Clarkson University Associate Professor of History Laura Ettinger recently published an article titled “What Late-Career and Retired Women Engineers Tell Us: Gender Challenges in Historical Context” in the journal, Engineering Studies.
Ettinger wrote the article with University of Vermont Assistant Professor of Human Development & Family Studies Nicole Conroy ’09, who conducted research with Ettinger as an undergraduate McNair Scholar, and William Barr II, a former research assistant to Ettinger who graduated from SUNY Potsdam in 2017 and is now pursuing a PhD in Sociology at Syracuse University.
“Women engineers who graduated from college in the 1970s, a time in U.S. history when women’s entry into engineering seemed most promising but failed to gain traction, offer important perspectives on the challenges facing women engineers in the past and today,” reads the article’s abstract.
Ettinger’s group surveyed 251 women engineers from that generation to understand their perspectives and experiences. The researchers found that the challenges faced by so many of the women engineers reflect gender issues that are deeply embedded in our interpersonal interactions and social structures – so much so that progress for women in engineering has been slow despite the anticipation that as more women went into the field, things would have gotten better.
Support for the research leading to this article was provided by the National Science Foundation. The full article can be found on Taylor & Francis Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19378629.2019.1663201.
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