Prompt #10

Dr Who, a famous television show leads their viewers down a narrow path, representing them as a bunch of guys in lab coats with bright yellow hard hats on. TV shows 'megastructures' and google itself shows it the same way. Type in "Engineers" into google images and you with be presented with picture after picture of men in white lab coats, wearing yellow hard hats, glazing into the distance holding the blueprints of their project. This stereo type is something that goes beyond web searches and tv shows, but is also seen in advertisement, movies, and other forms of media. It is almost like all of the media teamed up and said, "we're going to make engineers look this one way".

While its not offensive to any engineer by any means, it does portray an unrealistic model of who, and what engineers actually are. Luckily, they do keep the gender of the engineers level with reality. 36 of the first 47 people shows on google images when you type in engineers are men. Or around 75%. This hits the jackpot as asme.org says that 75-80% of engineers are in fact men. But it is not the gender portrayal that is misleading.

It is in fact the hard hats. A mechanical engineer will spend their career designing different components and working with groups in different locations. But as this, and a google images search of "mechanical engineer" agrees, mechanical engineers don't wear hard hats. The same thing happens when you search for other engineers, barring one. Pictures of civil engineers all show people standing outside in hard hats, holding blueprints glaring off into the distance. Sounds familiar right? So google doesn't show an inaccurate model of engineers, it simply just shows civil engineers. So why are civil engineers the first thing people thing of when they hear the word. Well, its just that. The iconic hard hats and blueprint have been linked to engineers by the media for so long, its a stereotype everyone has just become okay with.

Writer: Pat Wilkinson

“Engineering Still Needs More Women.” Engineering Still Needs More Women, https://www.asme.org/career-education/articles/undergraduate-students/engineering-still-needs-more-women.