Reply to ‘Elon Musk and the Lack of Women at Waterloo Engineering

This article is written in response to the article written by Filzah Nasir, 2B Environmental, on
September 21st 2013.
Musk toured the UW campus in the 90’s, of course there weren’t many women, the University
of Waterloo was founded in 1957 on Science and Technology not Arts and Business – like
Queens. In the fifties, the social norm was that men went to school and work while women
were homemakers. Women got the right to vote in 1929 but things didn’t change overnight, including the number of women in engineering. The reason being: social norms.
Barbie’s, mini-kitchens and anything pink is for girls and Legos, cars and Tonka trucks are for
boys. That is what the aisles of the toy stores look like and that is how we are raised. If all toys
were unisex, more girls would get the chance to play with toys, like Lego, that promote
mechanical thinking and start to give a sense of design and engineering at a young age.
This is not Waterloo Engineering’s problem; this is North America’s and for the most part the
world’s problem. All Engineering programs across Canada and the US have similar statistics
when it comes the number of women enrolled in their programs and they are all looking into
ways to increase the number of women in engineering, including Waterloo. In fact for the past
few years the percentage of women entering 1st year at Waterloo is 21%, above the Ontario
region average (18%) and the Canadian average at (17.6%).
Women in Engineering (WiE) is not a girls-only club, it’s an organization comprised of
engineering faculty, graduate students and undergraduate students seeking to increase
awareness and support for women already in engineering as well as peak the interest in young
girls. Since 1992, the committee has been hosting on campus events like talks from graduate
engineers to speak to engineering students, male and female, about their personal journeys.
WiE also hosts numerous events for young girls and their parents, like Go Eng Girl where grade
7-10 girls learn what engineering is about through hands-on activities. In fact this years
GoEngGirl event will be held on October 19th
– maybe you could volunteer to help out and find
out more about WiE! I have witnessed the progress of WiE in my time at Waterloo and I can say
that many members have worked extremely hard to get to the 21% female enrollment Waterloo has in 2013. This group is captivating children that want to learn, design, built, test,
break and build some more, sound familiar? Sounds like engineers in the making to me, and
even if they pursue something else, at least they got a taste of engineering before deciding and
that’s thanks to WiE. I should also point out that the WiE committee won the University of
Waterloo’s Status for Women and Equity Committee (SWEC) Equity and Inclusivity award this
year for all their hard work and accomplishments.
As for Musk’s quote, I don’t think he is out of line what-so-ever but Filzah, your comments are.
Would you like to go to school with only women? I highly doubt it, as humans we need balance
and diversity and that means having men and women in our lives. If Musk visited campus and
didn’t see any women, his choice to study elsewhere is perfectly understandable, it doesn’t
make him sexist.
I find it funny that some Waterloo engineering students are offended by the Faculty’s video
response to Musk’s quote. Waterloo is known for over-reacting in situations when their faculty
is put into question, however, this time Waterloo responded more directly with a touch of
humour. The only questionable part of the video is the clip of adding flowers and spraying
books with perfume. Obviously thisis not what was done to increase the number of women in
Engineering, they worked hard to make it happen (and still are) but in the context of the video
they brushed it off to get the “yeah, that’s right, we’ve got the girls now” vibe. And I would say
that having a higher enrollment of females in engineering than 70% of all other Canadian
Universities looks pretty darn good on us. And Filzah, if 18.5% isn’t the right number, what is?
Lastly, Filzah, I’m sorry to hear that you feel so out of place at Waterloo Engineering, I’m sure
you knew that Engineering was a male-dominated field before you chose the program. It’s up to
you to find the clubs and societies in and outside of the Engineering Faculty that allow you to
grow as a person and learn from the good and the bad experiences that you not only face right
now but will continue to face for the rest of your life.
Hopefully you will realize that you can help make Waterloo Engineering an even better place
for women, present and future. Best of luck.