Male/Femal Ratio in automation field

Hi All

Just wanted to know how many females are in automation field.cheers.

I worked several years ago with a lady engineer named Christine, who had a habit of dying her hair metallic red.

The Moulder/Scully jokes did not stop for years...

TM

As of last count, there are now a total of five (5) females in the field.

This is a 15% increase over last year

Our AB distributor's PLC specialist is a woman. She is also one of the most knowledgable and best PLC programmers I have ever met.

I remember at my EE classes in college, the ratio was about 100-5.

I don't know what the lack of appeal was, the chemical disciplines (chemE and chem) had a more balanced ratio.

Locally I would guesstimate the ratio at 100 to 1

I learned Allen Bradley proprietary networks from a female instructor at Rockwell. She was excellent . . .

I've worked with several female programmers overseas, but mainly in South America. I trained with a female programmer in the UK, but I've yet to meet any in my local area in the last 4 years.
In general I would say that all of the female programmers I have worked with are more than equal to the task.
I Beleive this is one job where gender, race or nationality have no bearing whatsoever on the ability to do the job.

jaichains said:

Hi All

Just wanted to know how many females are in automation field.cheers.

Click to expand...

Why?
What difference does it make?

Hmmm, still at zero... I see Paula hasn't stopped in yet...



-Eric

From the numbers of trainees I have seen passing by in the 12 years I'm teaching PLCs, I would say: way too few. I have just checked my database: of the 1033 trainees only 18 were female.

Kind regards,

Why does everyone need to point out that the women they worked with were good. What did you expect?

In 26 years in the civilian world, I have seen maybe 20 female engineers/techs. The oilfield just does not attract them. When I was teaching at ITT, 25 to 35% of the students were female. (That number varied from class to class)

Rick Densing said:

Why does everyone need to point out that the women they worked with were good. What did you expect?

Click to expand...

Maybe they point this out to contrast with some of the men they have worked with.

I am a girl and I worked in the field for 5 years

I worked as a Controls Engineer for 5 years, and I will tell you exactly why I left the field:



1.) Cell phone that I had to have on 24/7 even on vacations

2.) Off hour work - Weekends, Holidays, 2nd shift work with one day’s notice

3.) Sporadic hours – I had no idea if I would be home for dinner or not



Look who I am telling – you guys know how hard the automation industry can be. The customer’s line is down off hours and on holidays. That is when the work is done. I decided life was too short and not worth the stress, so I left. One day on a Sunday, I looked around and realized I was the ONLY woman working. I thought – why am I here and not at home with my family? This is crazy, so I started looking for a new job.



To be in this business with these crazy hours, you need to have someone at home keeping the ship afloat. Most of the guys I worked with had a stay at home wife or were not married at all. My priorities changed over time.



Is it because the field discourages women? No-the job requirements are difficult and require commitments most women have no desire to make. So now I am in R&D with something called comp time. I love comp time, and I love my weekends again.