Gendered perceptions of typical engineers across specialties for engineering majors

Young women do not choose to be engineers nearly as often as young men, and they tend to cluster in particular specialties when they do. We examine these patterns and the role of gender schemas as applied to perceptions of typical engineers in understanding the choices that women make in terms of engineering specialties. We use Part 1 of two waves of survey data collected from first-year engineering students at a large Midwestern university in the fall of 2014. Respondents scored typical engineers on 60 items from the Bem Sex-Role Inventory [Bem, S. L. 1974. The Measurement of Psychological Androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 42: 155-162]. Preliminary results show that women consider the typical engineer to be more masculine compared to the impressions gathered from men. Additionally, engineering gender schemas predict some specialty areas but not all, suggesting that gendered perceptions may not affect choice of specialty. Our results provide insight into the decisions that women make once entering engineering.