Focus Group Topic - Women's Experiences as Engineers

The following summary is of a focus group that I conducted with 3 female engineers.

Q1:  Tell us your name, your area of engineering, and type of job.

For my focus group, I included 3 female engineers who are currently working in private engineering firms in the Columbia area.  They all have about 10 years experience in engineering.  Participant 1 is a geotechnical engineer who works in geotechnical engineering and construction materials testing.  Participant 2 is also a geotechnical engineer.  Participant 3 works in water resources and environmental engineering.  She does consulting and design work.

Q2:  What made you want to be an engineer?

Participants 2 and 3 wanted to be architects but there was not a program for architecture at their colleges.  Participants 1 and 3 both talked about having fathers who were engineers and how they helped mentor them and encourage them to be engineers.  Participant 1 talked about being good in math and science.

Q3:  Think back to when you first began your career as an engineer.  What were your first impressions?

Participant 2 talked about how she thought she would work in an office and dress up in fancy work clothes doing “cool” projects.  She soon realized that she would be outside in the field doing her work and that wearing nice clothes wouldn’t be appropriate.  She also said that she has come to enjoy working in the field.

Participant 1 talked about her first job and the lack of training and how she felt very overwhelmed when she had to make recommendations about jobs.  In her present work place, she feels better prepared to make those recommendations because of better training and support.  She also talked about wearing work boots and jeans to work and how as a child she had envisioned herself to being a businesswoman wearing suits to work.  She said that if you did wear nice clothes to work, you’d better be sure that you have a change of clothes in the car because you would be sent out to do outside work.  She talked about how she doesn’t like doing proposals and making predictions about how much a job will cost and when it will get done.

Participant 3 also thought she would be in the office when she first started but in reality was out doing surveys when it was hot.  Her biggest shock was how much economics had to be taken into consideration and the amount of paperwork and permits that had to be done was overwhelming.

They all felt that what they had learned in college was very different from the realities of being an engineer.  College was heavy on design and problem solving while their everyday work is application, project management, reporting, proposals, phone calls, and meetings.

Q4:  What aspects of your engineering career have been great thus far?

Participant 3 talked about seeing projects thru over a long period of time and being able to help communities by bringing water and sewer to poor communities.

Participant 1 talked about changing jobs and actually feeling like an engineer.  She also talked about the diverse jobs that she was able to do at her new work.  One job that she had really helped her grow as an engineer and a person.  It was a “horrible experience” but helped her grow in confidence so she didn’t feel like she was being pushed over.  Her latest project has helped her have more experience on the reporting side of engineering.

Participant 2 talked about being able to participate in diverse jobs; traveling and seeing how soil works in one area as opposed to another area.  She like geography and problem solving how soil works at different areas.

Q5:  What has been particularly frustrating for you during your experience?

Participant 3 talked about working with government agencies that have their own time schedules that normally don’t match up with hers.  The economics are also frustrating because she has to convince contractors to spend money to do a job right.

Participant 2 talked about starting a job and scheduling drillers and utility locators.  If she hasn’t been able to visit the site, sometimes she can’t accurately tell the utility locators what she wants done.  Sometimes there’s miscommunication and then there’s a lot of phone calls to clarify what they want done.  Working with drillers can be a challenge, especially being a female.  She gets a lot of questions like, “Is this what you do all day?”  When at meeting with clients, there may be 20 people in the room and she is often overlooked because she is female.  She talked about having to learn the balance between being assertive and being aggressive in these types of situations.  She talked about having a man mentor her and how this has been difficult because she isn’t a man and she isn’t going to act like a man.  So often the advice she gets on how to handle situations aren’t helpful because it doesn’t suit her personality.

Participant 1 identified with Participant 2’s experience on the field.  She also discussed the personal questions she receives on the job site and how she had to learn what to say and not say on the job site about herself.  She talked about doing proposals for the government and the thousands of pages of job specifications but doesn’t really describe what the project is about.  Proposals take a long time and aren’t billable hours.  She also discussed not speaking up enough in meetings.  How she figures out that the men in the meeting are often just talking and what they are saying doesn’t make sense.  The other men in the meeting don’t call them out and she doesn’t want to call them out either.  She is looking for the balance between being assertive and aggressive.  She also talked about how in her job reviews she has been given marketing strategies that are male-centered (taking business prospects out to lunch) that doesn’t make her feel comfortable.

They all discussed the frustration of the assumption that they aren’t the engineers on the job site. 

Q6:  In what ways do you think you have changed as a result of being an engineer?

Participant 3:  I have a lot of confidence because not a lot of women do it and there’s a lot of respect for the profession.  I feel like I’ve gotten calloused and my compassion has been eroded because I’m in the male-dominated field.  I’ve picked up those masculine traits.

Participant 1 agreed with Participant 3 about picking up masculine traits.  She also feels like she has more confidence doing a job that not everyone does.

Participant 2 talked about being more detailed oriented and giving as much information as possible in her reports.  She also talked about being a mentor to younger people to become engineers.  She feels like she has more opportunity to encourage young people because she is an engineer.

Q7:  How do you think you have an impact on your working environment?

Participant 1 talked about how women engineers changes the dynamic in the male office.  She said some men are “better behaved.”  She talked about not wanted to be seen as “one of the guys.”  She said that she knows when she goes out to lunch with them they are going to talk about sports and not her personal interests.

Participant 2 agreed with Participant 1 that she has seen a lot more consideration because she is a woman in the field and that the men are better behaved.

Participant 3 agreed with Participant 1 and Participant 2 that some men are better behaved because a woman is around in the office.

Q8:  If you had a chance to give advice to a girl who wanted to be an engineer, what advice would you give?

Participant 2 talked about learning how to be comfortable around men and learn how to represent yourself in a respectful way so that you don’t get a bad reputation.  Girls also need to learn how to speak up and be confidant.

Participant 1 talked about girls job shadowing work situations they are interested in going into.

Participant 3 talked about engineering being a great base for other careers like business, law, or teaching.

Q9:  Is there anything you would like to add to the conversation about women’s experience in engineering?

Participant 3 talked about in the private sector, time off is difficult and having a child could derail your career because of the additional time you would have to take off.  This might not be an engineering issue but an issue in most private work environments.

What is feminist research?

According to Brisolara and Seigart (2007) one question that feminists must answer when defending feminist work is “of what use are your finding if they are not generalizable to other similar situations?” (p. 288).  While positivist research is used to normalize, feminist research is used to uncover the hidden knowledge of oppressed or silenced people.  Hesse-Biber (2007) describes feminist research as:

In some ways, the origins of feminist research’s epistemological and methodological focus draws on these insights and struggles; feminist empiricism, standpoint theories, post-modernism, and transnational perspectives all recognize the importance of women’s lived experiences with the goal of unearthing subjugated knowledge.  Each perspective forges links between feminism and activism, between the academy and women’s everyday lives. (p. 3).

Instead of generalizing conclusions, this type of research is interested in different ways of knowing, what constitutes knowledge, and knowledge for whom.

            Feminists value multiple ways of knowing.  “Knowing, for feminists, is an interactive process that occurs within relationships.” (Brisolara and Seigart, 2007, p. 284).  Fine (2007) discusses these relationships that were forged in her research about education in prisons.  As the researchers and insiders developed relationships based on the research, the “underground knowledges” (p. 617) were unearthed and brought to center.  By creating equal research-insider relationships Fine did not tell the insider’s story.  She allowed the insiders to tell their own stories, valuing multiple ways of knowing.

            In feminist research, knowledge is considered to be “culturally, socially, and temporally contingent.”  (Brisolara and Seigart, 2007, p. 285).  Feminist researchers begin their inquiries where they are situated.  Instead of trying to be objective, or value-free, they “confess” their positions as related to the research.  They maintain a state of reflexivity, constantly analyzing how they are impacting and impacted by the research.  The knowledge produced by the research constructs meaning from the observed phenomenon.

            Brisolara and Seigart (2007) find that at the heart of feminist research is action.  Action comes from understanding the power structures and how they play on groups.  Agency and activism are derived from these understandings of power.  An example of how research can be used to promote agency or activism is in Mollie V. Blackburn’s chapter “Agency in Borderland Discourses.”  Blackburn (2004) suggests there are acts agency and acts of activism.  In her argument, she writes that agency is a “mechanism for survival” (pg. 196) and that activism is a “social movement.” (pg. 196).  She suggests that the Black, gay youth at the center used language to assert their agency.  The language, Gaybonics, created a group identity that some Black, gay youth used to connect with one another, combat bullying, and exclude other gay youth.  By using Gaybonics, the youths created a sense of self so that they understood whom they were in environments that may not be conducive to difference.  Blackburn suggests this sense of self allows for acts of agency.  Activism goes a step farther than agency to create change in a situation.  For example, activism is when a person uses discourse to create understanding between two people who are at odds with one another.  Agency allows people to assert themselves as unique, while activism allows people to work to change oppression.

            How does a person’s knowledge of their oppression affect them?  In Blackburn’s writing she seems to suggest that the students understand that they are oppressed because of their race and their sexuality.  Because of this knowledge, they create a language to express their differences so that they can be themselves.  Is this an example of working to the change the structures of oppression?  I don’t think so.  It seems to be more of a way of coping with the oppression they face because of their race and sexuality.  So while they may not be activists, they show agency because they do not conform to the status quo and pretend to be something they are not.  Also they create a language that disrupts the dominant discourse.  The words in their language have different meanings than in the dominant discourse.  These different meanings provide a tension between the two groups that can lead to discourse that can create opportunities for change.

            Maybe agency is like a seed that grows into a tree.  Agency starts with knowledge of the structures of oppression, then the person has changes in discourse, and finally to specific actions to promote change.  Knowledge of oppression starts the process.  While activism shows agency, understandings and coping mechanisms that people create so they can survive oppressive situations also show agency.  As their knowledge grows and they understand more about their situation they can move their agency outside of themselves to create changes in society.

            Feminist research is interested in changing the oppressive structures therefore; generalizing conclusions will not be helpful to this end.  By creating knowledge from sites of oppression, unique creation of knowledge will help to transform the sites of oppression.

What are the pros and cons of Standpoint Theory?

Standpoint theory provides feminists a way to explore knowledge claims, knowledge production, and power relations by beginning with a researcher’s particular experience and working out toward society’s experiences (Harding, 2007). Harding questions,

Does starting from some particular group of women’s lives in a particular context raise new questions and thus expand the horizons of knowledge?  Does it highlight previously undetected androcentric cultural assumptions? (Harding, 2007, p. 58).

By focusing on experiences, dominant discourses have been disrupted by moving away from generalized stereotypes to focusing on knowledge creation based on specific experiences. 

            Naples (2007) discusses three different approaches to standpoint theory.  She identifies these areas as “embodied in women’s social location and social experience, as constructed in community, and as a site through which to begin inquiry.” (Naples, 2007, p. 581).  Patricia Hill Collins (2000) wrote Black Feminist Thought in response to the lack of voice minority women had in feminism.  She argues that the social location and social experience of black women provides a different perspective on life than white, middle-class women.  While both groups are oppressed, black women often suffer oppression because of race, class and gender.  The intersectionality of these oppressions provides them with a much different experience than white middle-class women or white working-class women.

            Experiences from the community can also create new knowledges about marginalized experiences.  In Fine’s article “Feminist Designs for Difference” (2007), Fine describes how knowledge from the margins can be moved to the center. Fine describes Participatory Action Research (PAR) as collaboration between researcher and subject (in this case female prisoners), where subjects equally participate in the construction of knowledge. This collaboration allows marginalized knowledge to move to the center. Researchers and insiders work together to create a language grounded in feminist theory, critical race theory, social theory and methodology. This group analyzed the power relations within the group and how power affected the marginalized groups, i.e. the prisoners.

            Fine (2007) goes on to discuss how researchers and insiders researched the college in prison program at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. Fine discusses how the researchers and insiders collaborated together to gather information, analyze, and critique the program and their research methodologies. By working together, “underground knowledges” (p. 617) were unearthed and brought to the center. Fine describes the process as a struggle and in this struggle; new understandings of race, class, and gender were vocalized and heard. 

Richardson (2007) shows how standpoint theory can be used as a site through which to begin inquiry in her research method “Writing for Another.”   She discusses how second wave feminism and post-structural theory intersect when researchers use experiences from their lives and connect them with other people’s experiences. She uses the novel, Too Late for Phalarope by Alan Paton, to “read for her mother.” She connects the characters and story to her mother and her mother’s life. By doing this, she views her mother in a new perspective. Richardson theorizes that this type of research allows for feminist ways of knowing, the ability to construct knowledge and as new experiences are had, reconstruct knowledge. She can present her experiences and allow others to connect with her experiences.

One critique of standpoint theory is it is essentializing (Naples, 2007).  A small group’s experiences is deemed the norm and applied to anyone who may fit into that group.  Collins (2000) writes that not all Black women suffer oppression in the same way but that all Black women are oppressed.  By using Black feminist thought, Black women can create definitions of themselves instead of being defined with respect to the dominant group. 

Through the lived experiences gained with their extended families and communities, individual African-American women fashioned their own ideas about the meaning of Black womanhood.  When these ideas found collective expression, Black women’s self-definitions enabled them to refashion African-influenced conceptions of self and community.  (Collins, 2000, p. 13).

Collins does not try to generalize Black women’s experiences.  Her writing allows Black women to connect to similar and different experiences that they may face due to oppression.

Richardson (2007) also writes about how experiences can create connections.  By using a qualitative method like “Reading for Another,” the researcher can use reading and writing to create connections. When researchers write about their personal experiences, others can create understanding about their own experiences. 

Most important to me in terms of feminist social research and dealing with its dilemmas, though, is that this method of writing/research sparks identification. It offers an expanded feminist consciousness and a method for other feminists to make sense of their worlds in ways that connect us to one another in common cause. (Richardson, 2007, p. 466). 

Small pieces are not presented as the whole in this type of research but as ways to connect to the whole.

            Standpoint theory includes the experiences of marginalized groups.  These experiences are not meant to be essentializing but “partial perspectives” (Haraway, 1988).  As different groups’ experiences are considered they create a layering effect.  These layers provide connection points for others groups to connect.  In this manner, experiences can bring different groups together and provide greater understanding of each other.

Literature Review - Theoretical Framework

The following is a summary of the theoretical framework that I will be using for my research:

In Hawkesworth’s chapter (2007), Truth and Truths in Feminist Knowledge Production, Hawkesworth describes objectivity and feminism’s response to it.  One way that knowledge is generated is through scientific research.  Most scientists embrace the positivist belief of objectivity.  Objectivity relies on a researchers ability to “cast off” their biases, opinions, experiences, beliefs, etc when researching phenomena of interest.  It is believed that the researcher is now “value-free” and able to let the objects of study “speak for themselves” instead of being interpreted through the researchers’ subjectivity.  The scientific method is used by scientists as a series of steps to be used objectively to create universal truths that allow for past events to be explained and future events to be predicted. 

Hawkesworth (2007) writes that feminists critique the use of objectivity for several reasons.  First, these scientific “truths” of phenomenon are based on generalizations that may or may not be found true in every situation that the phenomenon exists.  Second, the human mind is active and cannot be “turned off” to ensure value-free objectivity.  Third, scientific observations are intrinsically linked to scientific practices.  These observations do not “stand alone” but are influenced by scientific study, method, and practice.  Since feminists do not believe that objectivity can ensure generalized knowledge, several responses have been proposed to the scientific notion of objectivity.  Two responses to objectivity are standpoint theory with strong objectivity and situated knowledges. 

Feminists argue that knowledge is socially constructed (Harding, 1991).  Standpoint theory is the belief that a person is influenced by their experiences and environment.  Interpretation of research is also influenced by these standpoints.  Standpoint theory allows the researcher to position herself so that the reader knows all of the factors that influence their conclusions about their research.  Standpoint theory embraces the researcher’s positionality.  This identification of standpoint allows for a more diverse and complete story to be told about the research.  Instead of trying to be neutral about the phenomenon of interest, researchers identify their influences and in doing so practice “strong objectivity.”  (Harding, 1991). 

Harding (1991) and Haraway (1988) argue that objectivity can be used in feminist theory to critique how knowledge is created and to create meaning (Haraway, 1988).  Harding (2007) argues that objectivity, in a positivist sense, cannot be created.  Harding suggests that differences in results of experiments can be caused by different “values, interests, and assumptions” (pp. 56) rather than a lack of good science practices.  Strong objectivity allows for understanding of a researcher’s standpoint and how standpoint creates the lens through which data will be analyzed.  Strong objectivity allows for marginalized voices to be included in the production of knowledge.  Instead of only including value-free voices, all voices can be included leading to a more diverse understanding of phenomenon.

The use of strong objectivity often brings cries of relativism from the science community (Harding 2007, Haraway 1988).  Relativism is the belief that we cannot judge another’s experience because it is not our own.  Objectivism is the belief that a value-neutral space can be created to ensure knowledge construction that is free of bias.  Haraway (1988) answers these critics in her argument for using “situated knowledges” in research.  She argues that instead of created a dichotomy between objectivism and relativism; situated knowledges can encompass both objectivism and relativism. 

I want to argue for a doctrine and practice of objectivity that privileges contestation, deconstruction, passionate construction, webbed connections, and hope for transformation of systems of knowledge and ways of seeing.  (Haraway, 1988, p. 585).

Instead of generalizing knowledge construction, strong objectivity and situated knowledges allow for researchers to bring their experiences into their interpretations of what they are researching. 

            An example of the importance of identification of a researcher’s position to the phenomenon of interest is in my interpretation of the book Gender Matters by Leonard Sax.  Sax (2005) writes extensively of the brain-based differences between boys and girls and how they learn differently.  He suggests teaching boys and girls differently in school.  He does not present his positionality to his research.  However, a recurring theme in the book is the overmedication of children due to ADD/ADHD diagnoses.  While most of his research is grounded in gender stereotypes, his suggestions for teaching strategies often are ways to alleviate ADD/ADHD symptoms without medication.  His beliefs about medicating children with ADD/ADHD influence his conclusions and reinforce gender stereotypes. 

             Standpoint theory with strong objectivity and situated knowledges allows for researchers to continually ponder, reflect, and critique their position to the phenomenon of interest.  Generalizations of truth can be disrupted and specific, accurate version of truth can be told when positionality is included in research.

Research Questions

·      In what ways have women civil engineers in the Midlands (SC) area perceived support in their education and workplaces while pursuing STEM careers?

·      In what ways have women civil engineers in the Midlands (SC) area perceived obstacles in their education and workplaces while pursuing STEM careers?

Introduction

My name is Jessica Quinton and I am currently pursuing and Ed.D in Curriculum and Instruction at USC.  My research interests are related to girls and science.  Historically, women have not been represented in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers in the same way that men have been represented.  Since STEM careers are lucrative, this under-representation is one reason that women have not been able to close the wage gap between men and women. Why do women not choose STEM careers?  There has been research on why women do not pursue STEM careers.  However, I want to understand the experiences of women who have pursued STEM careers.  Specifically I'm interested in women who pursue STEM careers, what experiences have made them successful in their careers, and how they have overcome obstacles in their careers.