Women Engineers in Turkey

Engineering is a male-dominated profession which is culturally defined as masculine and socially considered a field in which men fit the best. Following this general tendency, women in the engineering field in Turkey are under-represented; however, intriguingly, they have numbered relatively higher percentages in this field than most of the industrialized countries, including those in Western Europe and the USA. This book explores this "anomaly," and analyzes how women engineers in Turkey construct their professional identities in both academic and professional life. One of the major findings of the book is the existing uneven distribution of women in engineering departments in Turkey. Explaining how - in their choices and practices of engineering - women negotiate with the masculine culture of technology and gender discourses of various institutions, such as the state, family and school, this book should be helpful to policy-makers and activists, who seek ways to improve women's participation in science and engineering fields, as well as to scholars and students, who are interested in researching cross-cultural approaches to gender and technology, and gender and science studies.