Attracting Women to Hydro: The Push for Innovation and Gender Equality in an Aging Industry

摘要

Women have been vastly underrepresented in the male-dominated fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for decades, though their numbers have improved as engineering and other sciences have evolved over time to require increasing numbers of new STEM professionals. In the hydropower industry especially, women engineers are rare, comprising less than one percent of the workforce. In a society where women have traditionally been discouraged from pursuing the hard sciences by a variety of factors, including a lack of family-friendly flexibility in these fields, they are hindered even further by the gendered notion that the physical demands of working in the power and utilities industries is a wholly masculine pursuit – a “man’s job." In recent years, there has been a push to make STEM, and subsequently the hydro industry, more relevant and appealing to women. According to a U.S. Department of Commerce report, women represent more than half of college graduates in most of the developed world but hold less than 25% of the jobs in the STEM fields (Beede et al., 2011). In a rapidly aging industry that is both critical to the nation’s infrastructure and in danger of losing vast portions of its specialized knowledgebase as experienced veterans retire, it has become crucial to develop larger, more vibrant, and more competitive candidate pools. A targeted focus on workforce development for women in hydro is a critical step in addressing that need. This article will address not only how to entice younger professionals to take a role in our clean energy future, but specifically how to attract women to this career path.