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What Would The World be Like if 50% of All Engineers Were Female?

By Barbara Miner, Ph.D. , Girls Engage Technology
Jul 2, 2018

My best guess, based on hundreds of discussions with 8 to 12 year olds, is that technology would be more comfortable for humans.  When I teach introductory engineering classes, I ask “If you were designing a BETTER car, what would you choose to do?”  In nearly every group – all girls, co-ed or all boys, there is a solution for traffic jams (e.g., “jumping” over cars or rivers).  No group has offered safety improvements (hopefully because they already feel safe).  The next level of design splits along gender.   Boys often would design better-looking cars (e.g., more metal, changing flashing lights).    Girls overwhelmingly want to make cars more comfortable to humans (e.g., slurpy machines and individual entertainment booths) -- especially for those sitting in the back seat.    Engineers everywhere make improvements to problems that they understand.  Which is a very good argument for a diverse group of engineers.

I hope my kids eventually find out what that world, engineered equally by females and males, looks like.

-- Barbara Miner,   Girls Engage Technology

 

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