Drawing the gender line

Drawing+the+gender+line

By Yunjo Jeong

While walking around campus, I saw a sign for what I thought was a rather interesting student organization: the Society of Women Engineers. 

Women in engineering? Why is that unusual enough to warrant such an organization? 

It sparked a thought in my mind: The student organization itself shows the stereotype in our society that engineering is for men, and that seeing women in such a field is out of the ordinary.

It’s very subtle — almost invisible — the way our stereotypes draw an unnecessary line between men and women’s gender roles. The existence of a group for female engineers may seem natural at first, as they are the minority group in the field, but upon deeper examination, the gender line it creates within the major is obvious.  

Nobody tells college students what to study. The school doesn’t require females to stay away from the sciences, and it doesn’t stop males from pursuing the liberal arts. 

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Students themselves simply choose what they think they want to do, and what we see is a visible difference in gender ratios in different fields. But both genders should feel welcome in any area of study.

I admit, gender-based stereotypes are hard to abandon so readily; they are deeply rooted in people’s mindsets. It’s sometimes difficult to think without gender biases, simply because these concepts are built during our childhood years. 

We’ve been brought up to think that there are certain tasks that men should be doing and there are others that women should pursue. In thinking that way, we limit ourselves in what we can accomplish, with the only reason being these gender-based stereotypes. In reality, both genders are capable of much of the same. 

Frankly, I don’t see the point in groups geared toward females in traditionally male disciplines. It only reinforces that females in science-related majors are unusual, when these women shouldn’t feel that way. As I’ve mentioned, the student organization for female engineers is a perfect example of the unnecessary stereotypes we have today. 

Is it because of biological differences that there are so few women in engineering fields? I hardly think so. The brain structures of males and females are not different enough to result in there being only two girls out of nearly 40 students enrolled in my TAM 195 class — Introductory Theoretical Applied Mechanics. This means that the unusual, unbalanced gender ratios in engineering fields are due to causes other than the innate difference between men and women; they result from stereotypes we should abolish.

Some may question the logic behind criticizing the purpose of organizations for minority groups. And it might seem like disproportionate gender ratios in certain fields are not important enough of an issue to address. 

But what about those who unintentionally become the minority? What about the way people view such minorities? I think the Society of Women Engineers, or any organizations for women in traditionally male fields for that matter, serves only to show that the women themselves feel like the minority. 

They shouldn’t feel uncomfortable; women in engineering or sciences should be as comfortable as men in the same fields of study. They should feel integrated without such minority societies. 

Our problem is not the different gender ratios in different majors or giving students the opportunity to choose what they want to study. The school does not put any restrictions on what courses male and female students can choose from, but society still seems to marks certain genders in certain fields as unusual. Groups like the Society of Women Engineers make this evident. 

It’s difficult to suggest a solution. The unbalanced gender ratios in academic fields, not necessarily only engineering, have been around for quite a while, and the stereotypes that have been controlling the way male and female students choose their futures are deeply rooted in our minds. The biases remain prevalent. 

But we shouldn’t settle for the present; we should be looking for a way to eliminate the need minority genders feel to create their own student organizations in an academic field. We should work to make people comfortable and confident in whatever major they choose to pursue and eliminate the need for minority societies. 

Yunjo is a freshman in Engineering. He can be reached at [email protected].