Minorities: The woman engineer: Women in engineering are no longer the rare phenomenon of yore, yet they continue to face many challenges at the workplace

It began as an idea discussed in whispers behind closed doors at the Aerospace Corp. Shirley McCarty, a computer systems engineer, and some of her colleagues wanted to start a women's committee. “Most of us were scared,” she recalled. “We wanted to do something about the status of women at our company, but we thought it might jeopardize our careers. I remember telling a friend we might have to leave the company.”