Conference tnpubs::tnpubs_vod

12.0. "Men/Women in Engineering" by TNPUBS::FORTEN () Fri Feb 21 1992 08:54

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|d|i|g|i|t|a|l|       I N T E R O F F I C E    M E M O R A N D U M
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To:  Pam Johnson                        Date: June 23, 1988 
                                        From: Chet Mitchell
CC:                                     Dept: BOSE Personnel 
                                        Ext : DTN 381-0700
                                        MS  : ZKO3-2/Z04
                                        ENET: BCSE::Mitchell

Subject: Women In Engineering - MIT Study

      In  the  course  of  research  the  subject of "Women In Engineering" I
discovered  this  study by Lotte Bailyn of the MIT Sloan School of Management
in  Digital's  Hudson, MA Library.  This is a paired comparison of 51 matched
MIT male/female  engineers  and  computer  science  majors,  working  in  the
business world.

      I took most of the key  points  from the research and put them on-line.
The results of the study are very  interesting.  If you want the hard copy of
the complete study, please let me know and I will send it to you.

=============================================================================

                    MIT Industrial Liason Program Report 

    Experiencing Technical Work: A Comparison of Male and Female Engineers

                                      by

          Lotte Bailyn - Sloan School Of Mangement -  February, 1986

                            in collaboration with

      Dr. Dalia Etzion, Graduate School Of Business, Tel Aviv University

Group Studied: 51 Matched male/female pairs of engineers in similar positions

Conclusion:  Women have a more ambivalent attitude toward technical expertise
             than their male  counterparts.    This  seems  to  relate to the
             "masculine" way that technical  work  is defined.  In management
             roles,  women  seem  to be  engaged  in  new  models  which  are
             associated  with less ambivalence. Such diversity, it is argued,
             is useful for all employees, male and female.

                                ISSUES RAISED
                                -------------

*  The proportion of women in technical jobs is still small.

*  The proportion of women receiving technical training is increasing as well
   as the number entering the workforce?

*  Organizations are attracting more technically trained women.

*  It is important  to learn how the technical careers of women are different
   from the technical careers of men.

*  We know a lot of about  the  technical  careers  of  men  and  most of the
   literature is about how to treat a largely male technical workforce.

*  We  cannot  generalize  from studies of a male technical  workforce  to  a
   female technical workforce...separate research is needed.

*  We need to understand the female experience as technical employees.

                                  THE STUDY

1985  -  582  women  members  of  the  Society  Of  Women  Engineers  sent  2
questionnaires - one for  themselves  -  one for a male colleague as close to
them as possible in age,  position, experience - 279 women replied - 155 male
colleagues replied - 51 paired responses  resulted  of  men and women who had
undergraduate engineering and computer science degrees.

                                 RESPONDENTS

Median age 28 - ages range from  22-48  - 80% of pairs within 2 years of each
other - only two more than 5 years  apart  - pairs closely matched in present
positions  -  2/3's  respondents  are  individual  contributor  engineers and
computer specialists - also covered managers and supervisors in these  fields
-  mean  salary  was just over $35k for both sexes...though male  supervisors
were paid more than their female counterparts - more of the women  are single
or,  if  married,  childless  -  women,  if  married, are more likely to have
husbands in professional fields, particularly in science in engineering - the
men are more likely  to  have  wives  with  either  no  occupation  or lesser
professional and white collar jobs.

                                  BACKGROUND

*  More of the women grew up in families where they were either the oldest or
   only  children  or if they had older  siblings,  they  were  sisters,  not
   brothers.  Such sibling positions have often been assumed to be associated
   with high achievement for women.

*  The women had better educational credentials than the men.

*  This leads to the conclusion that, perhaps, women should be paid more than
   men,  except  for  the  fact  that  women  had  more  discontinuities  (no
   employment  or  part-time  employment) in their careers  than  their  male
   counterparts.

*  There  is  a  similarity between men and women in  their  orientations  to
   career  and  the  role  of work in their lives.   Preferences  were  split
   equally in the following areas.

   1. Career that moves up the managerial ladder.
   2. A career that moves up the technical ladder.
   3. A  career  that moves from one challenging project to another, but does
      not move up any ladder.

* Despite similarities in these areas, the experience of women in engineering
  jobs is not the same as that of men.

                               SELF CONFIDENCE

* The  overall  self  confidence  for  women is LOWER than that of their male
  counterparts in individual contributor positions (4.8 mean for females, 5.5
  mean for males).

* The overall self  confidence  for  women in ABOUT THE SAME as that of their
  male counterparts in managerial positions  (5.5  mean for females, 5.6 mean
  for males).

* Self confidence for men is  strongly,  positively correlated with perceived
  success at work and with the opportunity to develop technical expertise.

* Self  confidence  for  women  is  most  strongly correlated with  perceived
  success  in  their lives outside of work AND IS negatively correlated  with
  the importance attached to the opportunity to develop technical expertise.

* Technical  women are  in  conflict.    There  is  no  relationship  between
  perceived success at work and  their perceived success in the non-work part
  of their lives.

* For the men, the perceived success in  the  work and non-work part of their
  lives is correlated strongly in a positive direction.

* It  all  fits  together  for  the men, not for the women  who  seem  to  be
  particularly in  conflict  with  the  role  of technical expertise in their
  careers.

                             TECHNICAL EXPERTISE

* A 7 point scale was used with 17 job characteristics listed and respondents
  were asked to list the importance of each.

* The men were  more  inclined than the women to list "opportunity to develop
  technical expertise".

* The difference is even  greater  for  men  and men in managerial positions.
  "opportunity  to develop technical expertise" is  more  important  to  male
  managers  than  female managers.  This also  applies  to  male  and  female
  supervisors.

* For women, the importance of technical expertise  is  significantly less if
  their orientation is managerial or supervisory as opposed to  the technical
  ladder.

* None  of  these  -  not  career position, not present position, not  career
  ladder, makes the same difference for men.

* What does make a difference for men is their involvement with  their  work.
  The  non-accomodative men - those who are primarily focused on their work -
  are most inclined to attach importance to developing technical expertise.

* For  the  men,  there  is  a  significant  positive correlation between the
  importance  of the opportunity  to  develop  technical  expertise  and  the
  importance of a heavy workload.

* Neither of these is true for women.

* In the minds of  the  men,  developing  technical  expertise is very much a
  successful pursuit of their careers, and of their lives.

* The "ambivalence"  of women to  developing technical expertise might not be
  surprising if it were not for the  fact  that  the  the women in this study
  were  technically  highly  competent  and  had chosen to  pursue  technical
  careers.

                    THE AMBIVALENCE OF TECHNICAL EXPERTISE

* WHY  DO  THESE  TECHNICALLY  COMPETENT  WOMEN  FEEL THIS AMBIVALENCE TOWARD
  TECHNICAL EXPERTISE?

* WHY SHOULD THEIR SELF CONFIDENCE TO DOWN AS THEY ASCRIBE GREATER IMPORTANCE
  TO THE OPPORTUNITY TO DEVELOP THEIR TECHNICAL COMPETENCE?

* As  discussed  above,  the  self-confidence  of  the women in this study is
  strongly tied to their success outside of work.

* By  placing  emphasis  on  their  technical  skills,  these  women  may  be
  undermining  a  deeply-held  cultural  premise,  which  could  easily  have
  negative consequences for their sense of self.

* If this were so, then one would expect the ambivalence to be greatest among
  those women who are trying to combine work  with  family,  but in fact, the
  study shows just the opposite.

* It is not the married women with children  in  this  study  that  show  the
  greatest  ambivalence about technical work, it is the single women  without
  children  who  place more emphasis on work than on other aspects  of  their
  lives,  who  show the greatest ambivalence.  It is among these groups  that
  the correlation between self-confidence  and  the  importance  of technical
  expertise is most strongly negative.

* The  few  women with children in this study have higher self-confidence and
  the importance they  attach  to technical expertise is lower than the other
  women in the study.

* It is primarily  the  women  who are in strictly technical jobs, who are on
  technical  ladders,  and  are  technically  oriented,  that  we  find  this
  ambivalence about technical expertise.

* For  women  in  managerial positions or with  managerial  orientations,  on
  managerial  ladders,  there  is  little  evidence  of this  conflict  about
  technical work.

* There is something in the way that technical  work  is experienced by these
  women that accounts for their diminished self-esteem and ambivalence.

                                  DISCUSSION

The author  of  this  study reviews the results of the findings of ROSSI (cf,
Spiro,  1980;    Gilligan,  1982;Rossi,  1985)  that  outlines  some  of  his
conclusions on the difference between men and women.

"There is some predisposition  in  the  female to be responsive to people and
sounds, an edge in receiving,  interpreting,  and  giving back communication.
Males have an edge on finer  differentiation  of  the  physical world through
better spatial visualization and physical object manipulation.    The  female
combination  of  sensitivity  to  sound  and  face and  rapid  processing  of
peripheral  information  implies a quicker judgment of emotional nuance...It
also  suggest  an easier connection between feelings and their expression  in
words.    Spatial perception, good gross motor control, visual acuity, and  a
more rigid division between emotional and cognitive responsivity combine in a
counterpart profile of the male."

The author of this study goes on to conclude;

* Women  engineers  place  more  importance on being able to work with people
  than do the men.

* These differences  were  seen  by Rossi as making parenting of infants more
  congenial to women than to  men,  might  make  technical work more readily
  congruent with the predisposition of men than with those of women.

* A related explanation is that technical work has evolved in response to its
  definition and construction by men.

* A researcher, Barbara McClintock (Keller, 1083)  concluded  that we need to
  make science more than just "comfortable" for women,  we  need a "diversity
  of approaches". She stated,

  "My  vision  of  a  gender-free  science  is  not  a    juxtaposition    or
  complementary  of male and female perspectives, nor is it a substitution
  of  one  form  of  parochiality for another...A healthy science is one that
  allows for  the  productive  survival  of  diverse conceptions of mind" and
  nature, and of correspondingly diverse strategies (1985, p178)."

* It is  the  diversity  of  patterns  in  pursuing technical work that is at
  issue.

* It is in the difference between technical and managerial roles that we need
  to define alternate modes of practice.

* It is easier to  evaluate  technical  output than it is to gauge managerial
  effectiveness.  Such unambiguous criteria may be particularly important for
  women who find themselves in an alien area.

* One woman in the study stated, I prefer to stay in the technical individual
  contributor  area because their is less opportunity for discrimination  (ie
  less opportunity for judging output by other than accepted criteria.)

* In  managerial  roles,  the performance criteria is more amorphous...and may
  permit women  to redefine the way they perform their work.  With managerial
  oriented women, there  is some evidence of new patterns (self confidence is
  high).

* While the self confidence of women in managerial position is high, they put
  very little emphasis on technical expertise, whereas the men in these roles
  still value technical expertise highly.

    IS THE MODEL THAT WOMEN ARE USING IN MANAGERIAL ROLES A USEFUL MODEL?

                                   EXAMPLE

Elizbeth  Monroe, Division Manager, Central R&D lab  of  a  large,  successful
electronics company - mother of 2 small children  -  highly  regarded  by top
management - PhD in Physics - group leader in  3  years, department head, now
division manager - Time from PhD to Division Manager was 10 years...

* She says she "runs the group and nurtures people".

* Those who report to her respond with great enthusiasm.

* Here division is one of the most successful and  satisfied  groups  in  the
  study sample.

* The research lab, the author was told, "needs people like  her who can turn
  research ideas  into  practicalities,  EVEN  IF  THEY  ARE NOT HIGH POWERED
  SCIENTISTS".

* Her boss is seen as brilliant, but also as interfering and a non-supportive
  manager.

                              EXAMPLE CONCLUSIONS

* She represents  a  model of technical management less tightly linked to the
  imperative that technical management requires top technical expertise.

* We have come  to assume the necessity of this link on the basis of research
  on  current  practice.,  but  the    employees  studied  have  been  based,
  predominately on a study of males.    We  have  generalized  these findings
  universally from this part of the population. An example follows.

             IEEE EXAMPLE - CONCLUSIONS BASED ON STUDIES OF MALES

Special Issue  on Managing Technical Professionals in the IEE Transactions on
Engineering Management -  Purpose  of  issue  "to  provide  a  research-based
framework on the variables critical to the effective management of engineers,
scientists, and other technical professionals in organizations."

*  Six  articles  based  on    empirical  research  (participant  observation,
cross-cultural field studies, detailed interviews, structured  questionnaires,
simulated decision making exercises).

*  Most of participants were males...referenced only once "nearly  all of the
participants were males"...in passing with no further comment.

                        OTHER COMMENTS BY STUDY AUTHOR

*  New models are need more in line with current needs.

*  We  need  to  rethink  the assumptions upon which current  procedures  are
based.

*  The  study  suggests  that  the  only  group  of  men  who  show the  same
ambivalence  about technical expertise as women do, are those few whose wives
are also engineers or scientists.

*  A revision to  our  approach  in  this area would benefit everyone, men as
well as women.