WiM Director Quoted in Financial Post Article About Image of Manufacturing

A long article was published today by the Financial Post: "Conventional image of ‘dirty’ manufacturing scaring away critical talent pool of smart, skilled women."

The piece by Dan Ovsey is definitely worth a read.

Our own WiM director Allison Grealis sets the tone in the opening paragraphs.  "I think the biggest challenge we face is that many women don’t feel that manufacturing is a fit for them, because I don’t think they understand what manufacturing is," she is quoted as saying. "They still, unfortunately, perceive manufacturing as dark and dingy, dirty, dead-end careers, and not a pleasant place to be."

Much of the article's data content won't be a surprise to our readers because we've shared many of the same troubling statistics about women in STEM here.  But the real meat of the piece can be found in the compelling case studies of real women who have made careers in manufacturing.

Read the full article for testimony from Zoe Slumkoski, a young welder with big dreams, Natalie Panek, a rocket scientist who is working on creating the next generation of space robots, and celebrity metal fabricator and reality TV star Jessi Combs.

In the article, Allison says, "If you look at modern manufacturing facilities, they’re high tech, they’re often state-of-the-art operations; they’re clean and very modern. Unfortunately people don’t see today what current manufacturing jobs are like."

Go to the Financial Post to see how Allison, WiM, and others in our sector are fighting negative stereotypes and bringing women to manufacturing today.