Latina Engineers

In my liberal pinko-commie state (that's desperately slashing education and medical benefits to children and veterans) it's Cezar Chavez day. In a state where there are more hispanics under the age of 18 than any other ethnicity it's probably a quietly underrated day. Ironically Chavez was from the state of Arizona where people perceived to be "brown" are losing their rights every single day. Even here, latinos are a silent soon to be majority. They do not serve in public office in the numbers you would expect, perhaps a result of their not achieving political parity as a voting block quite yet. Despite the ever increasing numbers you won't see them in your university system or working as educated professionals alongside you. However I see signs of hope in community events, in the homogenizing culture that brings us all together and pulls us all away from our roots so we can be closer to one another, and in days that are used to recognize what this silent near majority has contributed to our society and our culture.

 

As an engineer I thought it would be worthwhile to drop a line in recognition of people who don't get recognized except on days like this where we are reminded to think of them. It's a failing of mine as well and no holiday or single point is going to bring us to parity but one day is better than no days.

 

On that note, here's a snippet from a magazine last year on three Latina Engineers. They all work for AT&T and as far as I can tell are computer engineers, but besides being featured on a "women of color" magazine cover where would you expect to see a Latina engineer so prominently featured? Shayla Rivera is a somewhat well known comedian but also does keynote speaking events as the "funny rocket scientist". She backs this up with an aerospace degree and years of experience with NASA and the space shuttle program (of course she left the field, leaky pipeline and all).

 

If you're looking to get involved there's the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. Of course you might be somewhere where the local chapter doesn't have much going on, so you can always start your own thing. I attended an event at Northrop Grumman a few years ago and was impressed to hear they have a whole lot of internal employee groups that are run by the employees and for the employees and encouraged by management (of course this was outside looking in, I don't want to paint an over-rosy picture). I've read a few stories where one woman decided she'd take a few other women at her university out for lunch once a month just to pick their brains and get their perspectives. I'm impressed by this and impressed by the groups at Northrop that had started recreation groups but also people of color groups and latino organizations within the company. It takes a lot of guts to network and stand up and be proud when you are probably "the other" in your professional environment so kudos to those folks.

 

There's also the Mexican American Engineers and Scientists society and the National Society for Hispanic Professionals which gives this good advice for mentoring latino students. Ask yourself if you've done your part this year and what you can do better in the future. Could you make a group where young people can get involved and network? Could you participate in groups like this that already exist and volunteer your time? If you're in a position of power have you thought about mentoring young students who don't look like you even if they haven't explicity asked you? If you're in a position to hire have you made sure you've done what you can to recruit from underrepresented groups and stood up for minority candidates in the hiring process?

 

Here's to a year where we make strides and make this world a better place for everyone. We can't let a whole crucial group in our society to be forgotten and ignored day after day whether by ignorance or self-interest. This is our community and by working together we can make it stronger.

Wimminz in STEM

A lot of brilliant and smart people have been speaking their minds lately about "women science bloggers" post Science Online 2011 and some other traffic. There's too many to hit all the great responses, but here's a list anyways:

Even when we want something we need to hide it - Kate Clancy

Self Promotion Tour 2011 - Dr Becca

Women and Science Blogging - Daniel Lende

Where are the female science bloggers? - scicurious

It brings up a lot of things Cherish the Scientist and I have been thinking about as we go forward with our new blogging collective EngineerBlogs (am I plugging this enough? GO THERE AND READ! ADD OUR FEED!). How do you make sure you are achieving diversity and looking beyond the people like you tendency we all have. I mean, it's easier for me, I'm a female blogger so naturally I'll gravitate towards other female bloggers. So how do you convince other people that intentionally recruiting for diversity is a good thing? I like Tenured Radical's post on affirmative action and the idea that merit is actually a system, or even better, the myth of merit. The idea that certain groups don't have distinct advantages from an early age or that our tendency to befriend, to recruit, and to reward people who are more like ourselves doesn't come into play with a historically white/male dominated world. This might be less obvious on the blogosphere, but it's certainly no less obvious in my life. Zuska also wrote a great and succinct post as well on the whole I want to earn this on my own when none of us really accomplish anything purely on our own merit.

It looks like they'll be hiring another female engineer here. The holdup now is she is supposedly "asking for too much" and negotations are occurring. I applaud her for asking for too much. And I wonder if a guy with similar education and experience who had asked for that much would have been categorized in the same way. No way of knowing really, I'm not that involved with the hiring process. Hiring her will bring the department representation of female engineers from 2.7% to 3.3%.

She's replacing a woman who left a while ago to teach. Sometimes I think because the last woman was so successful the people in charge thought let's hire someone like her and that's the only reason we're getting another woman. That if the last person had been a man, and good at his job, it would have been a man like him we'd be bringing in. Due to the other woman's leaving to pursue an alternate career (leaky pipeline? too limited sample size) she was asked somewhere in the offer stage whether there was anything she wanted to disclose, anything that might take her away from here. She mentioned then that she had just had a kid.

One of the people that interviewed her balked that she hadn't told him that, that throughout the multiple interviews she had failed to mention that. Clearly she should have said nothing. Sure, mentioning a pregnancy or future birth of a child might be appropriate by the presence of already born children certainly shouldn't be. She was already holding down a job, clearly she had it worked out. Not to mention the person who balked at it has a grown kid and presumably worked at some point in his career with a child just born. Or not to mention other higher level people in the group have little kids at home. We are reminded it is only a factor for women.

Some of my colleagues are dreading her being brought on and worrying whether she will be demanding or a tyrant of those she works with. But I'm not worried. I'm not one of those women who thinks it's hard to work with other women. I can't say every woman I've ever worked with has been my ally but many have and I've had fantastic peers and mentors that were both men and women. All the women I've worked for and with have had the same spectrum of the men I've worked for. I've yet to work under a real tyrant of a boss, but the ones I know about are all men. I suspect though that's an institutional thing and that the men in charge just wouldn't tolerate a dictator in the form of a woman, they'd make sure to encourage her out of the organization.

I look forward to meeting the new engineer. I hope we will get along and secretly I will try to help her and encourage her, even as the underling I am, as I have tried to do so for other women, minorities, and talented employees who I feel don't get the support they should for whatever category management thinks they don't fit into. Sometimes the things I hear or when I am called a bitch or labelled or put into a box makes it feel like death by a thousand cuts and I feel like giving up. But sometimes I feel like I'm a secret agent and my mission is to seek out these people and help them in whatever little ways I can. Maybe my little contributions will make up for the thousand cuts.

Diversity and Disability

It's National Disability Employment Awareness Month. I have many faults, but one of which is while I try to preach the advantages of diversity in the workplace I'm probably a lot more narrow minded than I think. I know, with my brain and my heart, that a more diverse team/group/company breeds success and innovation. But I'll admit to having the first images in my mind after the word diversity be a mix of races, ethnicity and gender and its taken a good amount of education by people whom I respect immensely to remember the disabled.

 

In some ways, they are the invisible members of our society. Overlooked and ignored, when we talk about rights we don't often think of the rights of the disabled. But if we know more diversity is better than we know it's as important to champion the rights of the disabled as it is to stand up for anyone else.

 

So I've already mentioned my general ignorance, but the other important thing for me is that I'm an engineer. I like to see technology make people's lives better. Certainly there have been social improvements in the lives of the disabled and that's what we need to take into account when we're trying to recruit a diverse staff, retain good employees, or just to have as standard commitments in the employment world. But there have also been technological improvements. The semi-obvious: improving mobility, as well as the less obvious: better treatments for chronic conditions, lighter and more flexible implant devices. Chances are we all know somebody who's life is touched by disability, whether it's an obvious physical manifestation or not. The law grants us some basic protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) but we can do better. We know the law is the low pole in the tent, that basic protections for other categories of people only work when there is a concentrated effort from society to improve itself. One person at a time.