Research Newsletter issue 2 April 2018

WOMEN CHALLENGING MALE
DOMINATED FIELDS
The shortage of women in male perceived
industries in South Africa is still alarming even
though women are working very hard to close the
gap.
Female lectures and academics at WSU are trying
to reverse the trend of male domination in the
industry so as to increase female representation
in the industry.
Nthabiseng Mfabane, a lecturer in Civil Engineering,
Buffalo City Campus said: “There are only two
women in the engineering department out of 12
staff members and it’s not easy with students
because you have to work twice as hard to prove
that you’re as capable as your male counterparts.”
Her female counterpart, Faith Nleya, said that she
has been in the industry for a considerable period
and has never been treated any less because
she is a female. She says she wishes women
would stop undermining their own potential and
challenge themselves.
“Males are still dominant in the field, even in the
classroom you’ll find that out of 40 students in a
class there’s only about 10 females. I attribute this
to how we are socialised in our societies, - that
women have to do social work and take care of
people and leave the hard labour to males.” said
Nleya.
Nosibabalo Phethe, a 2nd year Building student
at the Buffalo City campus, says her love for
building started when she was in grade 10. She
says she has never looked back and one of the
things that has helped her is never identifying
herself by gender, but by her capabilities.
“Being in construction for me is a great challenge.
Yes, I made mistakes before and got judged for
them because I am a woman, but who doesn’t
make mistakes? I firstly had to prove to myself
that I can do this before proving it to the world
because it starts from within and with the
confidence I conquered. As women we need to
change the mentality of thinking that our place
is in the office wearing high heels, we belong
everywhere we want to go to,” said Phethe.
These women shared the sentiment that there is
still a lot that still needs to be done in high schools
to teach female learners about their abilities
and for them to overcome and defy societies’
perceptions and expectations.
-Anita Roji
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