Women, Science, and Technology Through the Eyes of a Foreign Classmate

I conducted a lengthy interview with rising Junior and fellow classmate Akimi Goto concerning her thoughts on women in STEM related fields.  Having sat beside her most of all semester with no intentions of interviewing her, it was revealed later that I would’ve been hard pressed to find someone more exposed to gender discourse and candid about some of the issues she has faced.  As physics classmates, we had the opportunity to discuss some of the issues I’ve studied and read about this semester over a two day period.  Since this is a blog, I first focused my attention on her background information to lay a firm foundation as to why she positions herself with certain topics.

Born and raised up to the age of 16 in Chiba, Japan, Akimi has always been exposed to math and science courses due to the electronic economic landscape of her country. Many of her family members have worked as engineers for many of the major corporations that make TV’s, computers, cell phones, cameras, and etc.  Her view of corporate Japan’s treatment of women is just as eye-opening as it is here at home.  As a matter of fact, the reason why she came abroad to study was to broaden her options and become integrated into the American culture. Growing up and watching some of her friends return home from America to visit really motivated her to follow suit.  She recounted a moment when her cousin’s friend, who now lives in New York working as Public Relations for a major talent agency, came home to visit.

 “Number one, when I saw her she looked so happy and different.  I remember hearing her without her accent, talking slang, and me picking up on a culture that she was newly submerged in.  Her clothing was so chic but yet so classy. At that time I remember telling myself that I wanted to be a part of this thing that I really couldn’t explain.”  

She began to tell me that it wasn’t until years later that she understood what and why she fell in love with this thing.  Living 25 miles from the world capital of electronics, Akimi explained to me how highly competitive it is at nearby prestigious institutions to the extent that some people are put on waiting lists to enroll. In addition to that, she complained how highly populated the area was with the underlying fact that she was a woman and that a ceiling for her “career” would be met at some point. Living by the seaport, there were many warehousing and factory jobs available but most of them were for men. Many middle aged to retiree women who worked part-time were also farmers that sold their harvest at local markets.  Their main focus however was to care of home and maintain domestic duties.  

After conversing more she revealed to me that she felt hostage to the culture of following the same education model that everyone was following which broaden her aspirations to pursue something in liberal arts instead of STEM related careers.  Although she moved she didn’t convert her studies to liberal arts.  As a rising junior majoring in chemical engineering here at NC State, she explained how difficult it was to choose something other than engineering.

“I felt it was a part of my DNA to become a doctor, scientist, or engineer.  I remember my parents telling me to pursue something viable since the economy wasn’t doing too great and that I would have something firm to fall back on if other things didn’t work out.  But more important than that, I remember feeling so much internal pressure parting from an academic career in engineering that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I think it was mainly due to my culture and my parents’ hope for me to become a chemical engineer. I didn’t want to let them down and become an outcast of the family so I decided to take their advice and pursue a chemical engineering degree.”    

After she told me why she decided to major in chemical engineering, I immediately directed her attention to Jaekyoun Lee’s article, “Asian Americans and the Gender Gap in Science and Technology” that I read in class.  A passage in the article mentions how career activities such as leadership, entertainment, sports, and politics were limited to Asian Americans because of their English language skills or social discrimination. Therefore they would choose occupations of greater upward mobility.  Lee also mentions how Asian men dominate high position jobs, allowing women more likely than men to adopt traditional American male sex roles and more willing to accept a new culture and language.  Akimi’s eyes lit up with amazement as she began to tell me how true that was.  She was so interested in the Jaekyoun Lee’s article that she made copies of the pages to read on her own.

The next day that I talked to her, she seemed to be so opinionated after reading the article.  It seemed as if she had an epiphany as to why she chose to study here in America and consider other studies. At first she attributed it to her culture which is partly true but she never thought that it was gender related in any way.  She also opened up more and told me how boring and unchallenging chemical engineering is for her.

“To be very honest I took most of these classes back in Japan so calculus, physics, and chemistry come very easy for me.  I tend to find my elective classes more interesting than my concentration classes. If I had it my way, I would major in dance or communications because I find it more fulfilling and I feel as though it will help me become a part of the American culture where I could be accepted and be able to go in any direction I choose.”  

     

I then asked her if she experienced any stereotypical comments because of her race and/or gender and she replied that she has experienced both.  She has friends that ask her to study with them on numerous occasions and make comments such as, “I know nothing now but after studying with you I’m sure I’ll ace this test”. After she told me that I had to ask if that has help her socially or has it became a hindrance.  She told me that although she has been offered jobs through people she knows, it becomes offensive when they offer positions that may require highly trained people in a specific field that she has no expertise in with very low pay.  She said that could be a set-up of failure and elaborated further how this could hinder others of her race to pursue STEM related academics.

She also recalls how culturally shocked she was to see women stereotyped and marketed on TV and in print.  

“Although it goes on in Japan, the pervasiveness in which it’s done here is shocking.  When it’s done in Japan it’s usually seen late in the afternoon for certain products.  Here, it could be seen in a children’s book which trains the mind of young America. This also could be why teenage pregnancy is the highest here in America and among the lowest in Japan.”

Despite all things that Akimi has overcome and will in the future, she is excited about what’s ahead of her.  She realizes that women of all races have it tough here in America but takes it on as a challenge.  Moving forward, her dreams and aspirations are to become an actor or TV personality having looked up to Oprah as the quintessential trail blazer for all woman because she had to overcome the same things she had to endure.  She tells me this gives her hope in a world that’s just now beginning to hear the issues that women endure everyday everywhere.  

ECE Department Vs. Biomedical Department at NCSU

After the interview with Dr. Ozturk, I decided to do some statistical analysis of the department of electrical engineering at NC State University. I first went to the people page at the ECE website (http://www.ece.ncsu.edu/people/) and counted the number of female professors and male professors. I did the same for the department of biomedical engineering as well. The statistics were quite interesting. I found that there are 50 male professors and 7 female professors. This equals to being roughly 88% male. For the biomedical department, I found that there were 25% female, and 75% male.

This is very interesting in that biomedical engineering has a lot of similarities to Electrical Engineering. I was so interested that I continued my analysis by comparing the number of male and female students in ECE and BME. I found that in roughly 8% of students are female in ECE and 32% in biomedical engineering who had graduated in 2011! I wondered how this could be so far off. Is it the field of medicine that attracts women to men? Dr. Ozturk had some interesting points relating to this field but she too seemed somewhat puzzled by this.

I then went to analyze the number of ECE students over time. I analyzed four years: 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009, and 2011. It would have been interesting to find data from 20+ years ago, but unfortunately I could not find any. I initially thought that it would have increased over a ten year period but actually found that there was very little difference. Overall, in 2005 there were the most female graduates. I actually found that there were fewer female graduates in 2009 and 2011 than in any other years. This clearly shows that there is no increase in the number of female students graduating with an electrical engineering degree.

This opens a lot of opportunities to help inspire females to look into the field of Electrical Engineering. From the results, it also seemed as though electrical engineering had the lowest percentage of female students than any other engineering course of study.

An Interview with Dr. Hatice Ozturk

Ryan and Tim decided to interview Teaching Associate Professor of ECE at NCSU Dr. Hatice Ozturk for her opinions on women in STEM. Since both Ryan and Tim are ECE students, we saw this opportunity fitting. The ECE department has a low percentage of females in both faculty and students, which is appropriate and directly related to many of this class' topics. Dr. Ozturk is a co-author/contributor of the textbook: Women, Science, and Technology: A Reader in Feminist Studies.

The interview began with Dr. Ozturk posing a few questions for us in relation to the statistics of gender distribution in the ECE department. She mentioned that of ECE students at NCSU there is a 6% female population and a less than 10% female population for tenure track female professors. This is easy for us to believe as we witness it every day in our classes, but students outside engineering may be shocked at how low the actual numbers are. The natural question after absorbing these statistics is: why? Dr. Ozturk’s explanation began with a comparison to biomedical engineering majors (where Dr. Ozturk is currently a teaching associate professor), where the male/female ratio of students is 50/50. She says this is because biomedical engineers interface their products to people, whereas electrical/computer engineers interface their products one layer below, to signals and circuits. The latter is much harder to relate to and practically has no face, which indeed follows in line with general ECE course material of abstract and imaginary math.

Our first real interview-like question to her (after her brief interview of us!) was in relation to Carol Cohn’s article Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals. Cohn is intrigued by the language that is used by the men there, and defines it with the term: “strategic discourse”. The heavy use of analogies and word exclusions are the driving factors. We asked if she has been exposed to the same type of language, including any negativity towards women, exchanged in the male dominated ECE field and her response was short and sweet:

“It is the absence of being included in the language not the negativity, and this has the same effect as negativity.”

The next question, piggy backing on the above, was in relation to the discourse used in the technical textbooks in the ECE field, specifically the ECE220 (Analytical Foundations of Electrical and Computer Engineering) textbook. All three of us understand these books are heavily technical with little room for banter, but Dr. Ozturk pointed out that even the subtle jokes and references related to male centered activities such as drinking beer.

Dr. Ozturk actually had a stack of books in the corner of her office, sent from numerous publishers to review / consider for courses at NCSU. She said that one of the books had a quotation on every page, and the only quotation by a female in the entire book was by an actress about spaghetti! She mentioned she had sent this publisher a note with her opinion. She also made the point that all of the books have been dedicated to their wives but yet you never see a book written by a female dedicated to her husband.

Dr. Ozturk’s husband is also a professor of Electrical Engineering at North Carolina State University. We asked her if she noticed any differences of how students treat her versus how students treat her husband. She said that one small common detail she notices is that many students refer to her as “Mrs” instead of “Dr.” She assumes the reason behind this is that her students look at her as a motherly figure.

When asked about role models, Dr. Ozturk mentioned a high school physics teacher she had while growing up in Turkey.  She noted that this teacher was free spirited and did not let small things in life get her down. The teacher drove a Volkswagen Bug and enjoyed the simple things in life. Dr. Ozturk made the point that women especially in Turkey fall into the gender stereotypes, as the country is predominantly Muslim. Dr. Ozturk’s story can be related back to Evelyn Fox Keller’s The Anomaly of a Woman in Physics, where Keller states:

“I was totally dependent on my (male) teachers for affirmation – a dependency made treacherous by chronic confusion of sexuality and intellect in relationships between male teachers and female students”

From understanding this passage, it is extremely inspirational in a career to have someone to look up to. Especially in a field such as electrical engineering which is dominated by males. It makes us happy to know that Dr. Ozturk was lucky enough to find an idol of the same gender, and that she can provide the same for students at NCSU.

Overall, it was very inspirational talking to Dr. Ozturk about her views and experiences in the field of women and science.  In her career as an Associate Professor at North Carolina State University, she strives to help people and make NC State a better place. These small details that she mentioned were eye opening for us. After being actively enrolled in the ECE department for four years now, we must say that our awareness has increased at least ten fold in tandem with respect. 

Interview with a Professional

A couple of weeks ago a new female engineer was hired at the place that I work. Her name is Carrie and she came to the company after working for a couple of years at a shipyard in Virginia. I decided to talk to her about her experiences with being a woman in engineering and to try to see if she has faced any struggles. Our conversation went as follows:

So Carrie, why did you want to become an engineer?

As with most rising seniors in high school, it's difficult to decide what you want to major in as well as what you want to do with the rest of your life. I really had no idea, but I knew I was good at math and science-related subjects. I was also much more of a realist than a dreamer. While having a discussion with my favorite high school teacher (who also happened to be my science teacher) about potential colleges and majors, he suggested engineering. I remember thinking "sure, why not?" Honestly I didn't really realize what engineering truly was until my sophomore year of college. I can say that once I got into my core classes, despite the long hours of studying, I really enjoyed my classes and knew I was in the right place. 

Were you aware of the lack of women in engineering while you were in school?

When I first started college I wasn't aware of the "lack of women" in engineering.  It wasn't until I got into my mechanical engineering classes that I realized I was one of  two or three girls in a class of twenty-five or thirty people. At my first job, I was one of two female engineers in the entire plant and at my second job there were only a handful of female engineers. 

What experiences or struggles have you faced as the minority in your field?

Truly, being a female engineer in a male dominated field is a double-edge sword. In some cases it is easier to get things done because you are a woman and people are much more responsive. Other times your opinions and advice are written off because you are a woman. It has been my experience that as a young female engineer it is my younger male counterparts who are less responsive. I really believe they feel threatened by the idea of a woman rising above and beyond in a role that has traditionally been occupied by men. I also believe the treatment of female engineers is dependent on the company/environment as well. Despite the fact that all companies state they have a zero tolerance policy for discrimination among it's employees, it depends on the company as to how well that is recognized and enforced. 

Have these struggles affected your decisions in your career?

Unfortunately, and this is sad to say, because of the treatment of females at my last place of employment I changed jobs. It is unfortunate that in this day and time that there are places where discrimination against females in certain job roles is still so prevalent. I have met other women in engineering along the way through both college and the work place and I can also say that I am not alone in my experiences.

My conversation with Carrie was very eye opening to exactly how hard it can be as a female in engineering. I have heard all about it but fortunately I have not experienced any struggles yet. It was interesting to hear a first hand account of how the professional world can be.