Women In Engineering
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Women In Engineering

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Women In Engineering

Dr. M Palaninatha Raja, Professor & Dean, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, 0

Holding a Ph.D from IIT Delhi, Dr. Palaninatha has over two decades of experience during which he has worked with educational institutions such as Institute of Armament Technology, All India Council for Technical Education and Thiagarajar College of Engineering.

Dissemination, Application and Creation are the three objectives of education, and in engineering education too. Indian women are educated in the past decades to an appreciable level in the global arena. At the same time, they are facing challenges in education, especially during and after the completion of engineering education. Engineering education is a societal concern and inspiring for many women in our country for providing the sustainable solutions in the coming future. Being a women engineer in India, she is responsible for technical knowledge, managerial skills and behavioural norms as expected by the society. Recent statistics state that 13 percent of workforce from engineering sector in India. There are certain issues and gender dynamics that say more offers are for men on the challenging problems. As a matter of fact the women are:
• Assigned with routine tasks and managerial duties
• With Cultural phenomenon
• Building blocks of segregation
• Live in a society demands for women of maintaining a balance between job and family chores.
• The Key motivator in an organization

The present education system in our country came-up with more responsibility, experiential learning, societal issues with real life examples, integrity & scholarship, authority, friendship, leadership , management, adaptability, communication, patience and team work. The world soon suffers from an acute shortage of lakhs of new graduate engineers and technical staff in near future, and there is a huge potential in our country to progress for women engineering careers. Global female enrolment indicates that only a meagre female students select Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) related fields in education.

Once the women engineer entered the workplace, relationship with the co-worker always hurts their career advancement. Women engineers feel that their knowledge and skills have been disguised by gender discrimination in career. 40 percent of women engineers suspected that they were not being treated equally in the
work environment on par with men and they valued higher in career.

With the due pressure on job, women have to put more efforts to prove themselves of their competence, while demonstrating the technical competence, many a times, her appearance embraced in presentation performance. In the changing scenario, Indian women engineers on job are entirely new for them to showcase their appearance in respect of modern dress and interactions, modest behaviour to impress others. This led to the conflict situation that her technical knowledge and skills beyond the criticism in the office environment.

With the due pressure on job, women have to put more efforts to prove themselves of their competence, while demonstrating the technical competence


On the contrary, women engineers are having high attrition rate in the past due to the reasons of inequitable compensation, poor working conditions, inflexible work environment especially in IT industries, work life balance conflict, lack of recognition at work and inadequate opportunities for career advancement. It is observed that organisations are not able to retain 30 percent of their women engineers in their job. Women engineers working in STEM fields publicise their research work less when compared to men engineers. A study reveals that women engineers are earning 10 percent less than male engineers. Also the research shows that only 30 percent of women who earn BE/B.Tech degree in engineering are still working in engineering field after 20 years. Plenty of innovations happened from women and exploited by the superiors to avoid their progression. Experienced women in job, keen to express their behaviour like men due to the experience had during in early career and more of individualistic and autocratic.

Women always encounter the bias, unwanted expressions, comments and behaviours. At the same time, they should understand how to report the behaviours and everyone is expected to be heard too. Women are under-represented in engineering and need an inclusive solution to face the global challenges. Mentoring is desired for working women thereby they can grow and promote the modern insights in decision making. Certainly, it could help to weed out the gender misconceptions and disparity among the genders. Women in engineering profession have been a great asset and a huge change for better future in the coming days. It is a major concern of the findings show on gender disparities which adversely affect the economic growth and social progress. It is noted that a participatory learning process which incorporates the morals and values, equality, diversity, responsibility and acceptance based on the technological development around the globe with more practical experiences to ensure their right to involve in engineering education.