talk me down off the ledge, please

[shootingstar]

I think there is a bit of difference knowing a group of engineers /working in an engineering environment vs. knowing personally engineers -- my dearie is one (civil) and also has his MBA so his roles moved from engineering to management. Plus I have a brother-in-law who has a PhD in engineering and teaches several courses at an Ontario university, plus is associate chair for his faculty, etc. Both of these guys enjoy art, architecture and literature (alot of civil/structural engineers are wannabe architects but just couldn't master artistic side properly. It's an inside joke within these engineering disciplines.). Some play musical instruments, not all engineers are dolts.

I worked on a major construction engineering project where my impressions with pics are here . I am not an engineer but had jobs working in engineering organizations. There is a real distinctly "male" ambiance at a construction site...even if most of the guys are nice/polite. We had very few female engineers (less than 10%) and none of them were in supervisory roles. In such work environments, one doesn't feel like wearing a dress or skirt often. I got tired of having a thin film of construction dust on my dress pants...

For a female engineer in such environments, better to look pragmatic rather than overly fragile looking, or too frou-frou looking if you want the guys to take you seriously. There similarities to cycling world: it's how you act, perform and speak, never mind the grey hair, lines...