Andy Millar:

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It's really interesting to read about what happened during and after World War 2 to get a perspective view of this attitude that "they're not doing it because they don't want to" - a large number of women who were very competently and enjoyably carrying out engineering roles found themselves sacked because "the men needed the jobs". Sorry, why did they need the jobs more? "Because they're men." Errr...that's a reason?  

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Andy

The world of Engineering and Technology is so varied and diverse, that there is space for almost every type of person. We all have some idea or opinion, about what sort of personality is best suited to engineering. Occupational Psychologists can bring a more scientific basis to this.  When people gather in groups of communities they begin to evolve common assumptions and behaviours, politics in some form is never far away, sociologists can bring a more scientific basis to this.   

I found  myself at the age of 15/16 applying for a job as Power Station Apprentice. and as part of selection I remember doing various  tests, such as numeracy, literacy, spacial and mechanical aptitude, a colour blindness check and personality preferences.  Five years later when doing my HNC, I noticed in the College Library a book called The Social Psychology of Organisations, it looked interesting so I borrowed it and read it sat on my workbench at tea break time, to "friendly banter" from workmates.  The poor woman who had to pass through the workshop on her way to the office also got some "friendly banter" but took it less well, often blushing prominently.  When I enrolled on an MSc in Human Resource Development a dozen years later, this book was first on the reading list. So I suppose the reasons for my interest are obvious!

People love stereotyping and to those outside our community, many of us are "geeks" or "nerds". Whether we regard such terminology as something to embrace light-heartedly or be offended by, we often illustrate some of the implicit assumptions of these descriptions. We can be narrowly focussed, detail conscious, perfectionists. These are extremely valuable traits in some engineering roles, but by no means all.  Some of us are very narrow in our perception of what constitutes a "proper engineer" and sometimes dismissive of "impure" forms, perhaps with a "management" or "political" focus. 

This is a recent attempt to define 11 "types" of Engineer for the purposes of gaining government apprenticeship funding; there are very many more possibilities of course.   https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/post-graduate-engineer/    Are each of these pathways equally valid? Would people with different personality traits be better suited to different roles? Is there any possibility that gender or ethnicity/cultural background would better optimise someone for one type of role rather than another?  There isn't any "correct" answer, but if we took the trouble then we could probably establish a correlation involving personality and specific skills, with performance in a particular type of role in each organisation. This correlation would be different if it was academic success we were attempting to measure, instead of workplace performance or productivity.

The principle of UK anti-discrimination laws is that; someone with a protected characteristic such a race and gender should be treated equally, unless there is an objective justification for doing otherwise. The IET shouldn't just comply with this principle, but exemplify and champion it as a respected advocate for Engineers an Technicians. In doing so, I think it is reasonable to emphasise an aspiration to encourage any groups that evidence suggests have been under represented; including but not limited to, Gender, Ethnicity and Social Class (not a protected characteristic). Engaging in "positive discrimination" by setting different standards for certain groups, is also an ongoing political "hot topic"often focussed on elite university admissions and the dominance of private schools for example, lets see how that pans out.

I would take a view that our standards/objective justifications are somewhat unsatisfactory. Also that within the wider Engineering Council family, subtle forms of snobbery and inappropriate barriers to progression are in use, creating "closed shops". Others disagree, for example by supporting the idea that A level grading in mathematics is a fair, appropriate and meritocratic mechanism for rationing advantaged access to Chartered Engineer recognition. 

Given the diversity of engineering,  "perfect" measures are very difficult, so we end up with political compromises or "fudges" between the various interests who make up the "engineering establishment", such as The Royal Academy Of Engineering, the Engineering Professors Council, Professional Institutions et al.  Such organisations have become more gender diverse and less socially elite in attitude, but are hardly a broad cross section of those employed as engineers. A culture has evolved where competition for relative status, either between ourselves or with other professions, seems to some of us more important than productive performance. Healthy competition is a good thing, but it it also offers fertile territory for inappropriate discrimination to breed.

If some people feel disadvantaged then the burden of proof should upon us to show otherwise, or that their "disadvantage" is actually fair discrimination for a legitimate purpose. 

Just to reiterate, I support Raymond in expressing his concerns and I note that Christopher has provided an IET "management" response. 

As I hope that I made clear, I don't think that The IET should over-emphasise the politics of gender, race, class or anything else for that matter, but neither can we ignore these issues if they impact on current members or those that we hope to engage; including young people pre-career, apprentices, students and the very many established practitioners who meet our standards. 

Looking forwards, we are members of one of the largest organisations of its kind and collectively aspire to leadership through influence and benefits to society ("working to Engineer a better world").  We are fortunate to have fantastic foundation from the IEE in particular, but also other predecessor institutions.  The most readily identifiable group which exemplifies that tradition and who contribute immensely as volunteers are Chartered Engineers, who are mostly British, white, male and aged over 55. I'm part of that demographic so I'm going to use the word "we"; must create a legacy for a future that is different to the one that we inherited. Diversity has gained an unstoppable momentum in the English speaking world and the sooner it becomes the new "normal", the sooner we can stop talking about it.   

Equality is necessary, but not sufficient. Diversity and inclusion also need to be considered otherwise the engineering professional will never be truly reflective of the society it serves, which is arguably still not the case in many regions of the world.    

• Equality is about equal opportunities and protecting people from being discriminated against (whether for age, sex, gender, religion, ethnicity, spectral radiance of their skin, etc).

• Diversity is about recognizing respecting and valuing differences in people.

• Inclusion refers to an individual’s experience within society (or workplace), and the extent to which they feel valued and included. 

• White male engineers feel that the culture of engineering is more inclusive than female engineers who in turn feel that it is more inclusive than engineers from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.

• Engineers aged 46 and over feel less included in the profession than those in the younger cohorts 

• Male engineers are almost twice as likely as their female colleagues to perceive the culture of engineering as ‘very inclusive’. They are 1.5 times as likely as women engineers to say that they feel ‘very included’ 

• White engineers are significantly more likely than their BAME colleagues to feel ‘very included’ in the engineering profession

• Other respondent demographics (disability, religion, sexual orientation) also make a difference to the experience of culture and inclusion in engineering, with disability making a particularly notable difference

• There are some differences in the experience of inclusion based on grade and registration status - sector, discipline and base appear to make relatively little difference to the experience of inclusion. 

• Specific underlying barriers to progress on inclusion in engineering revealed by this study include:
  
  • the ‘inclusion privilege’, which means those who already feel included are least likely to take action
  
  
• the perception that there is no ‘crisis of inclusion’, or burning platform, to drive action, but a consistent pattern of lower levels of inclusion for BAME and women engineers