Back around 1990, women signing up to be Engineers was a political statement.  Because of Polytechnique.  Because of the Fourteen.  It felt like a surge at the time, but maybe it was just Engineering-inclined students doing what they would have done anyway, only putting a political sheen on the choice.  Regardless, if you’d told anyone in the early 90s if enrolments in Engineering faculties would still be run running 4- or 5-to-1 male to female thirty years in the future, they’d have thought you were wrong.  No we would make significant progress.  And it wouldn’t take thirty years, no sir.

Figure 1 shows we failed.

Figure 1: Enrolment by Gender in Engineering Programs at the University and College levels from 1992-93 to 2020-21.

It’s pathetic, frankly.  And disrespectful to the memories of the fourteen.  We all need to do better.

RIP

Geneviève Bergeron

Hélène Colgan

Nathalie Croteau

Barbara Daigneault

Anne-Marie Edward

Maud Haviernick

Maryse Laganière

Maryse Leclair

Anne-Marie Lemay

Sonia Pelletier

Michèle Richard

Annie St-Arneault

Annie Turcotte

Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz