There are so few women trying for jobs in the mining and engineering industries that the UK is being put at a competitive disadvantage from other countries. So warned BBC Radio Four's Today in Parliament last night.
They quoted Lib Dem business minister, Jenny Willott: 'We have far too women going into STEM subjects, and we need to be accessing the whole of the population.' I've heard this line before, from Vince Cable, when I was part of a small group invited to talk to him about women in engineering last Winter. He similarly tied it to the extractive industries (oil and gas) which I thought was a bit odd. I'm not sure why UK policy - especially on women in STEM - should be designed around the needs of one very particular, and controversial, industry. Dig back a bit further, and we can see it in ah interview the chairman of Shell UK gave the Telegraph in March 2013: 'If you want more engineers, then not accessing half the population feels like a really bad idea.'
I don't like this framing of questions surrounding women's involvement in science and engineering. I'm not sure about it when it comes from Shell, but when ministers apply it, I find it plain offensive.
Women potentially interested in science and engineering are not yet another resource to be tapped. They are citizens, creative people and humans.
Maybe it's an image thing and some women just haven't seen the right Lego set or something, or maybe they simply don't want a world built on the sorts of futures offered by extractive industries. Futures of several degree global warming and devistating biodiversity loss, for example.
It's worth putting this in the context of some other UK science and engineering policy; last year's Oil and Gas strategy and April's ' Getting ready for shale gas' report, both of which underlined the need for a trained workforce and the expectation that the government will provide this.
We've already had headlines this week on the tax breaks enjoyed by the oil and gas industry. Agreeing to arrange STEM education around the training and recruitment of staff to the oil and gas industry feels like a similar form of subsidy, albeit played out in a different structure. If we're 'picking winners' why not do so in a more sustainable direction? Or better still, why not engage young women in considering the sort of world they want to be part of building with careers in science and engineering?
These latest comments from Willott - and the larger activity they echo - feels like a very basic shift from 'lie back and think of England' to 'lean in and submit to ever more narrow views of economic growth' and I don't like it. Applying feminism to science is about opening up options, not a cyncial way to accrue labour for dying industries.
Entities 0 Name: UK Count: 3 1 Name: Shell Count: 1 2 Name: England Count: 1 3 Name: Vince Cable Count: 1 4 Name: Shell UK Count: 1 5 Name: BBC Radio Four Count: 1 6 Name: Willott Count: 1 7 Name: Doncaster Count: 1 8 Name: Jenny Willott Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1jZManP Title: The 10 Countries Where It's THE WORST to be a Women Description: Prepare to be shocked and outraged. Photo Credit: Getty Images Just like in the United States, where some states rise above others when it comes to women, while some countries are leading the way for treatment of women, others lag way behind.
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