Monday 29 October 2012

Sexist Engineering Memes

So there was an article online about sexist engineering memes. I thought the article was great and it discussed a lot of problems with some of the photos posted on a specific meme page (not mine). One of the very bad photos, which I would never use is where a girl is trying to do a math problem. She is not able to complete the question so instead there's a sentence under the photo that says, "Eff this shit, i'll become a stripper instead."

These are the types of memes that I find distasteful and degrading to women. I do not agree with these types of photos and I believe that women in engineering are just as capable as men who are in engineering. Just because someone is a woman engineer doesn't mean she will under perform compared to her male counter parts.

I guess problems like these are what causes women from not joining engineering. But how do you know what is considered 'going to far' when creating these memes?

Here is the online article written about different types of memes that have been found to be offensive to women:

What do you think of these memes? How do you feel sexist engineering memes affect women in engineering and women who want to go into engineering?

22 comments:

  1. Well, I'm a girl in engineering, and not the stereotypical introverted nerd weirdo either (not that there's anything wrong with those), but rather the cute, outgoing kind. But the "sexist" memes are still fun and frankly generally tend to be kind of true... On average. There are exceptions obviously but not that many.

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    1. Thank you. The humor is for engineers, by engineers, and the joke is more on us, the male engineers, because... well.... you pretty much hit the nail on the head

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    2. Erik said it perfectly. It's not meant to be sexist against women, but more as a self-jab towards male engineers. I have seen similar memes for other careers and they say the same thing, but don't seem to be coming under fire the way these are at the moment.

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    3. Thank you. Ive met some beautifull female engineers, i married one. She finds this stuff funny. She is comfortable with herself and the joking steriotype. The female who wrote this blog has some serious personal problems that she need to work out with herself, and not take it out on us "dorks"...lol

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  2. If you notice, it also makes fun of the engineering male steriotype. its humor, not all engineers are that type. Im not, but it does not offend me. You have to ask yourself why it offends you, and work on that problem. There are many types of people in the world, some find this stuff funny, it is not ment to hurt people. This rant is ment to degrade those individuals who do. Who has the real problem?
    There is thing called freedom of choice, it you dont like it you have the freedom to choose not to look at it.

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    1. It's true, I've seen male stereotypes jokes too. Like the last (and polemic) one, but with a different image (a fatty guy) and some other things on the text saying something like: "fuck this shit, I'll become a pornstar". It's just for fun, there's no need to feel so offended.

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  3. Nate - Engineer in Flesh29 October 2012 at 13:37

    If only you could have stayed off of your feminazi horse a little longer...like forever. Obviously you don't understand how the world works. It takes all sorts to make the world go round right? This doesn't imply that EVERYONE has to like the same exact thing for it to be funny or pertinent or posted. Let's think about this as a business transaction. These memes (the product) are meant to be catered towards a specific genre of people (the customer), and here you are trying to take the product away from the customer because YOU don't like it. Well, I am a male, so I don't need/want/like feminine products, so YOU can't have them either. Fair deal? No, didn't think so. Women are not 'under-represented' in engineering. They are represented just as much as they want to be. Engineering is a special field that not everyone wants to go into...women for some reason or another aren't particularly attracted to it as a major. My guess (mind you I am an engineer not a psycologist) is that engineering is notoriously difficult and non-personal. We sit trapped in our corners working on tough math problems. Women, as a gender/culture/whatever, tend to want interpersonal relationships and contact...Probably why they are 'over-represented' (<-see how I turned that against you?) in fields like nursing and teaching. Keep in mind that is just a guess. See here is the problem though. Y'all feminazi's throw your temper tantrums and have engineering schools eating out of the palm of your hand. You, for being a female, can get a full ride scholarship to be an engineer. JUST FOR BEING A FEMALE. You want equal treatment? Start throwing a fit until you get EQUAL treatment. I don't owe you anything, I shouldn't suffer at YOUR expense. Seeing how we aren't going to get equal treatment on that field, how about you shut up about my funny memes?

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  4. *Sigh* Not all women are offended by this and quite frankly I resent being put into the category of a person with no sense of humour just becuase I happen to be female. If you are going to rant about your feminist propaganda could you at least refrain from behaving like every female shares your closed-minded opinion?

    These memes are funny. Lighten up and get a life.

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  5. I am a male Electrical Engineering student and I have 2 females in my class. That is it. The way that I interpret the memes is that the majority of the engineering students are male. I don't think that they are meant to say that the females in the class are ugly, only that they are few. I do not think that women are dumb or that engineering women are ugly, I know women that are beautiful, smart and engineers.


    I do enjoy the memes though because the average male engineering student is awkward and does not communicate well with women. I also know female engineering students that are awkward and don't communicate well with males. You also need to understand that the average amount of time an Engineering student spends not studying is very close to the amount of time they send sleeping. They are very small numbers.

    most of us are awkward, male and female. Most of us have the social skills of a iron skillet. finally, most of us have no time to do anything about it.

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  6. I'm going to write a blog post about how these memes miss the hot male, socially capable and very popular, athletic engineers.....fyi, im a male, with a sence of humor about myself.

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  7. As a female engineering student, I don't find any of these memes even remotely offensive. Like most memes, these are just playing off stereotypes and they shouldn't be taken to be malicious because that's not how they were intended. The simple fact of the matter is, men dominate the world of engineering (numbers-wise) and I don't see any problem with people making jokes and laughing about it. If anything, most of the engineering memes around the internet are jokes at the expense of male engineers more so than women and you don't see the men up in arms about it. Perhaps the author of this blog is too self-conscious to laugh at herself the way the majority of people (both male and female) seem to be able to. The way I see it, comments can only be demeaning or offensive if you choose take them that way so leave the bra burning back in the 70's and learn to stop taking yourself so seriously.

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  8. University of Manchester mechanical engineering: 5 girls (not rating them but 2 of them look like men) and 115 guys.. Fact, engineering is a no women land. Face it :)

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  9. I'm a girl in my third year of my engineering degree. No, there are not a lot of women present in the program, but that doesn't mean they're any less attractive. I'm entertained by these pictures, not offended. Calm down, or get off the internet because there's a lot worse than this.

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  10. I'm loving the Eng girls who are commenting with a sense of humor! We used to joke about the same stuff (I'm a guy) in front of the few girls we had in college, and most of them took it as funny and non offensive. But there is obviously at least one self obsessive lunatic who takes everything personal and make it her life ambition to get revenge from male engineers :P

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  11. Civil enginerd girl here and I don't find it offensive at all. I embrace the fact that there are few women in the field. I feel like I'm more unique.

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  12. the reason they put so many female in the picture is because they are trying to attract females to the engineering field which is 87 - 89 percent male.

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  13. The memes aren't that bad... but a lot of these comments are pretty offensive.
    "This girls is either PMSing or having her period. Want me to buy you some pads honey? Or perhaps give you a bank card for you to go shopping? Yeah, no? Or you could just stop bitching and take a fucking joke and get back in the kitchen."

    Yeah, I know what you're trying to do. But you fail at being funny.

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  14. Would some people still comment the same way on here if their full name and address were posted alongside with it?
    Didn't think so

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  15. Most of the above comments=the reason why so few women are in engineering.

    just sayin'

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  17. I like your post. It is good to see you verbalize from the heart and clarity on this important subject can be easily observed... Hilarious Fucked Up Memes

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