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Toward Being a Female Engineer
: Women’s Experience in a Male-Dominated Field
Iris Hyejin Park Chu
Texas A&M University
INTRODUCTION and BACKGROUNDS
Most effective practitioners of science, technology and engineering in Western
countries are white males. A variety of studies have raised the question of why women
are underrepresented in science, technology and engineering fields, addressing the “leaky
pipeline” which referred to the steady attrition of girls and women in those fields. In
spite of the successes made by various efforts from educational institutions, women are
still considered greatly underrepresented (Seymour & Hewitt, 1997; Eisenhart & Finkel,
1998; Valian, 2000; Etzkowitz, Kemelgor & Uzzi, 2000; Margolis & Fisher, 2002;
Lederman & Bartsch, 2001; Marbach-Ad, 2004) Some studies indicate that the women-
supportive education and mentoring programs in school are insufficient for retaining
women scientists and engineers (Lederman & Bartsch et. al., 2001); some studies argue
that the socio-cultural atmosphere and attitudes toward women and minorities are the
main reason for the attrition barrier (Tonso, 1997); some research reveals unequal
opportunity due to schemas and stereotypes of gender in academic appointments (Valian,
2000); and some research looks for gender differences in socialization processes to
explain the origin of attrition and inequality in science and engineering professions
(Margolis & Fisher, 2002; Valian, 2000).
Like many researchers, my research is also inspired by the question of ‘why still
so few?’ Stories or narratives of undergraduate seniors teach future female engineers that
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