From: brunson@davinci.Data-IO.COM (Kaye Brunson)
Subject: Re: women working on bikes
Organization: Data I/O Corporation
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 20:36:38 GMT

In article <9209040141.AA15426@hplomg.hpl.hp.com>, BRANDT_JOBST/HP1900_01@HPLOMG.HPL.HP.COM writes: writes:
|> 
|>   --- stuff deleted----
|> 
|> This discussion interests me because I think the same reasons keep women
|> away from machinery that keep men away.  I believe it is for many (most)
|> an inborn mental condition. 

I think that's one aspect of it.  But I think culture and role models
have an influence as well.   

|> 
|> ---- Description of a largely non-mechanically inclined family , and 
|> other stuff deleted----
|> 
|> So I think that with the relatively low number of truly skilled mechanical
|> men it is not hard for me to understand that women, who are in many ways
|> substantially different from men, are not mechanically inclined.  Women
|> have skills in many things that few men do well and I see no challenge in
|> this as I believe women should not with respect to, for instance, mechanical
|> aptitude.  I also don't believe for a moment that there are many latent
|> mechanically skilled women who have just not had exposure to the proper
|> environment.  ---more stuff deleted ---

This stikes me as a fairly absolute point of view.  How about another angle?  

I am a female mechanical engineer.  I currently do product design, and in the 
past was a project engineer and a process engineer in the machine shops.  I've 
been in industry for 11+ years, and I am reasonably succesful.  I've known other 
female engineers at all the companies I have worked at.  Most were reasonably 
good, but like any population, you get a range of capabilities.  

I took some aptitude tests some years back, and I scored in the 98th percentile on 
"spatial visuallization".  That's the ability to see 3 dimensional stuff in your 
mind and manipulate it.  The firm doing the tests had an extremely high 
correlation between success in engineering disciplines and high spatial 
visualization scores.   But they also had observed that of those scoring in 
the top 50th percentile, 75% were male.  Some traits seem to be more likely 
to be passed genetically to a male rather than a female and vice versa.  For 
instance, colorblindness is far more common in men than women.  

Every once in a while I read how many women are in engineering careers, or in 
engineering programs at universitys, and the number seems to be about 10-15%.
I think this is not 25%, as would be indicated by the tests cited above, for 
cultural reasons.  I've met women who were not allowed to take drafting in 
high school, because they were women.  I think our society encourages girls 
to avoid activities that involve getting messy or dirty.  (And bike grease,
with it's combo of grit and grease, surely qualifies as messy.)  And lately 
I've been reading reports about how school aged girls don't percieve themselves 
as competent in math and science, even while they score as high as boys.

I think the reasons I went into engineering include that I was raised in an 
environment where roles are not strictly gender determined.  I had family 
members that were in engineering or electronics, so I was aware of the field. 
Also, I am very good with my hands and tools, and I like to use them.  I think 
the last is why I went into mechanical as opposed to electrical, which I knew 
more about.  If I had been raised in an environment that is more rigid about 
gender roles, I probably would have found a career in something that uses these 
aptitudes, but in a more traditionally female field.  (Say dressmaking, perhaps)

I hope you have the pleasure of running into some of us women who are engineers 
or bike mechanics.  We are not that rare, and are generally a pleasure to 
work with.  
  

Kaye Brunson
Data I/O Corporation
voice: (206) 867-6230
email: brunson@data-io.com