Gwynne Shotwell reaches out to STEM Women

On a related note is the commentary on the SpaceX asking why were so few women in the photo? Gwynne Shotwell and SpaceX has put major effort to reach out to women and minorities. I swear, I thought I saw maybe a year or over six months ago an article on SpaceX how they have over a thousand women engineers, and it included really large photo of a crowd of women and their female director with a capsule in the background. The were excited about the falcon heavy. I don't get it.... I can't find it, anywhere.

I found this piece from spring of last year: ‘Shotwell shared a quote from former U.S. representative Bella Abzug, which stated, “Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel.” For Shotwell, Abzug’s words still ring true decades later.’ as quoted from the 33rd Space Symposium 2017. http://www.satellitetoday.com/launch/2017/04/06/gwynne-shotwell-future-women-spacex-space-industry/

In a recent piece, 'She strongly believes you should not have to downplay your gender to thrive in male-dominated industries.' https://yourstory.com/2018/01/lessons-from-the-life-of-gwynne-shotwell/

So here's video footage from Gwynne speaking to womens groups and other STEM groups, and universities:
Women in Technology International Conference 2014: https://vimeo.com/214686174
Makers Conference : https://www.makers.com/profiles/591f25066c3f64632d4fb808
Society of Women Engineers 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ivIh_x0KoA
Women 2.0 : http://www.women2.com/2014/02/20/gwynne-shotwell/
Engineering America: Gwynne Shotwell at TEDxChapmanU 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THQPNDNulVc
SpaceX | TAMEST 2018 Annual Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjTHJzWPTnU
Navigate the Atlantic Tech Conference 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoCDLUHb0y4
http://www.thespaceshow.com/guest/gwynne-shotwell, 2017, 2014, 2012, …
MIT 2017: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/72vluq/gwynne_shotwell_speaking_at_mit_road_to_mars/
Stanford 2017 : https://mainenginecutoff.com/blog/2017/10/shotwell-at-stanford
National Space Counsel meeting 2017 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYH_UiDlDEM

And there’s tons more coverage of in Business media channels, Businessinsider, Forbes, etc, featuring Gwynne and other SpaceX engineers, like Joy Dunn http://www.businessinsider.com/most-powerful-female-engineers-of-2017-2017-2

And they do reach out at local events: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/closing-the-gender-gap-in-the-tech-industry-tickets-39244291733#

Does the media not cover women in #STEM the same way we cover men in #STEM? Is that why women don't think of places like SpaceX as a place they want to work at? Gwynne is the highest person payed at SpaceX. SpaceX is rumored to have about 14% women in #STEM. If that is true, that is low among tech, but I'm not sure if that's low among aerospace. I think the risk of publicly having your rockets blow up as was common in the early years deterred many women. SpaceX was known to pay all employees slightly below average. Given the effort, risk and comparison compensation, I don’t feel that SpaceX is denying women. To support the contrary, even meeting random SpaceX employees, a SIGGRAPH conference speaker, was incredibly nice and encouraging and supportive of advancing women and minorities in #STEM fields. I was inspired when I heard the WiTI talk by Shotwell back in 2014. I would have joined then if I wasn’t doing my startup.

14% if true, is low. If their numbers aren't an equal percentage of qualified #STEM women as to the qualified #STEM workforce, now that they are more established, I hope they will continue to reach out, support groups that actively work at creating a more qualified #STEM women, promote, and increase hiring and retaining #STEM women. Given their previous history, I'm sure this is already in the works.

Yes, I’m deeply frustrated about inequality for minorities and women specially in a field that I dearly love, physical sciences. I’ve heard so much bullshit about feminism this and feminism that from non #STEM people, it makes my head want to explode. Change will improve only so long as we fairly call out those who are unjust, not just aren't photogenic.

Change accelerates when people like the girl in Happyrobot: http://www.veryhappyrobot.com/my-blog/gwynne-shotwell.html blogs… Or when parents encourage all their children to be engineers, or scientists, or even mathematicians.

Indeed, lets work together and all do better at promoting women and minorities among #STEM fields.