Okay, I'm back

...and I'll try to stick around a bit more. I have, in fact, been reading ScatteredAK regularly, just not posting. So, for my first return post, I'm going to be lazy by posting something I wrote a while ago instead of writing a new story. But just for now! I'll write original things later. Soon, later. Word of warning: this thing that I wrote is a bit of a rant. Backstory: The College of Engineering sent out a survey this spring toward the end of the semester to all the women (and ONLY the women) asking about their experiences in engineering. This is kind of a sore point for me, as you will see, and ties in in a way to Andrea's recentish post about feminism, which is what gave me the idea to post it in the first place. I'll post three of the questions that were on the survey, and my answers to them, which will pretty effectively explain both the situation and the way I feel about it.

24. How welcoming has the college and/or your department been to you as a woman?

Here's the deal: This survey, like a lot of things in the college of engineering, is really kind of starting to irritate me in regard to my gender. Yes, I am a woman in engineering, but I feel like the college is constantly trying to put me in a box under the guise of "helping me get support, because I'm a woman." I am a PERSON. Yes, I am female. Yes, I am an engineer. But being a female engineer does not define me, and I really don't appreciate being singled out by the college because of it. You may think you have good intentions in trying to help women because they're underrepresented, but I feel like what you're actually doing is reinforcing the archaic idea that being female and an engineer is so unheard-of that we need protection from the big, scary, real world. Stop.

27. Do you feel that the college has adequate support structures in place for women in engineering?

Again: please leave me alone. Constantly bombarding me with "support structures for women" implies that I am not capable of succeeding in engineering without somebody to baby me and lead me along by the hand. This is incredibly offensive. If I were a man, I would be just as capable of excelling in engineering as I am now - I didn't get into the college and the Engineering Honors Program on some kind of special deal because I'm female. I got in because I am good at what I do. I get good grades, I work hard, I am successful. Nowhere in that is my gender relevant. Yes, in hard numbers there are more men than women in engineering, but that doesn't mean that the women are delicate flowers that need protection. It's misogynistic, belittling and offensive. If, for some bizarre reason, I felt the need to seek gender-based support because I couldn't cope, I would seek it. I don't appreciate it being shoved at me at every opportunity. The pervasiveness of the idea that women need extra support in the engineering field appalls me, and I feel that it works against your goals at equality and making everybody feel included. Example: one of my female engineering friends was recently told by a male engineering friend that she had only gotten her excellent summer research position because she was a female engineer and that, had she been male, she would have had to work much harder to get it. Naturally, we were both very offended by this, but I feel that this stems from the culture that CU Engineering creates by treating women as though they need extra help and special treatment. If this attitude weren’t spread around by the departments and staff, the male friend would have recognized the true reason my female friend got the job: because she DESERVED it.

43. Is there anything else you want to tell us about your experiences in engineering?

I would reiterate the part about not singling me out because I'm a woman, but I feel like I've got it just about covered in previous responses. What I said might sound harsh, but I genuinely mean every word of it. Please, please, take it seriously and reconsider your policy toward women in engineering.

Of course, it is not likely that I will ever see any direct results of this input, because I have said things along these lines in previous surveys (albeit not in such length and frustration), and nothing seems to have changed. Maybe next year when the inevitable rash of surveys arrives, I'll write three pages. Or call the dean.