ANALYSIS AND OPINION WOMEN IN OPTICS


Women as percentage of workers, by years employed


10 15 20 25


“You might find that even the most successful and happy women in your workplace have to deal with frustrating gendered commentary and attitudes”


women’s abilities to advance in their careers just the same. We have robust global data that shows us exactly how much of a pay gap exists and how little representation women have in leadership and executive positions2


. Gender equity


policies are not meant for advancing one group over the other, but to improve fairness by recognising inequities and working to correct them. If you’re a male reading this


article, I’d like you to try a thought experiment. Picture that tomorrow when you arrive at work, all of your colleagues are female. Every meeting you are in, you are the only male (really picture this and consider how it feels!). Every customer visit you make and trade show you attend, you are working entirely with women. When preparing for a trade show, you request a company shirt, and they say that they’ll have to figure something out because all the official work attire they have are women’s blouses. The most common comment you receive is about the fact that you’re a male in the industry. What is your gut reaction to this scenario? Was it negative? Do you feel like an outsider even if you’re just doing your job? Are you constantly aware of your gender as an obvious difference from your co-workers? This is the gender minority experience that many women experience on a daily basis in engineering. Undoubtedly, the working


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environment for women in STEM, in general, has improved over time. Many women in the generation ahead of me can share experiences that would be vastly out of place if they happened today. However, just because one has not personally experienced or observed sexism in the modern workplace, it does not mean that nobody has. I will always recall once in an interview when my interviewer mused out loud that I seemed ‘too pretty of a girl to be an engineer’. Other personal accounts I have been privy to include everything from relatively minor transgressions to significantly more offensive actions and statements. Ask any woman in STEM and I guarantee she has a story to share. The term ‘microaggression’ has been used to describe the type of pervasive comments that are casual or subtle but still offensive. Think of it this way: Inevitably you have a partner,


0 5


24% 21% 19% 18% 17% 17% 13% 10%


1-2 YEARS


3-5 YEARS


6-10 YEARS


11-15 YEARS 16-20 YEARS 21-25 YEARS 26-30 YEARS


MORE THAN 30 YEARS


Graph showing the retention of women in photonics careers, taken from the SPIE 2017 Gender Equity Report. At the earliest career stage, 21 per cent of workers are women, but participation declines to 10 per cent for workers with 30-plus years of employment The International Society for Optics and Photonics, SPIE


co-worker, or friend that has an annoying habit. Maybe their habit isn’t frustrating when it happens the first few times, but after many, many repetitions of the same action you feel ready to snap. The habit may seem minor to someone who’s only seen it once or twice, but it becomes intolerable to the person who experiences it constantly. My point is, while some statements rooted in sexism may have been ‘meant as a joke’, or seem minor to an outside observer, it is important to realise that women receive these kinds of comments regularly, and they build up over time.


The SPIE Global Salary Salary by gender and years employed


Women Men


$120,000 $100,000 $80,000 $60,000 $40,000 $20,000 Survey3 shows consistently


that people are happy in their workplaces within the optics and photonics industry, but this does not mean we are all satisfied with the gender inequities that are so consistently pervasive. I encourage you to start a conversation with some of your female co-workers or colleagues in the industry. Take into account that women don’t often go around to their colleagues expressing every time someone was dismissive of them in a meeting or someone makes a sexist remark. If you don’t feel as though you’ve experienced sexism, or think that the women you interact with don’t


g


1-2 YEARS


3-5 YEARS


6-10 YEARS


11-15 YEARS


16-20 YEARS


21-25 YEARS


26-30 YEARS


MORE THAN 30 YEARS


Bar chart of mean salaries by gender and years employed, taken from SPIE 2017 Optics & Photonics Global Salary Report. Women earn less than men overall, with respective median salaries of $50,500 and $68,953. At early career stages, earnings are similar for both genders, but the gap grows with increasing years on the job. The International Society for Optics and Photonics, SPIE


December 2017/January 2018 Electro Optics 29


$40,311 $40,311 $41,000 $46,675 $46,536 $54,101 $56,276 $60,000 $83,800 $68,814 $93,865 $70,007 $103,920 $68,953 $81,572 $117,189


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