Cultural Analysis of Women Engineers 2.0

Here I will consider "Women Engineers 2.0: What You'll Need To Thrive In A Male-Dominated Startup" in more detail. The process I will follow will be to preview,  skim for cultural references, skim for cultural values, reread with more direct focus and then to answer some questions about the text.

Jason Pratt. "Boy and Girl Hummel Figurines". 12/25/07 via flickr. CC-A2.0.

Finally, looking back at these passages, freewrite for a moment about the connection between the cultural keywords, the passages that you have listed, and the thesis.  How do these keyword help support the argument that the author is making?  Why might an audience be more likely to support this argument if its is connected to these values?

The cultural references I noticed in this piece all related to the way that women tend to be undervalued or even overlooked entirely in tech, engineering and entrepreneurship. The idea that women don't belong in STEM fields has been around for a while and I think it is entirely a cultural problem. The cultural values that I noticed all came in the advice given by Julie: Strength, Awareness, Flexibility and Positivity. All of these values are big in our culture and I think Julie is doing something big by calling women to harness these values because these are the four traits that women are robbed of many times.

After reading through again with a bit more focus, I think I understand a little bit more how everything in this article is connected. The keywords that I noticed were gender, perspective, mentality, and more. Gender is obviously an important one because we are discussing the gender gap and how gender biases play into entrepreneurship. Perspective was a huge one because (almost) every problem can be solved with a new perspective. For example, in the article Julie reminds us that "a rising tide lifts all boats", which is to say that a good idea is a good idea and everyone will benefit from it, regardless of the mind(s) it came from. 'Mentality' was crucial in this article because women being better or worse than men is all just a mentality, and a change in mentality can bring about the change we need in these organizations. Finally, 'more' was a word that appeared over and over again and I think it shows that everything we need is already in play. If we need more of something, that indicates that we already have some of that and we aren't in an entirely horrible position. All of these key words connect to the thesis that women need to start believing in their own abilities and doing everything they know they can, and men need to support the women in taking on the roles that they're capable of taking on. All of the keywords support the thesis because they affirm that change is possible and we have all the tools we need to make it happen. From here, all we need to do is get it done.