A GROUP of women singing in the choir for York’s suffragette play marked Women in Engineering Day and are trying to encourage more women into engineering jobs.
Jenny Cooke is civil engineer who works for Network Rail looking after embankments and cutting slopes, and is also part of a group called Women in Rail Yorkshire.
On Friday - International Women in Engineering Day - Jenny and her colleagues put on an event outside the Minster to promote diversity in engineering, a cause which they said means a lot to them.
Jenny, who is also taking part in the Theatre Royal’s play about the York suffragettes, said: “I’ve been really inspired by singing in Everything is Possible, especially the stories of women who fought for the vote because they wanted to achieve fair pay and good work.
“Engineering is well paid, rewarding and really satisfying because you can see how your work makes a difference to everyone’s lives. So why in 2017 do women make up only two per cent of UK apprentices in construction and 93 per cent in hairdressing and childcare? This needs to change - the sooner the better.”
Two of Jenny’s colleagues at Network Rail - Rachael Alderman and Kerry Taylor - are also performing the Everything is Possible, and they spoke of the challenges and rewards that make their jobs worthwhile.
Rachael said she learns something new everyday from her engineering colleagues, and loves being part of a a huge industry that “keeps the country moving.”
Kerry said: “My job involves working directly with train companies like TransPennine Express to plan how we can improve services.
“There’s a lot of negotiation and hard thinking between my team and engineering projects to make it possible to run longer trains or change timings while maintaining a reliable service.
“We also have to work out when we can do the engineering work so that we cause as little disruption as possible while we’re improving the railway.”
The UK falls behind other countries in the number of women going into engineering. Gema Garcia, a graduate civil engineer in York-based rail contractors Jacobs, said women had made up 40 per cent of her classmates on an engineering course in Spain, and she had been shocked to see how few women work in engineering in the UK.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here