Ladies Night entices female students to male-heavy careers

McALLEN — Elizabeth Robertson understands why manufacturing, welding or plumbing don’t exactly sound like expected career choices for women.

“Usually they’re pushed to teaching or nursing,” the 28-year-old said. “It’s typical to think of men going out and working their tools.”

A mechanical engineering student, though, Robertson embodied the evolving gender makeup of technology jobs when she attended South Texas College’s Ladies Night on Wednesday.

There, she and other students learned about STC’s technical majors, which are vastly dominated by men.

“This is not a male-exclusive club,” said Mario Reyna, dean of business and technology. “They have an imbalance, so we’re trying to draw women from the community. We still need many more.”

In spring 2010, only 93 women out of 1,074 students began chipping away at the male-dominated department.

Though the Ladies Night enticed female students with makeup giveaways and a fashion show, Richard Salinas, chair of the welding program, said the information provided makes the difference.

“It’s not just a guy thing,” Salinas said. “We want to educate that they shouldn’t be separated. In fact, women actually make better welders.”

He said while men can only distinguish three shades of red, women can detect up to 12, meaning they can more easily estimate the temperature of the metal to better judge how to proceed in their work.

With advantages like that, and a starting wage of nearly $50,000 a year, Salinas said he expected more women welding students once word got out.

Yet he and Roberto Gonzalez, co-chair of the college’s automotive program, acknowledged the Rio Grande Valley possessed a unique disparity in technical job openings for women.

“The problem is the Valley isn’t ready for females,” Gonzalez said. “You still have the Hispanic population encouraging male stereotypes, but women can be more focused and do more than men if given the chance.

“It’ll slowly change.”

Anna Borrego is already turning the tide.

With hopes to finish her engineering studies soon, she said she plans to use her gender in making graphic engineering presentations to businesses starved for innovation.

“More girls should be here,” the 22-year-old said. “If more women like me came in, the new ideas would change everything.

“Men are learning to respect us more,” she added. “Women think differently than men, so who wouldn’t want that?”

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Neal Morton covers education and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 314-0896.