Innovation Winter 2024.25

FEATURE

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Diversity in the professions The balance of Engineers and Geoscientists BC registrants identifying as women has long been an issue. Currently, only 17 percent of all engineering and geoscience registrants identify as women; less than one percent identify as non-binary. Eighty-two percent identify as male. Looking at the professions separately, geoscience has a higher percentage of registrants identifying as women than engineering. More women today are entering the profession of engineering – just over 20 percent of newly licensed engineers identify as women. But, they also leave the engineering profession at higher rates than their male counterparts. “The numbers are changing. There are more women in engineering now than there was a decade ago,” says Cochrane, adding, “We still have a long way to go. I am hopeful.” Along with gender, underrepresented identities may be identified by age, ethnicity, disability, economic status,

Technology is only as good as the data you put in it. It builds its own biases. - Marcie Cochrane, P.Eng., EDI Consultant

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gender expression, race, sexual orientation, and Indigenous identity. Design bias

In her presentation to engineering companies, Cochrane uses a number of real world examples from the book Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez. One such instance of poor design that’s due to a lack of thought diversity is the first-generation airbag, which was initially designed by a team of all-male engineers for tall, heavy passengers. “There were no women on the design team,” says Cochrane. “When they designed and tested, they made crash-test dummies that looked like and represented an average male.” The result was greater safety for the average man, but not for women and children, who often suffered injuries from the airbag’s impact. “Once things are in place, sometimes it’s harder to change than if we’d designed it and thought about it properly from the start,” she says. “They knew there was a problem but changing it still took decades.” While airbags were made compulsory in the 1990s, it was 2008 before the U.S. Department of Transportation adjusted standards to include female crash-test dummies. Other examples of poor design stemming from a lack of varied input include voice recognition, which is more effective at discerning male speech patterns, and wearable technology, which is less accurate at reading heart rates for people with darker skin. “Technology is only as good as the data you put in it. It builds its own biases,” she says. Employee retention Cochrane says there’s growing awareness around the importance of equity, diversity, and inclusion in the professions, including the role EDI plays in employee retention.

It wasn’t until 2008, that the U.S. Department of Transportation adjusted parameters to include women sizes for airbags. P hoto : B enoist /S hutterstock

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Winter 2024/25

Innovation