What does an institution that honours differences look like? What does it look like to not just make shallow blanket statements of desired change or welcoming a specific group into a space, but to take action to create systemic change?
Too many times people throw in the flag, deeming something incorrigible, when really not enough effort was made by those who have the power to make a change in the space.
I want to bring forward the topics of patriarchal sexism and gender disparity in the Engineering space and, specifically, how it relates to Camosun College. As someone who is AFAB in the engineering program, I have personally experienced this and listened to what other students have shared with me.
In the Camosun Technology wing, there are photos of past graduating Engineering classes. You’d be correct in guessing that, due to history’s blatant sexism, there are approximately two or three female-presenting people for every 30 or so male-presenting people.
However, I think you’d be shocked to know that, from my experience, these numbers have not drastically changed.
There seems to be still less than a handful of women and gender-diverse people in each classroom of male-presenting people. It leaves me to question how Engineering studies could still have such a drastic imbalance in gender and what actions are being taken at a systemic level to change this.
Did you know that there are free menstruation products at many of the buildings at the Interurban campus, but not in the Centre for Business and Access, the John Drysdale Building, or the Technologies Building? Why is it that the three buildings with areas of study that historically have less women, do not also provide free menstruation products, a basic human right?
When I look at the future of the field, I would love it be supportive and empowering of the physical realities that having a womb has on one’s body and advocating that this isn’t a detriment to one’s career.
The whole human race exists because people with wombs have grown and birthed it; this should be revered as brilliant and supported. This could look like one or two paid days off monthly for menstruating individuals in the workplace, along with online lectures and test accommodations in educational institutions. These concepts could seem radical only because damaging patriarchal ideologies are present in the collective psyche. Many cis males are not even aware these idelogies exist due to the lack of AFAB people in these spaces, let alone those who feel safe enough to address them.