Negotiating masculine spaces: Attitudes and strategies of first-year women in engineering

Abstract

Research throughout the late 20th and early 21st century explored the kinds of barriers and challenges women faced in entering the male-dominated space of engineering. But since work such as Tonso's landmark study, On the Outskirts of Engineering1, a number of cultural changes have occurred, and expectations for what women can do and what fields they can enter. Have those shifts made a difference for women entering engineering programs? In this paper, we explore that question through interviews with 10 women selected based on the results of a survey of first-year engineering students in a large general engineering program at a mid-Atlantic university. Interview subjects were selected based on high domain and high gender identification; that is, the 10 women who were interviewed perceived both being female and being an engineering as important to their self-concept. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using open-coding procedures to identify ways women experience the relationship between their gender and their engineering identities, their experiences with male students (e.g. on design teams, studying for exams, completing homework assignments), and their strategies for navigating gendered dynamics such as peers who did not value their input or who expected them to take on certain roles. The participants rarely responded directly to questions about perceived gendered experiences, but when talking about their experiences in classes or on teams, did describe ways in which they had negotiated their space and their identity, earning respect or demonstrating competence to gain a voice at the table. At the same time, these participants saw no need to give up or mask their femininity, and spoke about embracing and moving easily between identities. The findings suggest that while overt experiences of gender stereotypes or sexism may be decreasing, biases persist; at the same time, women entering engineering programs are both aware of and have strategies for negotiating those biases. The findings suggest opportunities for educators to strengthen women's self-concepts as both women and engineers. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2013.