Motivated by the attempt to increase the participation of women in the STEM areas and for a greater presence of females in leadership roles, the PES SB Chapter in partnership with the WIE Affinity Group, both from IEEE UFF, promoted in December 2020, the WiP (Women in Power) event. The event offered a series of talks on Gender Diversity in the Workplace, and the main speakers were members of Women of Energy, a project developed by the electric generation and distribution company, ENEL.


Post promoting the event on social networks

The talks were held virtually and streamed on Youtube, due to the imposed restrictions because of COVID–2019 pandemic, lasting about 1 hour and 40 minutes. With 40 subscriptions for live streaming, nowadays the content is still available at the IEEE UFF channel on Youtube, reaching 170 views. Each of the speakers worked on Staff Recruitment, Network Engineering, Operations, and Maintenance, respectively, at ENEL enterprise.


Screenshot of the website of the project Women of Energy

Throughout the event, many relevant themes were discussed, such as how women deal with double or triple work days [1]  becoming overwhelmed with domestic tasks. They also presented data about lower representations in some fields. They conducted research and concluded that companies with higher gender diversity earn greater profits. Finally, the guests discussed the challenges of positioning themselves in work environments mainly masculine as in electric engineering, and shared their experiences about occupying these fields, encouraging female leadership.


Screenshot of the invited guests during the live streaming on Youtube

The event addressed these subjects in order to show that the presence of women in the STEM areas of study is still low, raise awareness about the need for greater representation, and stimulate the admission and permanence of women in these areas. Moreover, there were positive comments and feedback during and after the streaming. As a result, a legacy of this event is the understanding that we must follow working hard for gender diversity and in spite of all difficulties, it is necessary and possible to improve women’s representation in all areas.

Thais Cardoso de Oliveira
PES IEEE UFF Student Branch Project Manager