Do you believe that girls aren’t as involved in engineering as boys and how would you change that?

Question: Do you believe that girls aren't as involved in engineering as boys and how would you change that?
- Keywords:
  boy,
  engineering,
  gender,
  girl,
  involve
Asked by Isobel to John, Kirstin on 12 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by Potter.
- John Allport answered on 12 Jun 2016:
  
  Hi Isobel,
  I do think that girls are not as involved in engineering as boys. I’m working on changing that by trying to understand why it is that girls are not so interested. Whenever I get chance to talk to groups of girls and explain how I use engineering to make a difference to people’s lives, they get that and are interested, whereas if their perception of engineering is dirty hands and overalls, they are put off. One of the things that I do is to run classes for girls to come and see the type of work that I do, and the range of possible careers within engineering, and it would be really great to get your view on why girls do not have such a positive impression of engineering.

Isobel commented on 21 Jun 2016:

I believe that girls do not have such a positive impression on engineering because they think that it is not a girl’s job and they think that Maths and Science is not really for them, however many engineers are trying to make it equal and employ more girls.
John commented on 22 Jun 2016:

Isobel, Why is it that girls think that? Is it because of advice from teachers, from parents or something else?

Question: Do you believe that girls aren't as involved in engineering as boys and how would you change that?