However in Europe I've come across something different. I have not found a single female whose education is engineering. There are scientists and women who work in a technical field part time, but not an engineer. This became grossly apparent this week.
It started with a road trip to Brahmen, Germany and then on to Odense, Denmark to visit the engineers designing different pieces of Medical Operations Hardware for some hands on training. Now most people would see a road trip as a great time to get to know your collegues and enjoy the travel. I certainly did and I definitely learned about my fellow travellers. There were 4 guys and me. You can immediately tell that the topics of conversation would naturally lean toward typical male interests. That's no problem for me, I too have an interest in cars and gadgets and good music. What I can't do is talk about a navi as if she is a high maintenance, temprimental girl friend. I just don't have experience in that field.
After a 4 hour drive we made it to Brahmen and that's where it really hit me. We walk into a room of 12 people. They are all middle aged men in dark gray shirts and suits hovering over schematics. I immediately knew I would not be fitting a mold wearing my bright pink sweater. So our Cologne group sits down and we begin to introduce ourselves. Each person from Brahmen talks about how they are proud to be the mechanical engineer on the project or the systems specialist. When it gets to my turn I calmly state that I am a Biomedical Engineer from NASA providing expertise to ESA Medical Operations for 3 months. They all politely nodded and moved to the next person. It wasn't until after lunch when we got into the meat of their presentation did I find something worthwhile enough to speak up and ask a question about why they designed a certain part of the device the way they did given the history of medical operations hardware and the affects of zero-g on certain devices. There was silence. I think it was then they realized I wasn't a pretty face there to take notes/minutes for them, but to fully partake in a technical discussion. They huddled in their corner for a minute and the best response they could provide was it met the requirement of the principal investigator at the time. From then on they began to look at me whenever a question concerning NASA came up. Sometimes it only takes a little to turn someone's opinion around. Or so I thought.We spent the rest of the afternoon getting familiar with the hardware. I was taking pictures and taking notes while the guys ran to try and pull it apart. Then one member of the Brahmen group asked if I wanted him to help me get in there so I could have a look. Now I'm sure he was trying to be polite and curteous to a visitor, but the way he said it also made me believe that he thought I wasn't in there because I wasn't strong enough to speak for myself. It's always a fine line. I politely declined until I saw my opportunity to take the raines and dabble myself for a while.
With our discussions in Brahmen finsihed it was on to Odense. The van was really starting to stink by then with the guys just throwing their food wrappers and other garbage around like they lived in a garbage bin. The site in Odense was much smaller than the one in Brahmen. It was housed inside a renovated barn. Very charming on the outside and very modern on the inside. We sat down at a table in their main lab to have our discussions. Again the same thing happened. I wasn't even looked at until I was able to make a comment and it was as if I had magically appeared in the room for the first time to them.
However, you could tell that the team in Odense had built Medical Operations Hardware before. They already had a grasp on how it would be used and what designs work best in zero gravity. They certainly had a leg up on the Brahmen group in that respect. My hope is that pratical experience gains respect no matter what form it comes in.
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