I like to work with some female design engineer too. Because I like to know about how they think about designing, specially mechanical designing.
I'm not a female nor play one on TV, but my firm has 4 technical staff.... me, another male mechanical engineer, a female mechanical engineer, and a female designer. The designer, incidently, served two tours in combat in the US Army and worked in computer testing in Seattle before becoming a designer.
At the University of South Florida, where we are headquartered at, the College of Engineering is only comprised of about 10% female, 5% of which are studying abroad.
I for myself am still studying and during my internships, I've never met a woman who's a mecha engineer. But I'm here and I'm intending to carry on studying mechanics and roam into the seas of design, so you can count me in as well ^_^ Within our class, we're hardly 5 females et 4 of them aren't not intending to carry on in the field. I can understand their decisions: when you've done your career choice without a self-conviction and that afterwards everyone, from professors to classmates, gives you sh!t, you're not that eager to pursue and you may even start to think you're not made for it. My co-worker is a guy and due to his condition, he isn't able to work and he prepares for exams in last minute. Therefore, I perform our all the group work. Guess who ends up having the good mark ? I'm not complaining nor condescending ^^ but this drives other girls crazy and specially when their indignation is faced with sexist remarks. To have more women doing engineering, you've got first to change minds: minds of women who don't think of such career in first case, minds of professors who can be consciously or unconsciously sexist, minds of peers who keep on challenging girls in engineering and finally minds of girls who actually do engineering and aren't motivated enough for it.
In my field (mechanical engineering) I have only worked with a few female engineers. One, who was in her 50s twenty years ago when I knew her, was one of the best engineers I've had the pleasure of working with. Most, however, where when I was working in the military area (as a civil service employee some 30 years ago). This being the government, they were very aggressive about trying to hire women for technical positions. Most of the woman engineers seemed to gravitate towards project management and away from "nuts and bolts" engineering. While sexism and the "old boys club" attitude no doubt exists, I have never seen it... most of the male engineers I've worked with would love to have more women around. In fact, the only one I've ever seen with a gender attitude was a female drafter/designer in a small shop who insisted on raising issues where none existed (she really wasn't very good at her job, and took any criticism as "sexual harrasment".) I think the reason we don't see more women in engineering is a combination of genetics and upbringing. Women naturally don't gravitate towards technical roles, they tend to be wired differently. This is not a criticism, just the way it is. Also girls don't grow up fixing cars and building things; that's partly inclination again, but also the direction society tends to push them.
I have worked with several draughtswomen but only one woman project engineer, thought she was better than she was, aggressive to all us other engineers, complained that she was never given the opportunities that men had, nothing to do with her lack of ability. You could say that she had a balanced personality, she had a big chip on both shoulders.
I am female, have more than 20 years in design, and am a licensed Professional Engineer. When I first got started, there were very few of us indeed, but more and more enter the profession each year!
There are two woman engineering graduate students at the lab where I work, out of maybe 10 students. One was just offered a job at Aerojet (I believe).
I don't think there is any existing Female mech designers.. She is only an urban legend in Mech Designer worlds
