EVEN Student Inspired by Historic Rejection Letters to Women Engineers
“We have not now, have never had, and do not expect to have in the near future, any women students registered in our engineering department.” - A direct quote from one of the many letters, newly released by the Society of Women Engineers’s archives.
The letters in question were directed at two University of Colorado women, in the engineering department, who took it upon themselves to organize a society for female engineers. Lou Alta Melton and Hilda Counts sent letters to every engineering and architecture department they could find and asked for information about women signed up for those courses. Their efforts were not well-received.
1919 was the year Congress passed the 19th amendment, granting women the right to vote. But, as so many of the letters in the collection demonstrate, many women wouldn’t be permitted to formally study the subjects that interested them until much later. Discrimination against women in engineering isn’t always so straightforward today, but the forces that push women out of the field (or prevent them from pursuing it in the first place) remain persistent and complex.
EVEN student Katie McQuie, CU SWE Section President and double major in environmental and chemical engineering, has personally felt the gender inequilty in engineering. She's had people tell her the only reason she's gotten an internship is because she's a woman, and she has to push for her ideas to be heard in class. She makes a point of asking questions because she knows some women are hesitant to speak up. Despite these obstacles, she is optimistic about the way her career path is headed when it comes to parity.
McQuie felt inspired to keep on going after hearing the story of Melson and Counts, "It was very satisfying seeing how much of a change those women have made and how in the last 100 years, we've really come leaps and bounds with women in all kinds of technology," she said. "I think it's definitely getting better."
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