The "serial" – a story published in installments – has a motley history. It started as a scam when, following the Stamp Act of 1712, newspaper publishers in England padded the news with reprints of portions of novels to create a document long enough to count as a pamphlet (untaxed) rather than as a newspaper (taxed). Serials came into their own with Dickens's Pickwick Papers, the first major novel to see first light as a serial, followed by such illustrious novels as Eliot's Middlemarch, Hardy's The Return of the Native, Conrad’s Lord Jim, and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Even poetry – Tennyson's Idylls of the King – appeared as a serial. In the 20th century, serials became associated with pulp and science fiction and, as The Shadow Knows, with weekly radio shows. Most serials proceed from beginning to end. Only the truly courageous, such as George Lucas, start their serial with Episode IV, move on to V and VI, and then 22 years after starting, issue Episode I.

In my previous column, I looked at the problem of why there are so few women in engineering in general, electrical engineering in particular, and hence in signal processing. In this column, I'm going to consider two more aspects of the question:

• Does it matter that there are so few women – i.e., is the menace phantom or real?
• If the menace is real, what can be done about it – in mathematical terms, if the menace is real, is it also complex?

It matters: The case for increasing the number of women in engineering / electrical engineering / signal processing can be made from several different perspectives. I’ll talk about two of them: the business case and the personal case.

I didn’t have to do much work to identify the components of the business case: hundreds of major corporations have done it for me. Gene Frantz, of Texas Instruments, summarizes the argument: "We are committed to making a diverse workforce part of our competitive advantage." In fact, according to a 1998 Yankelovich Partners Poll, 85% of the top executives at large- and medium-sized companies in the U.S. believe that increasing the employment of minorities and women makes their businesses more competitive. By the end of 1997, over 80% of Fortune 500 corporations in the manufacturing sector had initiated or planned to initiate diversity programs, and had spelled out their reasons for doing so:

• A changing customer base: For signal processing, the relevant trend is the explosive growth of the commercial market. A field whose principal customers used to be the defense industry and the phone company has moved into mass-marketed commercial products. And although the typical consumer of high-tech, gee-whiz products is a 15-35 year-old male, the fact of the matter is that women control 85% of consumer purchases in the U.S. If the high-tech market ignores women, it will have imposed a limit on its growth. Will increasing the number of women in signal processing change the math of a Fourier transform? Certainly not. It might, though, influence what products are envisioned and how they are designed. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that, for the first time, a woman had been named vice president of a major U.S. furniture manufacturer. The reason? The company had observed that (male) upper management made the key decisions on what product lines to market, whereas women made the vast majority of furniture purchasing decisions. A better connection to the customer base might mean more sales for the company. My favorite engineering example, suggested by Anita Borg, founder of the Institute for Women and Technology, is the question: If, from the outset, computers had been developed primarily by women, would the principal mode of computer use be one person using one keyboard to look at one narrow screen? Or might collaborative interaction with computers have been an early area of research, rather than something that is only now gaining attention?
• Growth of the global economy: The global market bears more on diversity in general than to diversity with respect to women. It has become a major driving force, though, for companies attempting to compete internationally.
• Productivity: Both academic studies (including studies in which gender is the principal variable) and case studies in companies including Intel and General Motors have concluded that, in the long run, heterogeneous teams outperform homogeneous teams when it comes to problem solving, innovation, and creativity. There is a down side: the diverse teams are slower in the short term, as managers learn how to "manage" the diversity and team members learn how to communicate effectively. The net effect, though, is viewed by more and more companies as a competitive advantage.
• Workforce utilization: Ironically, increasing the number of women in a technical field is rarely touted as an opportunity to increase the quality. A more typical conversation might go:

"We should try to increase the number of women in signal processing."
"Yes, but we shouldn’t sacrifice quality."

Ann Redelfs, of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, points out just how questionnable this view is. Implicit in the "Yes, but we shouldn’t sacrifice quality" reply is the assumption that the demographics are something like this (where, in the interests of diplomacy, the groups under consideration are labeled MAJ, for "Majority Group in Signal Processing" and MIN, for "Minority Group in Signal Processing"), with the placement of the rectangles representing the "above and below" relationship of the two populations to the "Average Quality" line:

The workforce utilization view gives a different picture. Projections in the U.S., Canada, and Australia all estimate that women will account for approximately two-thirds of new entrants into the workforce by the year 2000. It is in engineering’s best interests to attract and retain the best possible people, regardless of gender. However, if the field is perceived as unwelcoming to women, most women will go elsewhere. In business terms, there is an opportunity cost for any field that excludes a large fraction of the pool of potential employees based on gender rather than on ability.

So the business case is fairly clear: market, productivity, quality, and workforce all point to the need to become more diverse. Complementing the business view is a more personal view – i.e., one that focues more on the individual – of why it matters that there are so few women in engineering. The argument is simple. You’re an engineer. You probably had other opportunites along the way but chose to become and remain an engineer, suggesting that you think this is a pretty good – maybe even excellent – career. Assuming that women have about the same native ability as men to do math, science, and engineering (see the July 1999 column), why should convention or practice or bias or culture deprive them (us) of the opportunity to enjoy this excellent profession? This is the "do it for your daughters" case: we all want the best for our children, and that includes the opportunity to pursue the best career.

What to do: Now comes the hard part: what can be done to make engineering a more welcoming place – a more desirable profession – for women? Literature from Texas Instruments Strategic Communications states that "Building a corporate culture that values and respects diversity is a shared responsibility." That shared responsibility casts a wide net indeed when we include elementary through graduate education and the expectations of parents and society as factors that seem to limit the number of women in engineering. It’s therefore not surprising that there isn’t a formula for success. There are, however, some general principles that apply to businesses and universities alike.

92% of diversity experts agree that top management commitment and involvement are essential. Middle management commitment is also key in effecting change. Successful initiatives require integrating diversity into business objectives and mission statements, so that diversity efforts are viewed as central rather than peripheral. The message here is that diversity must be everyone’s business. When I resigned from my department’s faculty search committee after 10 years of service, I was asked "If you’re not there, who will make sure we look for women candidates?" The answer should have been obvious: everyone.

Beyond the general principles, there are actions that can address the deterrents. Some require changes in elementary education; others in how the media portrays engineers. Some, however, can be undertaken by engineers and engineering managers in industry and by administrators, faculty, and students in academia. Among the most promising:

• Mentoring: Mentoring has been identified as a major factor in retention and advancement in both academia and industry and has also been linked to encouraging women to go to graduate school. Where there are few women, however, mentoring often doesn’t happen because people most often choose to mentor others who are like them. Formal mentoring programs are therefore important.
• Climate: Climate – both classroom and workplace – affects retention. It is one of the areas where managers/admini strators can set the tone and expectations but where everyone can make a difference. Key to creating a positive climate is awareness of the factors that contribute to climate, ranging from blatant harassment to more subtle differences in communications, learning, and leadership styles. One of the most innovative approaches to increasing awareness of climate issues in both the classroom and the workplace has been the use of interactive theater, developed through a collaboration of Purdue’s Women in Engineering Programs, Women in Science Programs, and Department of Theatre (www.cic.uiuc.edu/groups/WISEPanel/archive/BestPractice/
  Best1Guidebook/classroom_climate_workshops.htm).
• Networking: Changing the numbers is the long-term solution to the problems of isolation and lack of role models. In the meantime, creative networking may be the best solution. Women: seek out women in your organization or nearby organizations. Build and maintain email networks to make up for the lack of peers nearby. For networking in a big way, check out systers (www.systers.org) – it grew out of the computing world, but computing and signal processing have a lot in common these days. Initiate or participate in outreach activities such as Expanding Your Horizons (www.expandingyourhorizons.org), the Role Model Project for Girls (www.womenswork.org/girls), or technology programs for Girl Scouts; see if your alma mater or a university near your job is looking for mentors for women engineering students. Managers (male or female): support such activities. Men: recognize that isolation is one of the most serious challenges for women in engineering, and make sure the women you work with are included in both formal and informal activities. Lunch anyone?
• Equity: On the surface this is the easiest one: equal pay for equal work, etc. Here’s a data point, though. Following its study of the situation of its female faculty in science (web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html), MIT raised the women’s salaries by an average of 20% and even went so far as to adjust the retirement benefits of recently retired women faculty. Managers and administrators: take a look at the numbers regularly. Also in the "equity" category are opportunities for advancement, differential treatment (in the MIT study, men with offers from other institutions were made aggressive counter-offers; women weren’t), and recognition. As with salaries, paying attention is the key.
• Outreach: A Harris Poll conducted for the American Association of Engineering Societies and co-sponsored by IEEE-USA reports that 61% of Americans and 78% of women feel they are not informed about engineering and engineers. Fewer than 3% of the respondents regarded engineers as creative, pioneering, seeking knowledge, or inventive. A survey conducted in conjunction with the May 1999 National Academy of Engineering’s Summit on Women in Engineering found that young girls are not aware of what engineers do, are not presented with information that shows engineering as a viable career for girls, and are not encouraged to take advanced math and science classes. Companies, universities, and individual engineers can take engineering into classrooms, after-school, and summer programs, and can invite classes to see engineering first-hand at their worksite.
• Image: The AAES poll found that 87% of respondents believe technology is good for society, but less than 30% thought engineers care about the community, 20% thought engineers improve the quality of life, and 20% viewed engineers as sensitive to social concerns. The NAE survey reported negative stereotypes of engineers as one of the factors influencing pre-college girls. Programs such as Purdue’s EPICS – Engineering Projects in Community Service (epics.ecn.purdue.edu) and the Institute for Women and Technology’s Virtual Development Centers (www.anitaborg.org/vdc) provide models for linking engineering to community. Programs such as the University of British Columbia’s E-Gems (www.cs.ubc.ca/nest/egems/index.html) show how open-ended story lines and collaborative learning can give girls positive experiences with math and computing.
• Work/family: Many of factors rely on the individual attitudes that collectively make up the culture. This one, however, will ultimately involve systemic change. "Work-life" has become the catchphrase, "balance" the goal, and "flexibility" the key. A 1997 study conducted under the auspices of the National Center for Research in Vocational Education identified "work-life diversity initiatives." Topping the list were flexible work time, telecommuting, on-site childcare (followed by childcare resources and referral services), relocation assistance, job sharing, family care leave assistance, and part-time work assignments.
• Attitude: The bottom line is attitude, and it’s the component where everyone makes a difference. Do you believe that women can be successful engineers? Successful engineering managers? Are you comfortable supervising women? Working on a team with women? Having a women as your boss? Think about it. Do something about it! And for the real bottom line, do it for your daughters.

Leah H. Jamieson
L.jamieson@ieee.org