Blogs for Women Engineers: a Multimodal Study

This chapter examines thirty blogs for women engineers from a multimodal perspective, offering new ways of analysing their content and communicative strategies. The qualitative study focuses on how the interplay of different modes such as image, writing, typography and colour can be handled and how interpersonal and ideational realizations are construed. The final aim is to unravel relevant meaning-making practices used in these blogs, which want to achieve different objectives: overcome the limitations women still face in engineering by showcasing opportunities, change the perception of women engineers in society and redress the gender imbalance in engineering companies.

Assessing African American Women Engineers’ Workplace Sentiment within the AI Field

Artificial intelligence (AI) has infiltrated every industry and every aspect of our society. Business leaders have seen the shift AI has created and they are reacting swiftly to stay competitive. They are investing heavily in AI and hiring engineers and other technical professionals to capitalize on AI-based innovations. Engineers are problem solvers, innovators, and at the forefront of AI technologies; their daily jobs require the consumption of an enormous amount of information to solve problems, enhance existing products, or create new products. Engineering positions require extensive interaction with peers, experts, and other experienced engineers in a male-dominated field. Male dominance causes many women engineers to experience more biases and challenges than their male colleagues, especially minority women engineers. As AI infiltrates our society, will the challenges faced by minority women engineers subside or increase and will they participate in and drive innovations using AI? The purpose of this research paper is to assess the workplace sentiment of African American women engineers in the AI field. To assess African American women engineers’ workplace experiences within the AI field, machine learning text analysis was conducted on data extracted from Twitter. The practical implications of this research highlight African American women engineers’ perspectives and experiences, encourages African American women in engineering, and inspires future engineers in AI related careers.

Women Empowerment and Work-Life Balance of Women Engineers in the Malaysian Energy Sector: A Conceptual Framework

Malaysian energy sector is listed as one of the sectors that have lower participation of women. This is due to the problem of attracting and retaining the women workforce within the field. The major reason women leave the energy sector especially in the engineering field, is due to the difficulties in balancing work-life. Women hold dual and triple roles where they are stucked between responsibilities as mother, wife, and daughter as well as responsibilities in the workplace. This situation contributes a great impact on their work-life balance. Empowering women in the sector could help in giving them more control in managing their work and family. Hence, this paper aims to provide an overview on women empowerment and its impact on work-life balance. In addition, this paper proposes a conceptual framework to analyze the level of women empowerment (welfare, access, conscientization, participation and control) and its impact on work-life balance of women engineers in Malaysian energy sector for future study. This paper will contribute to the knowledge on an area that is still relatively uncovered. Which refers to the impact of women empowerment and work-life balance of women engineers in energy sector. It is important for organizations to be aware about the importance of women empowerment and their employees work-life balance. Thus, organizations can take an appropriate intervention in order to empower their women talent and assist them to have better work-life balance.