Why so few cute female engineers?

[bjdhjy888]

The same goes for programmers. You hardly see a bunch of women in the field. Not to metion they ain't cute looking like a movie star.
what gives?
 

[EEVblog]

The same goes for programmers. You hardly see a bunch of women in the field. Not to metion they ain't cute looking like a movie star.
what gives?
 

They were scared off by your teddy bear icon and the lack of cute guys.

[Psi]

The same goes for programmers. You hardly see a bunch of women in the field. Not to mention they ain't cute looking like a movie star.

Tech girls, like Jeri Ellsworth etc.. are way more physically attractive to me than your typical movie-star "look" is.
And I think this is a common thread among other male engineers.

Smart is physically attractive.
Quirky is physically attractive.
Typical movie-star beauty is boring.

[NiHaoMike]

It seems odd that smart girls and strong girls are apparently valued less than pretty girls, when pretty girls are a lot more common.

[tautech]

The same goes for programmers. You hardly see a bunch of women in the field. Not to metion they ain't cute looking like a movie star.
what gives?
 

Ya don't get out and about enough ! 

[CatalinaWOW]

Might just ask why there are so few good looking engineers and programmers of either sex.  One of the biggest reasons is that folks of our persuasion don't spend a lot of time optimizing the product - clothes, grooming and the like. 

[Psi]

It seems odd that smart girls and strong girls are apparently valued less than pretty girls, when pretty girls are a lot more common.

People who match what society thinks is attractive usually take the easier path of employment, using their looks.
They don't usually spend hours at home alone each day messing around with engineering stuff and learning how things work.
As such, a lot of those people are smart but never need to tap that potential.

The average person 'thinks' they are pretty dumb and 50% of those people 'think' they are even dumber than the average.
I say "thinks" and not "is" because a lot of people who are actually smart think they are dumb and so limit themselves from doing cool things.

They give up to soon when projects get hard so never get the payoff at the end to make them feel that they achieved something.
That feeds back into them and so they don't start new projects because they feel like they are too dumb to complete them.
etc.

Engineers however know they are smart because they have built things other people say they themselves couldn't have built.

People who are smart value other people who are smart.
But when people who are smart think they are dumb, and so act dumb, it messes up the system.

How society as a whole values people is quite detached from how individuals value people.

[james_s]

There are very few women going into engineering in the first place, and naturally only a portion of those will fit your definition of "cute". On top of that, it takes a specific personality type to be drawn to engineering and those people tend not to place much emphasis on aesthetics. I'll be the first to admit I have no sense of style, I don't enjoy dressing up fancy, I have no interest in spending time messing with my hair, I just do the bare minimum to not look like a complete slob. When you look at people considered unusually attractive, part of that is genetic but a very significant component is effort spent grooming, working out, dressing nicely, and otherwise focusing on maintaining one's appearance.

[Psi]

[Miyuki]

Nothing new, it was tried here many years back and never worked 

[magic]

It seems odd that smart girls and strong girls are apparently valued less than pretty girls, when pretty girls are a lot more common.

Supply meeting demand. There is nothing odd about fundamental laws

[Illusionist]

I was actually surprised many, years ago when I went to university to study microelectronics, at how many women were on the various EE-type courses. Our largest lecture halls where the common core modules were taught held hundreds, and were full, so were a good way to judge. I would guess it was 50:50 male:female.

Interestingly though was that there seemed a higher proportion of non-UK female students to non-UK male students, and I think there were more non-UK females than UK females. That was what I really noticed at first, rather than just the overall ratio.

It made me happy, anyway. My tutorial group was four woman (three European, one English) and one other man.

And... they're all cute, each on their own way! Perhaps some need to detach their view of cuteness from the falseness that advertisers tell us it should be.

It was a similar 50:50 mix when I studied my second degree, Geochemistry, although that was almost entirely UK students.

[SteveyG]

Depends what you define as cute 

[joseph nicholas]

In Sweden there are very few woman in STEM fields.  This is so despite the egalitarian nature of their education system.  The result is if you give equal opportunity to both sexes women will choose to work in fields like early education and nursing and men will choose something like engineering.  Of course there will be exceptions but these are the facts. 

[LaserSteve]

I work for an Engineering School. Trust me, there is no shortage  of attractive ladies with intelligence and personality in the current pipeline.  At least in the midwestern US. They are usually  very  serious and "flirt mode" is usually turned off during classtime.

 I do not hear their male peers making disparaging remarks about women in engineering at all.  That happened twenty years ago, not now.  Many of our classes appear to reach near 50/50 ratio,

I'LL see if I can get actual numbers today.

By today's standards, saying much more would be politically incorrect  in an open forum, as I interact with them as staff.

Maybe your company under pays or is not recruiting women.   

I also have a degree in education, and during the 80s/90s, l was made well aware of not being a member of "The Good Ole Girls Club", as a student. So I do have an idea of what to look for if things were wrong.

Steve

[Ampera]

I think this might be more of a reflection on your own looks than on the looks of female engineers.m

[soldar]

I think this might be more of a reflection on your own looks than on the looks of female engineers.m

It is a well known fact women go for intelligence in men much more than looks.


Men fall in love with what they see and women fall in love with what they hear.

That is why women wear makeup and why men lie.

[james_s]

At the (small) school I went to, there was *one* girl in the EE program. That was some time ago though and I don't know if she graduated or not because I ran out of funds and dropped out myself.

[janoc]

Could one of the answers be that women are actually put off by not being judged by their abilities but looks instead? (see the title of the thread).

Ask any woman working in tech (whether software, electronics, doesn't matter), you will see what kinds of answers you get.

Guys, let's not be pigs. Then maybe more girls will want to work with us.

[Ampera]

It is a well known fact women go for intelligence in men much more than looks.


Men fall in love with what they see and women fall in love with what they hear.

That is why women wear makeup and why men lie.

It's not a fact, it's a generalization, and not a correct one either.

[soldar]

Another well known fact is that argumentative people often don't catch obvious jokes.

True fact.

[FreddieChopin]

Did engineering work under female project managers, never again 
So much incompetence, mismanagment and personal drama rarely seen with males who are by nature pragmatic.

One of those - lady "specializing" in databases , who never wrote a line of code herself went full micromanagement once project started having difficulties. For example she dictated class names, what metods are needed and sometimes even commit messages (sic!). Nothing got delivered on time, project was a disaster-by-design and few months later customer became insolvent (ah the wonders of EU funds for "innovations"). It ended in a complete and utter mess  Some time later I read a book about good practices and programming projects in general - on almost every page I saw that we did exactly opposite of what should've been done.

Thank fuck I was able to become independent of those tampon-wearing, dumb cocksnots. Now I report directly to the big boss and the job gets done on time, with very few bugs.

[Monkeh]

Good Lord the whole politically correct thing has not invaded Ukraine. Enjoy while you have it.

Yes, China is not alone in being backwards. Political correctness has nothing to do with it - he's just a talking neanderthal.

[magic]

Nothing got delivered on time, project was a disaster-by-design and few months later customer became insolvent (ah the wonders of EU funds for "innovations").

You clearly don't understand the purpose of EU funds for innovation, then
Let me tell you a secret, because it seems like you are one of those Ukrainians in Poland. The reason anyone took his ass to the voting booth in 2003 is because EU promised free money. Turnover was so low that if those who voted no simply stayed home, we wouldn't even have joined. So... enjoy the ride
Reality is a social construct. None of what you see is happening for real.

[FreddieChopin]

Nothing got delivered on time, project was a disaster-by-design and few months later customer became insolvent (ah the wonders of EU funds for "innovations").

You clearly don't understand the purpose of EU funds for innovation, then

Oh I do understand. Fun thing is guys who asked us to develop their idea were of "idealist" type who really wanted to change the world instead of just milking the cow. It ended like milking a bull - lost of noise but not much milk