International Women's Day Interview - Laura
Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do?
My name is Laura and I am a facade engineer which is a specialism of structural engineering to do with buildings. So I essentially work on the “skin” of the building, the half a meter that goes around it and into the basement as well, walls and roofs and anything that is going to keep the elements off or out. We work closely with architects to bring their vision into reality. Letting them know what is structurally possible and how to achieve it. One of my big projects that people may know is the Burrell Collection, I have been working on it for a really long time and excitingly it is almost finished with reopening scheduled for when I return from Mat Leave!
What got you into what you do?
If we go all the way back to the start, as a child I was fascinated by jigsaw and Duplo and how things get put together, then at school I picked subjects that might lead into something like that. Initially, I studied architecture which was good but it was fairly apparent to me from the beginning that it was not the most supportive career path for a female who may want to have children at one point. It was a very male-dominated industry and there was this joke that Architects who wanted to have kids only had one career option and that was in council/planning applications which I didn’t want to do. So I took a career break when I was supposed to go into placement and then went back and re-trained in engineering. Whilst I was doing that an old friend from high school pointed me in the direction of facade engineering and I’ve never looked back!
Tell us a bit about the gender ratio and what it’s like in engineering?
I think when you start studying architecture, which is a 7-year program, the ratio is really even but then as you get further into it, a lot of women seem to get wise to the fact that it’s not super supportive of those who want to have kids and so very few take it all the way to the end. Whereas with engineering, I think they have about 15-20% females to men in engineering in general but civil engineering, which is what I studied, has the highest rate of female students.
Was there ever a point in your education or career journey where you were made to feel you couldn’t do something because you are a woman?
I definitely remember feeling at high school that my subject choices were questioned because they were typically those that were chosen by boys. I did things like physics and tech, I don’t think it was ever really said that I couldn’t do those things but there were definitely questions of “are you sure?” not just with teachers but with my peer group too. I wonder sometimes if it’s my personality because when I’m faced with barriers telling me that I can’t do things because of my gender - I am like “hold my beer, and watch me” I think that comes from my mum, she works in IT which 30 years ago was a very male-dominated space and she was very much of that attitude, that she wouldn’t be held down and I definitely got some of that from her. I’m not sure if I would have been put off by those questions had I not had that mindset.
Are there barriers that you come across as a woman when you are in those more typically male-dominated spaces?
Yes, for me that’s evident when I am on site. It can be anything from there not being a female toilet on site because they have assumed it won’t be needed. Oftentimes I have to leave the site and go to the site office which does have a female toilet because the document controller is assumed to be female! It didn’t feel too big a deal until I was pregnant and there was a much greater urgency!
Then, there’s no quicker way to feel inferior than when I go to a site and have to put on a huge site jacket and two pairs of socks to be able to fit into their smallest pair of boots. It just makes me feel like I’ve got on my dad's clothes and I’ve come to play dress up, when in reality I am the boss at that moment and would like to be taken seriously. My company actually has their own PPE but we even have issues with that - the site kits for the people who identify as women - the jackets are fitted and they are shorter but they do not have a fleecy inner layer! So there’s a toggle if you want to pinch it in more but there’s no option for warmth! The men's jackets have that fleecy layer! It then means I have to wear a fleece underneath which means my jacket then can’t close properly, it’s already difficult to close because whilst they pinch in your waist, they don’t accommodate for boobs! It’s so problematic.
My boss can just chuck on his site kit and go, I can’t because I need the notice to make sure I have an underlayer prepared that will keep me warm on-site, so it impacts my ability to respond and do my job the way I want and need to.
It’s interesting because this isn’t just my company, we buy this from a worldwide supplier, it comes from a huge catalogue and within it, there is no ladies style jacket that has a fleecy inner layer.
What would you love to say to young women who are feeling a bit lost or unsure of their career path?
“I feel like I have a responsibility to the next generation to normalise the fact that there will be women in senior positions on-site and to show future female engineers the possibilities they have”
I would say don’t worry that you don’t have all the answers right now. Just go with what you enjoy, if that is math, science, French, P.E - whatever- do whatever stokes that fire in you and it might lead to something you never expected. Don’t be afraid of failure, it’s not a failure, it’s just trying things out and on that note- try as much as possible, have fun and do it while you’re young!
If you could speak to the engineering industry as one person, what is the one thing you’d like to see changed to give women equal status?
I’d say stop focusing on the performative stuff. The tick boxes that say we have enough women entering into engineering and start focusing on what is happening on the ground. What is the day to day experience like for women in the actual job roles and how can you make that better? Things like PPE and equal treatment on the day to day and not just making it an attractive subject to study. I think that will have a much bigger impact on the industry as a whole not just for women but for men too.