The Sole Engineering Genius: A Professional Identity Not Fit for the Purpose of Gender Equality Projects

Abstract

Despite decades of directed efforts gender equality is still a challenge in many university level STEM institutions. Key reasons for this are found in disciplinary and institutional cultures. A crucial cultural element is professional identity. In this article, an ethnographic study of a gender equality program in a technical university in Sweden underpins the identification of a professional identity that we name: the ‘sole engineering genius’. This cultural figure displays features that run counter to measures promoting gender equality. As a component of engineering faculty’s self-perception as well as views of others, this figure provides rationales for rejecting the changes required to end gender inequality. Against the backdrop of research literature, we argue that this professional identity is not a local or national phenomenon, but likely a key factor in academic engineering culture transnationally that may continue to undermine gender equality strategies in STEM institutions.

KEYWORDS:

• Engineering culture
• gender equality
• professional identity
• institutional change

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Casad et al., “Gender Inequality in Academia.”

2 See, Secules, “Making the Familiar Strange.” Beddoes, “Agnotology, Gender, and Engineering.” Cech, “The (Mis) Framing of Social Justice.” and Doerr et al., “Making Merit Work.”

3 Martinsson and Griffin, Challenging the Myth of.

4 Faulkner, “Doing Gender in Engineering,” 187.

5 Van den Brink and Benschop, “Slaying the Seven-headed Dragon,” 86

6 Ibid.

7 Cech, “The (Mis) Framing of Social Justice.”

8 Cech and Blair-Loy, “Perceiving Glass Ceilings?” See Also Blair-Loy and Cech, Misconceiving Merit.

9 Roos et al., “The Failure of Gender Equality.”

10 Ibid.

11 Ibarra, “Provisional Selves.”

12 Ibid. 782–3.

13 Baylin, “Academic Careers.”

14 Ibid.

15 Friedensen et al., “The Making of ‘Ideal’ Electrical,” 116.

16 Secules, “Making the Familiar Strange.”

17 Cech, “The (Mis) Framing of Social Justice.”

18 Myers, Gallaher, and McCarragher, “STEMinism.”

19 Doerr et al., “Making Merit Work.”

20 Ibid., 9.

21 Beddoes “Agnotology, Gender, and Engineering.”

22 Seron et al., “I Am Not a Feminist.”

23 Ibid., 144.

24 Roth and Sonnert, “The Costs and Benefits.”

25 Ibid., 396.

26 Berner, “Educating Men,” 78.

27 Berner, “Professional or Wage.”

28 Neyland, Organizational Ethnography.

29 Morrison and Lumby, “Is Leadership Observable?”

30 Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes.

31 Galletta, Mastering the Semi-structured.

32 The research followed the guidelines for ethics in social science and humanities by the European Commission, “Ethics in Social Science”. Informed consent has been granted by all participants presented in this article and interview quotes have been approved by interviewees. The project team and the university president reviewed draft versions of this article.

33 Bowen, “Document Analysis.”

34 Maher et al., “Ensuring Rigor.”

35 Nordvall, Making Politics.

36 Salminen-Karlsson, Bringing Women into Computer.

37 Salminen-Karlsson, Bringing Women into Computer and Faulkner, “Doing gender in engineering.”

38 Internal Scandi Tech article, July 6th, 2018

39 A pseudonym used for the project used in this article.

40 Personal communication, November 14th, 2021.

41 Here after project management team or project team.

42 Public appearance, early fall 2019.

43 Ibid.

44 Advisory board meeting, Fall, 2019.

45 Cech, “The (Mis) Framing of Social Justice,” and Seron et al., “I Am Not a Feminist.”

46 Employee survey, 2019.

47 Roos et al., “The Failure of Gender Equality.”

48 Field notes, early spring 2020.

49 Field notes, early spring 2020.

50 Advisory board meeting, fall 2019.

51 Interview, March 9th, 2020.

52 Steering group meeting, 12th of December 2019.

53 Advisory board meeting, fall 2019.The project member was referencing a quote by Geoffrey Boulton, full quote: ‘The difficulty is, that changing a university is like moving a graveyard, you get no help from the people inside!’

54 Interview, 25th of February 2020.

55 Employee survey, 2019.

56 Public appearance, fall 2019.

57 Cech, “The (Mis) Framing of Social Justice.” Myers, Gallaher, and McCarragher, “STEMinism,” and Roth and Sonnert, “The Costs and Benefits.”

58 Ibarra “Provisional Selves.”

59 Interview, 9th of March 2020.

60 Turkle, The Second Self.

61 Doerr et al. “Making Merit Work,” Seron et al., “I Am Not a Feminist,” and Myers, Gallaher, and McCarragher, “STEMinism.”

62 Doerr et al. “Making Merit Work.”

63 Interview, 25th of February 2020.

64 Field notes, early fall 2019.

65 Interview, 25th of February 2020.

66 Employee survey, 2019.

67 Field notes, fall 2019.

68 Field notes, February 2020.

69 Interview, 25th of February 2020.

70 Interview, March 9th, 2020.

71 Faulkner, “Doing Gender in Engineering.”

72 Cech, “The (Mis) Framing of Social Justice.”

73 Roth and Sonnert, “The Costs and Benefits,” and Traweek, Beamtimes and lifetimes.

74 Roth and Sonnert, “The Costs and Benefits,” and Roos et al., “The failure of gender equality.”

75 Seron et al., “I Am Not a Feminist.”

76 Secules, “Making the Familiar Strange.”

77 Beddoes, “Agnotology, Gender, and Engineering.”

78 Traweek, Beamtimes and Lifetimes, 75.

79 Cech, “The (Mis) Framing of Social Justice.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Chalmers University of Technology Foundation under Grant GENIE.