23rd June is International Women in Engineering Day #INWED17. The sub-theme of this year's celebration is #MenAsAllies. We've asked 3 men from around the industry to give us their view on the importance of gender diversity.
Our final blog for the day is from Nikos Adamidis of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
I am a member of Women in Nuclear. I am also male. These two facts combined seem to bemuse a number of individuals, who while raising their eyebrows ask me why I care. This is why I care.
I grew up witnessing how society formulated expectations of what individuals could or could not become. Having been brought up in a family that allowed me to choose my future; I realised from a young age that society was highly likely to build expectations that were rather fixed. Unfortunately, those expectations were even more fixed for individuals in certain groups, e.g. individuals of certain age, gender, physical or mental abilities and so on.
My support towards under-represented groups is not a result of an analytical process, trying to identify the costs and benefits of equality, diversity and inclusion. It is an inherent willingness to take action to balance out long-term flaws in society and business. In principle, it is a willingness to do the right thing. Women in Nuclear gave me the platform to do so more systemically and ensure my actions had a tangible impact in a subset of the population.
Following the principle of “marginal gains” we can break down a problem to many small elements. When we incrementally improve these elements, then the accumulated gains become quite significant to the overall improvement of the problem. In simple terms, every little bit counts.
Before I close out this post, I would like to ask you to imagine this. One day someone knocks on your door. You open the door and you see someone holding a very brief checklist. As soon as the person sees you, they spend 5 seconds completing the checklist and conclude that you deserve less than others as you do not fit their criteria. That person’s name is Society and the question is: would you accept their decision or would you take action?