Women in Engineering, Part III (and films!)

Cherish over at Faraday's Cage is where you put Schroedinger's Cat introduced me to a Hitler parody about academic peer reviews. The clip was interesting enough that afterwards, I went and watched the actual movie, called Downfall (2004). It's always nice to see Germans in WWII movies actually speaking German. It was also a good film to boot. I like foreign language films; it feels exotic, and that in itself makes the movie more interesting to me than it may otherwise if I actually understood the language.

At our satellite office here, I can always count on my colleague Mr. Kosher, a Polish-Israeli-Canadian Jew/Catholic, to recommend a good foreign language film. Early last year, I was engrossed for over a month watching a Polish TV show called Dom (meaning House/Home), a 25 episode mini-series shot over 20 years that depicted WWII Poland and the post-war communist era up to 1980, when the independent trade union Solidarity was allowed to form. The protagonist in the series was a mechanical engineer. A rarity in entertainment. You can watch the whole thing on youtube.

Recently, Mr. Kosher introduced me to a South Korean movie called My Dear Desperado (2010). The entire movie is also available on youtube. This film's numerous turns in themes coupled with a bit of wackiness/comedy/romance was truly enjoyable. It's also a great date movie. Up to now, you might be thinking that this post is all about foreign language films rather than women in engineering. But hold on, I'm getting there. The protagonist in My Dear Desperado is also an engineer, a young woman with a master's degree in IT who left her small seaside town to go into Seoul to work for a big company. Like many of us who's worked in high tech, her company went bankrupt and she fell on hard times. The rest of the movie is about her struggles to find another job.

What's eye opening in this movie is the South Korean interviewing process for entry level engineers. Four people are interviewed simultaneously in front of a panel of judges. In the following clip, everyone has to introduce themselves in English. Have a look, it's quite interesting. Skip to 1:35 for the interview part.



Our main character, Ms. Han, finds it difficult to land a job because of her small town university degree and her meagre three months of work experience. When she finally gets a new interview, she is asked some very pertinent questions, like if she has a boyfriend and when was the last time she dated. The interviewers then ask her to sing and dance. Desperate for a real job, she complies, only to realize half way into the song that the interviewers are simply out to embarrass her for their own amusement. Skip to 6:15 for the interview.



Later on, she took the initiative and went right into the HR office of a company to submit her resume. Although the head of personelle told her they only hire experienced people, another employee subsequently told her that she has a good chance of getting a new entry level job. But only if she first accompanies him to the classiest motel in town. Skip to 2:45 for the scene (ends at 5:35).




Ultimately, after much debacle, she ends up in an interview with a company that appears to know the right questions to ask its candidates. And she gets the job. Skip to 3:00 for the scene.



I won't comment on the harrassment she's received at her job interviews. I don't think for a moment this passes for normal behaviour in South Korea. What I do find surprising is that a woman engineer is being portrayed at all, and as the main character no less. What I liked even further is how the movie deals with her engineering knowledge. It's simply one aspect of her character, but does not solely define her like many scientist/engineer caricatures one finds in TV and film, both male and female. It's a well balanced portrayal of a female engineer where her engineering side is just there, not overdone, but not glossed over either. She has money problems; she has family problems. She has romance problems; she has work problems. Sometimes she's resilient; sometimes she's vulnerable. And oh, by the way, she's a pretty good engineer too. A rare portrayal in the entertainment world. Well done.