this. At this point we unfortunately start getting into quite heavy psychology about how we let our 'social' behaviour and attitudes (being very delicate and careful here) interact with our 'work' behaviour and attitudes - remembering that human beings are extremely good at inventing and genuinely believing completely erroneous reasons and justifications for these behaviours and attitudes. We've had 300,000 years as Homo Sapiens, let alone everything that came before, to condition our social behaviour, whereas the workplace is a ridiculously new phenomenon. BUT other professions - and, as Alex points out, other countries - have managed to cope with this. So unless we think UK engineers are particularly socially inept (!) we really ought to be able to adapt as well.


But anyway, whether we decide to drive change because it will increase the pool of excellent resource, or we drive it because we don't want to work in a profession holding attitudes from (theoretically) a bygone age, I believe we do need to actively make change happen.