Towards-a-Gender-Lens-in-Engineering

Toward a Gender Lens in (Civil) Engineering for Cities Tiffany Lam & Ellie Cosgrave t.lam@ucl.ac.uk, e.cosgrave@ucl.ac.uk Science, Technology, Engineering & Public Policy (STEaPP) University College London (UCL) 36-37 Fitzroy Square (2nd Floor) London W1T 6EY Keywords: Gender, Engineering, Infrastructure, Cities, Smart Cities, Sustainability Towards a Gender Lens in (Civil) Engineering for Cities Abstract This paper identifies the absence of a gender lens in engineering education and professional engineering practice as an issue that produces detrimental and disparate outcomes for urban citizens, particularly with respect to mobility As the two male-dominated worlds of digital innovation and infrastructure planning combine in the smart city, the risk of perpetuating and compounding gender blindness becomes increasingly relevant The binary thinking prevalent in both of these industries reflects an implicit androcentric bias that fails to acknowledge and engage with the realities of unequal, gendered experiences of cities In order to overcome this, we must challenge power and knowledge structures that produce and reproduce systemic bias We argue for a transition from the current state of engineering education and professional practice to include a more social justice oriented approach that incorporates a gender lens that values women’s experiences in order to build more inclusive cities Further work is necessary to build a knowledge base to develop an intersectional gender lens that acknowledges how gender intersects with other socially constructed categories of identity (such as race, class, sexuality, etc.) One way to start developing this knowledge base is by examining the lifecycle of an engineer’s academic and professional development as well as the lifecycle of engineering projects We call for further work that can translate theory into practice and codify a gender lens in both engineering education and practice Keywords: Gender, Engineering, Infrastructure, Cities, Smart Cities, Sustainability Table of Contents Abstract Methods (ii) Engineering Paradigms, Cultures and Design Processes Gender Binary and Implicit Androcentric Bias Public and Private Space Technical/Social Dichotomy Engineering Education (ii) Design Outcomes of Engineering Practice 10 Reproducing inequalities 10 Impact of binary thinking on engineering artefacts 14 (iii) Future Outlook, Integrating a Gender Lens 16 In Theory 16 In Practice 17 Challenging power structures 18 Evolving a constructive debate 20 Motivations for pursuing engineering 22 Sustainability codes as an inroad 24 Conclusion and Further Work 25 Introduction From a young age, females are taught to avoid walking on certain streets after certain hours, being alone in certain parts of the city, and dressing a certain way, all of which insinuate that cities are unsafe for women This message is repeatedly reinforced in the media and from family and friends, even if often out of kindness and concern Violence against women, ranging from seemingly benign verbal sexual harassment on city streets to physical acts of violence in the intimacy of the home, constricts female access to, and mobility and freedom in public urban space Yet, when engineers and planners are designing and constructing cities, buildings and other infrastructure, an understanding of this gendered experience is markedly absent Much of the appeal of city living is having access to a diverse range of opportunities, people, events, and activities However, there are gendered differences in the way we experience cities While the everyday sexism that women face in cities: sexual harassment on the street and on public transportation, having to wait longer for the toilet in public restrooms, feeling the need to alter one’s route or modify one’s behaviour or clothing to avoid perceived threats, struggling to board public transportation with a pram and shopping bags may seem innocuous and taken for granted as normal, but they accumulate to enable and reinforce systemic sexism The potential for harassment is exacerbated in a world where smart devices expand the potential for non-consensual photo taking through apps designed for locating and stalking strangers For example, the app “Girls Around Me” scrapes data from social media platforms such as Foursquare and Facebook, allowing users to see pictures of women, their location, and even message them (Cosgrave, 2018) The normalisation of such micro-level instances of sexism lays the foundation for the normalisation of macro-level structural sexism and violence against women Engineers must develop an ability to design for, and take seriously, gendered experience at both the macro and micro level This includes, for example, an ability to critique the number of male versus female toilet cubicles in a given development, as well as an understanding of how variations in street lighting and layouts affect people’s feelings of safety Gendered experiences of the city not currently enter engineering discourse in education or professional practice As a result, engineering artefacts and infrastructure contribute to the reproduction of unequal urban experiences The historic legacy of male dominance in engineering knowledge production and professional practice coupled with the present reality that in the UK 91% of engineering professionals are male (IET skills survey, 2015, p 22) means it is unlikely that the female experience is adequately incorporated into engineering problem structuring and decision-making Our engineering practice is unable to account for the diversity of the populations it is intended to serve Cities must be designed in ways that acknowledge and validate women’s lives and experiences As a sector, we lack the knowledge base and toolbox that can adequately interpret and incorporate an understanding of gendered urban experiences Again, as smart technologies enter the fray, we are seeing smart applications such as Safetipin, which helps to audit public spaces for safety with gendered needs in mind i However, from a built environment perspective, the dearth of attention to and research on gendered perceptions of safety in urban public space in both academia and professional practice is a critical problem This paper aims to begin to fill that void We start from the premise that in order to make change, we must be able to identify the problem; comprehend its nature, magnitude, scope, and impact; and understand how it is reinforced and reproduced In this research we explore and make explicit the ways and the extent to which gender, as a complex category that intersects with other socially constructed categories of identity (such as race, class, gender, sexuality, migrant status, religion, and physical ability/disability), is accounted for in engineering design/thinking processes and how the application of a gender lens could enhance social justice outcomes We aim to challenge professional engineering practice by developing an intersectional gender lens both in theory and in practice, as we believe theory must be codified into engineering education and professional practice in order to be transformative A gender lens is akin to “ putting on spectacles Out of one lens of the spectacles, you see the participation, needs and realities of women Out of the other lens, you see the participation, needs and realities of men Your sight or vision is the combination of what each eye sees” (Gender in Education Network in Asia, 2006, p 3) Dominance functions by remaining invisible and unexamined Central to any feminist analysis is making implicit assumptions explicit, highlighting how they reinforce power dynamics, and challenging them in order to achieve more equitable and socially just outcomes Since the built environment and its form and functions are the result of someone’s conscious intention, infrastructure reflects, reinforces, and reproduces gender and other such power inequalities in society (Ehrnberger et al., 2012, p 85) The literature on engineering and gender emphasises the need to critically examine engineering epistemology, as neither engineering knowledge nor practice occur in a vacuum Macro socioeconomic inequalities get embedded and reproduced, whether advertently or not, in the processes of engineering knowledge production that then translate into unequal raced, classed, gendered, etc outcomes on the ground As such, this work adopts a radical and intersectional feminist perspective on engineering practice that confronts the status quo and demands more emancipatory and equitable alternatives Methods This paper is the first phase of a longer-term project to develop a gender lens that could be applied to different facets of engineering in order to create more inclusive cities We anticipate that a gender lens will not be monolithic and therefore there is no singular gender lens that is uniformly applicable to every stage of engineering Instead, we envision a gender lens “toolbox,” which could be interpreted for different parts of the engineering process in order to respond to specific challenges that arise within certain contexts In order begin to develop a gender lens toolbox, which can support our critique of engineering practice, we have constructed three avenues of investigation that we will explore in this paper (i) ENGINEERING PARADIGMS CULTURES AND DESIGN PROCESSES: How is gender present, or otherwise, in the engineering design processes? For whom, by who, and for what are engineering artefacts and infrastructure designed? To what extent engineers consider gender and other socially constructed categories of identity, i.e., race, sexuality, class, ability/disability, etc., in the process of designing engineering artefacts and infrastructure? (ii) DESIGN OUTCOMES: How engineering artefacts and infrastructures produce disparate gendered outcomes and what are their implications? (iii) FUTURE OUTLOOK, INTEGRATING A GENDER LENS: How could a gender lens be integrated into engineering education and practice in order to enhance equity and social justice outcomes? To address these questions, our data collection consisted of a systematic literature review on each of the above lines of investigation In July 2016 we convened a focus group of fourteen engineering practitioners and academics, feminist activists, and urban planners, in which we presented our initial findings from the literature review and sought insight on how it resonated with their experiences In the subsequent month we followed up and did semi-structured interviews with select focus group participants to further excavate some of the themes that emerged in the focus group This paper presents the key themes raised in our literature review, focus group, and semi-structured interviews It sets the stage for further work on how to develop and incorporate a gender lens in engineering Engineering Paradigms, Cultures and Design Processes Gender Binary and Implicit Androcentric Bias The gender binary, in which the masculine is constructed in opposition to the feminine, is one of many oppositional, either/or binaries endemic in Western philosophy (Grosz 2000, 212) Far from reflecting the nuances and complexities of actual human behaviour, the gender binary hinges upon socially constructed differences between women and men These differences are constructed as mutually exclusive, positioned in a hierarchy, then implicitly gendered where that which is gendered masculine is privileged over that which is gendered feminine The gender binary organises people’s identities, daily lives, and relationships with others politically, socially, economically, and spatially (Law, 1999; Faulkner, 2000, p 783; Ehrnberger et al., 2012, p 87) In engineering, binary thinking is prevalent, too, and manifests as technology-focussed/peoplefocussed, technical/social, rational/emotional, and hard/soft These dualisms are also then positioned in a hierarchy whereby the technical is privileged over the social, a technologyfocus is privileged over a people-focus, the rational is privileged over the emotional, the objective is privileged over the subjective, and the tangible, concrete, and “hard” are privileged over the immaterial, abstract, and “soft.” Once positioned in such a hierarchy, these dualistic categories are then implicitly gendered: The former categories (technology-focussed, technical, rational, hard, etc.) are gendered masculine and presumed superior, while the latter (peoplefocussed, social, emotional, soft, etc.) are gendered feminine and presumed inferior Binary thinking in engineering results in an implicit androcentric bias in engineering knowledge production, skill development, and skill valuation, in which the masculine is privileged at the expense of the feminine (Reimer, 2015) This reflects patriarchal ideology whereby knowledge is produced and reproduced based on the experiences and lives of men and assumed to be universally applicable Not only does this inscribe and normalise an implicit androcentric bias, it also produces gender blindness in engineering Gender and other identity social categories are dismissed as irrelevant At most, they are thought as mere demographic facts or variables The absence of a critical lens on this binary also means that not only are the needs of women dismissed, but so are the broader social impacts of engineering Questions about how accessible engineering infrastructure is to different populations, or whose needs engineering infrastructure actually fulfils, not enter into engineering thinking or discourse Adopting a gender lens, therefore, has positive impacts for a variety of social justice goals by acknowledging and incorporating the perspectives and experiences of a broader, more diverse range of people Public and Private Space Binary thinking is present in urban theory, primarily in the dichotomy between public and private space, and also apparent in mainstream economics in the dichotomy between production and reproduction Private space is the site of home, family, care and (largely unpaid) reproductive labour; public space is the site of work, professionalism and politics, (paid) productive labour Feminist geographers problematise the false and gendered dichotomy between public space and private space, the masculinisation of public space that associates it with men, politics, and production, and the feminisation of private space that associates it with women, consumption, and reproduction (Levy, 2015, p 137) The bifurcation between public and private space is decaying as more women have been entering the formal labour market and participating in public life Moreover, as public urban space increasingly gets privatised, public and private space increasingly blurs This underscores the relevance of asking: For whom, by whom, and for what purposes are engineering knowledge and infrastructure projects designed? For example, are the ways that civil engineers design infrastructure for cities reflective of the changing nature of the labour market and the differential travel patterns this may entail? Technical/Social Dichotomy Engineering is conceptualised as a purely technical discipline, a “hard” science that produces objective, rational knowledge Engineering education and practice discount social information in order to masquerade as value-neutral The presumed separation was a deliberate decision and mechanism by which engineering could establish credibility as a discipline that employs sound methodology and produces legitimate knowledge (Paulitz, 2004, p 20-1) This is paradoxical since if engineering artefacts and infrastructures are to fulfil needs, engineering 14 Impact of binary thinking on engineering artefacts We cannot emphasise enough that the decisions that engineers make and the artefacts and infrastructure they produce are not purely technical and isolated, but rather, they are valueladen with political, ethical content and implications (Chilvers, 2014, p 30) To expound the urban mobility discussion, numerous surveys reflect that quality, safe infrastructure for cycling is an important factor in whether people will cycle, especially for underrepresented groups in cycling, like women, racial and ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities (Pucher et al., 2010; Aldred et al., 2015; Lam, 2015) However, cycling infrastructure can materialise in various ways, therefore conveying various value judgments along with it In a wealthy neighbourhood with mostly middle-class, white professionals, cycling infrastructure could manifest as protected, segregated cycle lanes Meanwhile, in a lowerincome minority neighbourhood, it could manifest as a mere line of white paint right next to the kerb with a painted image of a bicycle This legitimises cycling as a mode of transportation requiring robust infrastructural provision only for a certain elite demographic, thereby visually and spatially reinforcing racism and classism It further suggests that people with lower incomes and/or people of racial and ethnic minority backgrounds not deserve the right to safely cycle This does not have to be the case Engineers must be willing (and able) to reflect on and engage in difficult conversations around the social and political ramifications of their work and prioritise issues of social justice, equity, and inclusion Impact of binary thinking on engineering professionals Engineering firms typically bypass the ‘personal’ even though personal experiences, whether made explicit or not, will always guide one’s decision-making in some way According to 15 Akrich’s I-Methodology, engineers consider themselves and their experiences as representative of potential users and implicitly conceptualise potential users in their image (Oudshoorn et al., 2004, p 41) The prevalence of the I-methodology in engineering is problematic given the lack of diversity (Oudshoorn et al., 2004; Faulkner, 2000; Ehrenberger et al., 2012) Subconsciously or consciously, engineers draw upon their own experiences and design infrastructure for people like themselves Given that most engineers are heterosexual, white, able-bodied, middle-class men, they may often unconsciously design only in their image This results in engineering infrastructures that are conceptualised without consideration of the pluralistic populations they are meant to serve The absence of intentionality to discriminate does not preclude discriminatory impact The homogeneity of engineers produces and reproduces implicit bias and power dynamics that constrain specific user groups, particularly women and racial and ethnic minorities, who are underrepresented in engineering academia and professionalism (Oudshoorn et al., 2004, p 23) The experiences of women and racial and ethnic minorities end up being omitted, more often than not, simply because they are not reflected in the engineering profession Implicit bias is inevitably exclusionary It is critical to identify blind spots and prevent implicit bias so that diminish engineers can holistically and positively impact the communities that they design for The technical/social binary also masculinises the engineering field and reinforces the gendered division of tasks within engineering (Grant and Sandberg, 2015), thus perpetuating and reinforcing the industry’s systemic bias (Faulkner, 2000, p 764-5) Since engineering and technology are associated with machines, problem-solving, and performance, and being “technically competent” is associated with masculinity (Faulkner, 2000; Ehrnberger et al., 2012, p 90), certain types of manual skills that require proficiency with technology and 16 machines, such as construction and software engineering, are implicitly coded as masculine Such control and mastery over artefacts “can be understood as an attempt progressively to erode away uncertainties,” to assert one’s dominance, and are implicitly coded as masculine (Faulkner, 2000, p 781) Future Outlook, Integrating a Gender Lens In Theory It is crucial to break out of dichotomous thinking and validate the diversity of people’s everyday life experiences in order to create more gender equitable and socially just cities We must move beyond the gender binary and binary thinking – Rather than being mutually exclusive, gendered dichotomies “coexist in tension” and “are mutually dependent and interactive activities, perspectives and approaches” (Faulkner, 2000, p 760) Embracing human differences requires unpacking dualistic thinking and recognising that it underpins “an established social order – a hierarchy where certain groups are established as being superior to other groups” (Ehrnberger et al., 2012, p 96) This means casting a critical eye on the assumption that engineering is a technical, “hard,” objective science and allowing room to consider and integrate the whole gamut of human lives and experiences In theory, a gender lens should focus on the dynamics of power, privilege and oppression; provide a dynamic vision for the future that will tangibly impact lives; value ethical behaviour; integrate the personal, the professional, and the political; address and rectify power imbalances; be developed through an inclusive, participatory process; and move towards equity and justice for all people (Hendler, 2005, p 62) Engineering must explicitly engage with how power relations are entrenched in engineering knowledge and practice Only then can infrastructure 17 and civil engineering projects truly have emancipatory and transformative potential in creating more inclusive and socially just cities A gender lens must be necessarily intersectional, acknowledging that socially constructed categories of identity overlap to produce interconnected forms of oppression, i.e., sexism, classism, and racism (Crenshaw, 1989) that function in conjunction as “a network of forces and barriers which are systemically related and which conspire to the immobilisation, reduction, and moulding of women and the lives we live” (Frye, 1983, p 13) Just as our identities are not singular—we are not only our gender, sexuality, race, or class—our experiences of power, privilege, and oppression, too, are multifaceted, context-specific, and impacted by the multiple axes of our identities While certain aspects of our identities may grant us privileges, others may simultaneously marginalise us An intersectional perspective enables us to better understand and unpack these nuances In Practice In order for a theoretical underpinning of a gender lens is to be adopted and embedded into engineering design processes and cultures, it must be developed with practitioners We don’t yet have a clear and practical understanding as to how a gender lens would materially affect the engineering design process Therefore, in order to develop a gender lens that could be meaningfully practiced and embedded in the engineering industry, our focus group participants suggest that we examine engineering lifecycles from two perspectives: 1) The lifecycle of an engineering project (commissioning, supply chain, design, build, maintenance) 2) The lifecycle of the engineer (from one’s decision to study engineering, engineering training, and engineering cultures and practice) 18 The lifecycle of an engineering project and the developmental process of an engineer are mutually reinforcing in perpetuating systemic bias An analysis of the lifecycle of an engineering project that incorporates a gender lens would highlight the different challenges and opportunities for intervention from inception to completion Similarly, an analysis of the educational and professional development of an engineer that incorporates a gender lens would shed insights on how the individual becomes a bearer and practitioner of a particular kind of knowledge that is imbued with implicit value judgments Reviewing both lifecycles in conjunction can solidify how engineering truly is a social process that is produced by and reproduces power dynamics A gender analysis of the lifecycle of engineering projects could illuminate all the ways that gender and other issues around diversity and inclusion are absent in the process by which engineers design and build infrastructure, and what the material impact is in our cities Meanwhile, a gender analysis of the lifecycle of an engineer could show how exclusion is generated in engineering identities and cultures This dual lifecycle analysis could further guide us towards developing and implementing a gender lens in engineering Challenging power structures A key theme emerging from our focus group is the necessity of recognising the power structures in engineering decision-making and the business models that support them In order to radically confront the field of engineering, it is important to examine the economic and financial backdrop within which engineering firms are projects situated The built environment is shaped by financial capital The engineering sector and engineering projects are clientfocused and respond to the demands of private capital, which often requires responding at 19 “lowest cost” to client specifications Most engineering projects, therefore, occur within a context of financial capitalism, increasing privatisation and pressure to maximise profit This warrants critical questioning of standard business models in engineering firms that are premised on the capitalist mandate of infinite growth and accumulation A critique of neoclassical economics and capitalism may be beyond the scope of this research, but it is certainly possible and necessary to inject a gender lens to better understand how the current capitalist system constrains engineers and subsequently identify avenues of resistance to achieve emancipatory alternatives A gender lens in engineering, after all, acknowledges the wider social, cultural, political and economic context within which engineering projects occur One way to identify avenues of resistance is to examine codes of conduct in engineering There are professional codes of conducts that institutions establish, which have some leverage on ethical practice within a capitalist system However, the problem with codes of conduct, as opposed to technical codes, is that they are poorly interpreted for day-to-day decision-making This partially results from the hard/soft binary, whereby codes of conduct and ethics are considered ‘soft’ topics and therefore are treated as secondary to the hard, technical output that engineers are paid to produce To incentivise new ways of doing things, the engineering field could emulate certain aspects of urban place-making In urban place-making, the best designs are likely going to incorporate positive elements for women, such as sufficient public lighting and street visibility to reduce perceptions of danger (Thorpe, email message to authors, 18 August 2016) Public realm improvement projects that include beneficial elements for women, such as ensuring ramps from the road to the pavement, sufficient street lighting, and high visibility, also benefit people with 20 disabilities, the elderly, and children The valuation of gender inclusivity in urban design could be transposed to engineering and engineering projects Power structures are cultural constructs and can therefore be altered by changing culture, for which possibilities exist at many levels (Kelman, email message to authors, 15 August 2016) ii For example, incorporating a gender lens into government tendering processes can increase gender equity in engineering projects Government tenders can explicitly state what is needed in engineering design, meaning that any potential bidders must adhere to those terms of reference Public institutions could require gender sensitive outcomes in tendering processes, such as employing a certain amount of women in the project or ensuring that the completed product adequately enhances women’s perceptions of safety This would incentivise private companies to tailor their bids in a way that could promote more equitable and socially just outcomes (Kelman, email message to authors, 15 August 2016) Evolving a constructive debate In order for engineers to be cognisant of their responsibility and power to increase social justice outcomes for all, they must have the language to question, destabilise, and re-evaluate engineering design thinking and processes (Ehrnberger et al., 2012, p 96) This requires reflection, reflexivity, and critical analysis of hegemonic narratives and normative assumptions within the field Such progressive forms of analysis are contingent upon the development of a new interdisciplinary language that can be understood across multiple sectors What, for example, is the average engineer’s understanding of (and willingness to engage with) terms such as “patriarchal systems of oppression” or “production and reproduction of inequality?” Or, to what extent engineers understand and discuss gendered perceptions of 21 safety and gendered urban mobility when designing streets and transportation infrastructure? In that sense, it is not only the responsibility of the engineer to educate themselves in socially complex theories, but also of feminist theorists and activists to adapt their language and approach to meet the realities of engineering practitioners A common vocabulary is needed to bridge disciplinary divides In the focus group, we discussed the challenges of initiating a constructive dialogue to get beyond the masculinisation of engineering and how to engage people in a way that doesn’t garner defensive and hostile responses Often, there can be a lack of awareness that gender even is an issue to begin with, which would be the first barrier to break through Society does not encourage us to contemplate and challenge our privilege and as a result, most people lack consciousness of it and vocabulary to address it Thinking about and discussing privilege often makes people uncomfortable It is important to balance being provocative enough to initiate and facilitate critical, difficult conversations with being subtle enough so that people not shut down and disengage Another barriers to constructive dialogue about gender and engineering could be people’s failure to make the connection between systemic and structural forces and individual behaviour and socialisation patterns People may struggle to situate themselves as individuals within larger societal systems and structures Sometimes people may also falsely equate gender with women when, in fact, gender is about both women and men Therefore, it is important to be clear that we are problematising masculinity and femininity as social and political constructs, not individual men and women 22 Perhaps a constructive inroad would be framing it less around a lack of consciousness of gender issues, and more of: “…a limited ‘user design specification’ mindset and a project framing and decision-making process that can inadvertently neutralise the possibilities that could be produced from taking an explicit gender lens to conceiving, shaping and delivering engineering projects” (Honeybone, email message to authors, 17 August 2016).iii This suggests that problematising the conceptual approach to professional “best practice” can open up an array of opportunities for engineers to actually influence practice (Honeybone, email message to authors, 17 August 2016) “Best practice” is based on what appears to work well for existing users and gets reproduced and more embedded, focusing on “typical” users But who are these “typical” users? If “typical” infrastructure design has marginalised or restricted access for a particular group, such as people with disabilities, simply replicating “best practice” will continue overlooking their needs This does not necessarily result from intentional exclusion, but rather, a narrow approach to framing and solving problems that gets reproduced—pedagogically, it will be taught as best practice in the classroom, and professionally, it will be replicated in practice—but not examined or challenged Motivations for pursuing engineering Our focus group participants highlighted the relevance of examining people’s motivations for pursuing engineering Often, reasons include wanting money and prestige, to be in a position to tangibly impact change, to prove oneself or a point (‘because I can!’), and innate competiveness (as engineering degrees require high academic performance) To what extent are these qualities gendered? Gendered socialisation, whereby boys are more encouraged to be problem-solvers while girls are more encouraged to be caretakers, along with the lack of engineering role models for girls contribute to the gender gap in engineering education 23 Sometimes people may be attracted to engineering because engineers may perceive themselves as the protagonists in problem-solving In our focus group, participants discussed how if problem-solving is part of the appeal of engineering, then we must interrogate the process by which an engineering problem is constituted The decision of what qualifies as an engineering problem and what doesn’t is political, but engineers are neither encouraged nor trained to think of these decisions as political In practice, engineers may be conflicted between the occupational desire to build and provide a tangible solution as opposed to opportunities to solve problems in a way that is more oriented around social relationships and process Kate Crawford, an engineer and participant in our focus group, elaborates: Another facet of this protagonism is the premise that there is a discoverable and correct (or optimal) solution available to engineers This perhaps means that right at the start of engineering thinking—as opposed to some approaches to architecture or art—mistaken, unintended, unexpected outcomes are not easily accommodated Apparent social and political neutrality also seem to be fundamental to transferring or avoiding risk and in the process what is messy, shared, bespoke and human may be overlooked It is critical not to lose the ‘who’ in focusing on the how/what of the problems – that is why I used the word protagonist because this is a person with motivations/dilemmas/stories and the ‘drama’ around the role of the people and their ideas of themselves are important and overlooked (email message to authors, 23 August 2016) We need to reframe an “engineering response” that reconciles the tension between the feminisation of ‘soft’ aspects of engineering (social, emotional, process-oriented) and the masculinisation of ‘hard’ aspects (technical, rational, rapid action-oriented) in engineering problem structuring and solving The current paradigm can be too narrow, rigid, and standardised, which leaves little opportunity to engage with the complexity and diversity of the human experience 24 Sustainability codes as an inroad A key finding from our focus group discussion is that there needs to be a more explicit link between environmental sustainability and gender equity Gender equity, after all, is one of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals However, we lack a knowledge base on how to operationalise gender equity to achieve sustainability in practice We therefore need to build this knowledge base so that gender equity and sustainable development are not just rhetorical commitments, but tactical outcomes One tangible action could be analysing BREEAM or LEED sustainable building codesiv, which have gained traction in incorporating “soft” issues, such as qualitative experiences of public space, the environment, and social impact, finding aspects where gender implications could be better incorporated: Green building's successful cases built up an argument around a package of features (water, air, solid waste/resources, energy, climate) that often get boiled down to checklists (for better or worse) and I wonder if you will ultimately need to embed the gender lens into a human factors lens that shows measures (like a checklist) and how they can improve things for a range of users, but also highlight the benefits for women (Thorpe, email message to authors, 19 August 2016) Although there is a plethora of teaching and research on low-carbon, sustainable design, there is little knowledge on how a gender lens might manifest Further research could investigate how a gender lens could be better integrated within these significant developments in the sustainability field to incentivise both environmental sustainability and gender equity in engineering practice One important caveat, raised in our focus group, is that one main critique of sustainability codes is that they have become diluted and apolitical because they are treated as a mere tick-theboxes exercise to evidence due diligence, not necessarily critical engagement and commitment 25 to sustainability As a result, they are peripheral, partially due to the hard/soft binary, which renders a “soft” matter like sustainability is less relevant This is detrimental to achieving social justice and environmental sustainability At the same time, strengthening the link between gender equity and environmental sustainability could increase the cost benefit of addressing gender equity and environmental sustainability This could help incentivise gender-sensitive and environmentally sustainable engineering goals and outcomes Conclusion and Further Work In order to translate a gender lens into practice, engineers must be willing (and able) to engage in difficult conversations about power, privilege, implicit bias, and oppression in order to critically investigate how power relations unfold in engineering projects and in public space in general Issues around sexual harassment, abuse, and violence, for example, not sit neatly alongside current engineering language Certainly, issues around urban social justice, equity, and inclusion are broader than the field of engineering itself, but engineers have a role to play and even a responsibility to address these issues and evolve these conversations But how we transition from the current state of engineering to a more forward-thinking, social justiceoriented engineering that incorporates a gender lens? We argue that we need a systemic approach that critically engages with the realities of unequal, gendered access to, mobility in, and experiences of cities Our critique of engineering paradigms, culture, and processes is that binary thinking is prevalent in engineering, which produces oppositional, hierarchical, and gendered categories that privilege the masculine over the feminine This inscribes an implicit androcentric bias that ignores women’s experiences and ignores the realities of how women and men actually behave Rather than solely challenging individual behaviour, we seek to challenge power structures that produce and 26 reproduce systemic bias We need an engineering profession and practice that incorporates women’s experiences, through the development and adoption of a gender lens This gender lens is currently absent, as is understanding of how a gender lens would manifest both in theory and in practice We argue that a gender lens in theory must be intersectional, acknowledging the multiplicity of our identities and how they intersect to produce uneven urban experiences A gender lens in practice must focus on the lifecycle of an engineer as well as the lifecycle of an engineering project One strong direction for further work is embedding gender into globally salient sustainability codes, like BREEAM and LEED, which have already gained traction in incorporating ‘soft’ elements The pressing challenges of rapid urbanisation, crumbling infrastructure, climate change, and gender-based violence worldwide reify the necessity of engineering cities that are equitable and inclusive for all 27 References Aldred R, Woodcock J and Goodman A (2016) Does More Cycling Mean More Diversity in Cycling? 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