Women in surveying

My significant other was a graduate surveyor and had to deal with misogynists in several of her workplaces. It was frequently not very pleasant for her. It seems sometimes it's hard to be one of the boys when you aren't... a boy.

A bloke I work with has a wife that was also a surveyor. She actually studied with my partner at uni. She had a particularly hard time from an angry jerk boss. She has not worked as a surveyor since.

How depressing eh? I have nothing particularly good to relate to you about the experiences of the women I've known in surveying.

Depressing and also pathetic they have to put up with crap from others (males) that probably feel they are fair game to exploit.
I grew up in a workplace that had a female surveyor and never felt it wasn't her place to be doing stuff we (men!) do.
I could not stay silent if in a place where women were being given grief by fellow males.

That is how I met my wife. On the job.

During my college years there were fewer than a dozen females enrolled in the College of Engineering with around 1200 males. I knew about half of them over the next four years. All were excellent in the academic arena. All but one were fully engaged at striving to be a force at some place of employment following graduation. The one was simply there because her father was a P.E. and insisted she be like him. I assume she was quite a bit like him as she chose to date women.

Today, the female/male ratio in universities enrolled in engineering is drastically different. That is a good thing.

This company is owned and run by a woman surveyor. If you think she's a figurehead, saying such to her wil result in language that would make George Carlin blush.

My career has included 25 years of teaching surveying at the college level. The ratio of the number of female students divided by the number of male students never approached 1.0 (equal numbers of each) but, with only incidental exception, the female students were a significant component and always a credit to the student body, the surveying program, and more importantly, to the surveying profession at large following graduation.

One could focus on the legitimate differences between men and women in numerous categories but, in my experience, women have made a significant positive contribution to the surveying profession. Although I believe that the surveying profession is (or should be) largely gender neutral, I am unequivocally convinced that the quality of life in many categories (including surveying) would suffer irreparably sans women.

I'm thrilled to see such positive words towards women in surveying.

I went to college in the early 90's for land surveying (CSU, Fresno). I believe there were about 3 women in the Land Surveying program. I don't know the total enrollment in Land Surveying, but if I had to guess, I'd say that there were around 100 of us, maybe 150. So that's 3% (at most).

In the 20 years I've worked in the field as a Surveyor, I've come across 3 women who are licensed. So it doesn't seem like much has changed in 20 years... But reading these posts makes me think that perhaps times are changing, even though it is very slowly.

At the 2012 LSAW conference, the Surveyor of the year and associate of the year were both women. LSAW will enjoy it's first woman president in 2016. I know several women that are licensed and own their own company; my son works for one of them.

> The resistance to change manifests itself in so many ways - gender balance should be a top priority...

I will agree that surveying appears to be a male-dominated profession. But I personally have never seen a "resistance to change". I've worked with several female surveyors and their gender had very little or nothing to do with their work. I don't see the fact of surveying being a male dominated profession as anything but happenstance. There are simply more men that orient toward the profession than women. In almost fifty years of surveying I've never seen any evidence of a conscious effort to exclude anybody because of their plumbing.

But how in the world would we go about achieving "gender balance"? Are you going to make young folks attempt a surveying career simply because of their gender?

I have a buddy that has been a pipeline welder for twenty years. She's a good welder and loves her work. But I don't think the number of women pipeliners will ever reach a balance with the number of men, either.

Thankfully, the days of girls playing with dolls and boys playing shoot-em-up are really gone. All we can do is offer up the educational experience to young folks that is necessary to attain professional status, men and women. It wouldn't surprise me if the number of men and women in the industry never equalized.

I think the male domination the industry is a bit more than "happenstance". It wasn't that long ago that the majority opinion in the US was that "a woman's place is in the home". And so there are many people in today's society that still have remnants of that point of view.

But, that was then, this is now. And many, many barriers have been removed. So it will take time for the numbers to "catch up".

We definitely don't want to force individuals (male or female) into any particular careers. I think the best we can do in this avenue is to simple continue our efforts to remove the barriers (real or perceived) into this profession (or any other, for that matter).

From the contents of this post, I can see that there are lots of people working to ensure that the barriers based around gender are going away. I think that's awesome.

I see more females working in heavy construction than in surveying. I do not think it is because they are being shut out of the profession.

Perhaps 30 years ago, but not now.

For too long, un-equality in employment has been the only measuring stick for discrimination.

Who's to say things always have to be equal and balanced by gender/race?

> Who's to say things always have to be equal and balanced by gender/race?

That is a good point; my sentiments exactly.

I'm gonna bet that there will always be more male, say automotive mechanics, than female. Inversely, I believe the child day care industry will probably be dominated by females.

And I'm truly not a 'gender role' kinda guy. I've quilted for years. Use to sew my own flannel shirts until my eyes went south.

> They can often defuse and quieten a roused up landowner. (in this case he was the type you only dealt with through his solicitor which I observed except he hadn't relayed my messages to the owner)
>

Beware anybody running up against MY Girl in the woods!
She knows how to use that chain saw!

Whoa rfc, Where Are Her Chaps?

That is a work tool, dress her like a worker.

Paul in PA

> > > Who's to say things always have to be equal and balanced by gender/race?
> >
> > That is a good point; my sentiments exactly.
> >
> > I'm gonna bet that there will always be more male, say automotive mechanics, than female. Inversely, I believe the child day care industry will probably be dominated by females.
> >
> > And I'm truly not a 'gender role' kinda guy. I've quilted for years. Use to sew my own flannel shirts until my eyes went south.
>
> By balance I did not mean 50-50, but there is a lot of real estate between "balanced" and "mighty imbalanced" that could be explored.

I think you all make great points. I was reading an article recently on gender issues in computer programming (specifically gaming design). One of the points it brought up was that "gender equality" does not mean an equal number of each gender in a given profession/role. It just means that the gender of an individual would not be a barrier to going in to that profession/role. In other words, there is no presupposition that women can't be surveyors.

I'm happy to be living in a time where we can drop a lot of outdated ideas.

I've sewn buttons onto my shirts before and had pretty good success. But I just can't get the knack of sewing my work shirts back together when I split the seams. And my eye sight is really good (up close, at least)! Maybe you guys can teach me the secrets!

Like that house

I gather that's local timber /lumber? Not sure what you call it.
Decent sizes. Is it easy to get in those sizes?
I once needed a beam 20" X 4" and 20' long, clear of any knots. Had to get it from USA.

Got any more pictures? I love timber in any shape or for.

> I think you all make great points. I was reading an article recently on gender issues in computer programming (specifically gaming design). One of the points it brought up was that "gender equality" does not mean an equal number of each gender in a given profession/role. It just means that the gender of an individual would not be a barrier to going in to that profession/role. In other words, there is no presupposition that women can't be surveyors.

Currently preference is given to businesses that are owned by individuals that are deemed socially and economically disadvantaged based upon percent utilization in public contracts.

Currently those individuals are women and/or the following hyphenated Americans;
Black-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Native-Americans, Asian-Pacific-Americans, and Subcontinent-Asian-Americans.

Contractors must provide evidence that they either hired the specified quota of disadvantaged businesses or made a good faith effort to do so. This is a rather popular basis of protesting the award of public contracts.

I guess the dilemma is finding an equitable method of determining that there is an actual barrier that needs addressed. EDIT: It should be noted that the current method of "balancing" does not focus on any particular field of work such as land surveying, but rather the group of people doing the work.
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By the way - all the mountain men and miners that initially settled the west did their own mending (unless they had a squaw ;). No-kidding. They must have been pretty good at it too, it gets awful cold in these parts. Sewing is getting to be a lost art. Luckily my daughter has shown an interest and her grandmother is willing to teach.

You find a lot more equity between men and women up north. Not too many things Alaska women can't handle, if not out of desire then out of necessity and the other way around. Having spent a good many years as a bachelor in the land where the saying goes with women, 'the odds are good but goods are odd', I've become quite adept in the kitchen and can sew just about anything needed. I have my own sewing machine and know how to use it. And there women here than can butcher a moose faster than some guys can thaw a frozen pizza.

That said there are some gifted women surveyors up here that I hold in great respect.

In 20 years I did run across some men who didn't 'approve', I guess... but the one person who was the most overt about trying to hold me back was a woman who ran the remote office where I started.
Most of the men that I had to take crap from were the same ones who heaped it on my male coworkers as well. They were equal opportunity jerks.....
I had lots of women tell me they thought it looked like a good job, (especially the money), well except for the travel, being outside in bad weather, getting dirty, digging in the dirt, standing in the traffic, etc. Hard to do the job and remain 'girly'......
I am glad it is more accepted than it was, but I don't think it works to go out and drag in more women in an attempt to prove life is equal.....