This is December 2012, Right????
Woman in the Middle | December 30, 2012This past Friday I went off with my two daughters and one of their friends to decorate a Rose Parade float again. I will be posting some photos tomorrow and will tell you all about it. But I had to tell you about something that happened while we were in Pasadena that just blew my mind!
Youngest Daughter (the one who is a mechanical engineering major at Cal Poly Pomona) and I were up on the float gluing rice powder to the side of the structure when they brought another man over and had him get up on the float where we were to do something that needed done right next to us. Since we were working in such close proximity, I introduced myself right away, telling the gentleman from North Carolina that I were a parent of a student at Cal Poly, my daughter that was right with me as a matter of fact. And then he said, I kid you not, “I thought Cal Poly was mainly an engineering school.”
Really? Just because my child was a girl you figured she couldn’t possibly be an engineering student? Or maybe you wondered how was it possible that a school that was mainly for engineering (which it is not) could have a girl attending it?
I am happy to report that I did not go all Mother Lion on him, instead we discussed the fact that Cal Poly has many majors and that many girls are in the engineering program. It is my sincere hope that he went back to his hotel room that night and told his wife how he stuck his foot in his mouth that day. And then she told him he sure did. That is what I hope happened.
As a mother of two daughters, one of which is seeking a slightly less traditional education and career path, I am appalled that things like that still come out of men’s mouths. This is, after all, the last month of 2012.
The SITS Girls
As a female who ended up on a “different” career path than most, I still have to wonder why the idea that a woman wouldn’t be going into engineering still exists. I spent 8 years working as a jobsite superintendent on construction sites, 6 of that in Manhattan. Hard hat, flannel shirt, clipboard, jeans, construction boots, radio hanging off of my back pocket and big burly steamfitters apologizing for cursing in front of me. This was through the 90s. It took the older guys longer to get used to me telling them what I needed but once they got that I wasn’t there to tell them how to build whatever it was, just to make sure that it got done on time in the right order, etc, and was there to help get answers, they got over the female on a jobsite issues. This is 2012 and that issue should not exist anymore. I hope that he is doing a lot of thinking.
Last year my daughter helped at graduation. Out of over 100 mechanical engineering graduates, there were less than five women. It is very distressing, really!
Yeah I am with you this is the 21st century and people shouldn’t have such narrow views, there is nothing a woman can’t do if said woman wants to do it………….
Wow! I am surprised. There are three top engineering colleges near here and many women attend and graduate. The colleges started as male only but that changed many years ago. My niece is a chemist and I have a male friend that is a nurse. Maybe that guy fell off a turnip truck!
I am one of 3 daughters. My daddy used to say that girls can do anything boys can do with buttons and bows to boot.
What a male chauvinist pig!