Structural Forum is intended to stimulate thoughtful dialogue and debate among structural engineers and other participants in the design and construction process. Any opinions expressed in Structural Forum are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NCSEA, CASE, SEI, C³Ink, or the STRUCTURE^® magazine Editorial Board.

In my February column, I challenged engineers to think about the culture of structural engineering. The workplace that I described is now one where about half the engineers are women, but the gendered culture of engineering is still not extinct. …

Real boundary living is a refusal of tokenism and absorption, and therefore it is genuinely dangerous.

—Mary Daly

In my first year of engineering work, my boss asked me to write for the company-wide newsletter, addressing this question: How does a woman succeed in a male-dominated field? My response was immediate: The same way as a man! This fiery piece insisted that one can choose to be affected by external pressures or can overcome them, and that women could certainly excel in the field. …