Have your say about this award:

http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/...r-and-against-1018.cfm

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Suzanne Venables-Wood BEng (Hons)MIET

Good feedback - you may also be interested in the discussion that is going on here:

http://www.linkedin.com/groupA...ect#commentID_27713273

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Suzanne Venables-Wood BEng (Hons)MIET

This award for Young Woman Engineers has been around for quite a while now and I personally do not have a problem with it.
However, why not an award for Young Male Engineer, especially if there are rumblings about the Young Woman Engineer award being outdated.

Daniel

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Daniel Scott GCGI IEng MIET

I presume this award is solely funded by the IET and therefore by it's members. Provided there is evidence to suggest there is an increase in young women Engineers and Technicians joining the IET then the award is justified.

Edited: 04 January 2011 at 12:11 PM by mbirdi

The reward cannot be justified unless there is a similar category for Young Men,

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Perspective CMMS

They have something similar in the education system. Some kind of award for the best black student, paid for with NUS membership.

Like stated above, they should then have a best white student award, a best asian student award etc etc. Otherwise this is just not fair at all.

It goes hand in hand with womens only car insurance. This is not just local to engineering. It's society at large.

I think if someone gave an award for best white male under 20 then I'm sure thousands of people would complain and it would get cancelled. I dare say the phrases "racist", "sexist" and "ageist" would be thrown around quite quickly.

Maybe useful if the people who decided on this award let us know the reasons for it and then we can debate those. It could be the reasons are good ones or it could be they are a wishy washy attempt at social engineering.

Regards,
Phil.

Personally I'm a big advocate of equality..

Having a separate award for women engineers, and therefore treating female engineers separately from male engineers, kind of undermines the principle of equality. As I see it, there's no reason why women are not able to compete equally with men as engineers.

If it's just a tool for encouraging young women to think about the vaibility of careers in "the male-dominated world of engineering", then isn't that further undermining it?

But since I'm neither young nor a woman, it doesn't really affect me, so I can't get particularly worked up about it in all honesty.

Jason Barker BEng (Hons) CEng MIET

Jason,
I am also in favour of equality. However equality isn't engineering - there is no rule to set it up. Some 40 years or so ago (oh dear - he's reminiscing again!) I was instrumental in recruiting young women who had a good degree from non-engineering courses, to train as system analysts and then to write real time software for large systems. Without my influence we would have lost some extraordinay talent which would have been wasted in "soft" jobs. There was significant reluctance to employ them in what was an almost all-male environment. I also spent some time in all-girl schools, telling them about engineering and the careers that were available.

We have moved on from there, but there is still not equality and so it is still vital to inform and encourage.the other half of the population. In this, the IET and the Womens' Engineering Society are doing a great job. This award is just one exression of it and an excellent means of getting the idea into the public consciousness.

Regards
Hamish

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Hamish V Bell, BSc, CEng, FIET, FCQI, CQP
2007 - 2010, Vice President and Trustee