Interview with Helen Zhao

1st PART: Woman’s history comprehension/understanding

• Can you present yourself in a few words and explain us what is your job/responsibilities?

My name is Helen Zhao. I’ve been working for over 10 years. I joined St Gobain 5 years ago. At first I was in the process department, I was working on new products development, new applications, I was making samples, design the process and how to make the product. Now I do process improvements, I look at the efficiency, find solutions when the quality is not good, tell the workers how to do, make documents so that the operator can do it. I also have to do training for the workers if they can’t do it properly and train the new guys. I’m also doing technical support for the other departments, if they want to know what are the characteristics of our materials, their applications, their performances... In this factory we do new products. We analysis our ability to do new products, do we have the machines and the materials to do this new product? and tell the cost of it. If the company agrees with the cost I make the sample and design how to make it, every step, and imagine the quality control. After the technicians do the performance test and see the differences with concurrence. If the clients are interested, we send it to mass production. Our abrasives are used for construction materials such as brick, floors, asphalt, marble...

• How did you come to engineering and sciences?

In your childhood you don’t know what you want to do. I wanted to do some technical things, solve problems, use my brain to find solutions. My major is material sciences and technology. It focus on the metal materials, analyze their characteristics, how to make a shape, how to make a precise design. We were not a lot of girls, you know engineering is mostly for men, girls are teacher, or they work in finance, in HR. But me I’m not so tender, I want to do more challenge things, I’m closer to the boys in my opinions. And it’s good because my class mates and now the people I’m working with are mostly boys! In my major there was 7 girls and 32 boys. My parents let me select what I was interested in, they would accept  any decision for my studies , because everybody has his own opinion, they could advice me on what to do but they don’t really know where I would success, it depends on you, if you are interested in something, you will be excellent in this area.
Girls were not necessarily working more than boys at school, it depends on yourself, if you want to be the best. It’s the same for the boys, but girls we marry, we have a child and, unlike boys, we don’t have all our time to do our work.

• Did you have to face any difficulty as a woman in your studies/in your job? Or do you think being  a women facilitated it?

I had to strengthen my speech a bit as a woman working with men. But you know for men it’s difficult too to work with others, we have different opinions, different backgrounds... As a woman, I need more to talk with them, to know what they are thinking, to know what they want to do and how they are used to do the things and finally I can give them my opinion about how they can improve themselves, it’s not easy!
In China, for an engineer job, it’s easier to find a job if you are a boy. I think it’s because of the traditional opinions, people think that women should stay at home to take care of their family, of their children. Chinese people opinion change step by step. In big cities like Shanghai, because it’s very open, I think it’s easier, but not so easy compared to your countries. Now it’s better, to do much better you should put all your energy to show to the men that you are not worst than boys, you must prove this, you must study harder, work more.  So for my job I don’t need to be strong physically, but I need to be strong in my mind!

• How do you conciliate professional and personal life?

I’m single. Sure I don’t have a child, in China you have to be married before or you will have a lot of pression from your family if you are not. I don’t think it will be complicated to conciliate my job and my child if I have one, if I can solve very complicated problems here, it won’t be complicated for me to manage that! If I have a husband and a child, I want my husband to take care of my child too, to share the responsibility. Another thing is that it would have been complicated if I have had a child at the beginning of that job, but after all those years, I know how to manage my job, how to solve the problems, and my efficiency is good.

• Could you tell us professional realizations you are proud of?

When I design a new process for a new product, I’m proud! I did that many times for brazing products. You know when we use new machines and do new products, we don’t have any experience, so the product quality can be poor, I make a lot of trials and find improvements. This is wonderful and I’m very proud of it!

• What is your next challenge ?

We have a target for each year, so I want to get this target! I need to find which product needs to be improved, which one needs to be developed, be sure of the quality, find how to improve the efficiency. And it’s also very important to teach our workers to make it real!

•  Why did you choose Saint Gobain ?

Because it’s very famous! For the glass and for a lot of other products. It has a long history and a very good culture. Here I can have a good personal development, you have the opportinity to acquire a lot of knowledge, there is a lot of trainings.
 

2nd PART:  General debate on woman engineer: differences and new things a woman can bring in a male team

• Do you think men and women work differently? Could you give us concrete examples (personal works, project works)?

I think the women are very careful, they take care about details and the opportunity of making mistakes is very low.  Men they make good strategies. But it also depends on your job and your experience. But women, after some training, they can do as the men.  
In China if you have to say something to a girl you should speak really carefully, and if you have to say something to a boy, you should too because you know in the families here there is only one child, if you are angry both won’t feel satisfied. You have to take care of the way you tell the things, you have to respect the persons. I think it’s due to the fact that we have only one child, when there are several children in a family after the adults are used to be with other people, you don’t only think about you. Imagine in Chinese family, you have your 2 parents and 4 grand parents who look after you, you are the top 1 all the time! Now in China we have this problem: team work is very difficult, you have to accept others opinions, and we are not used to that in our education. We are also not used to share, and in the plant it’s an important point in our job, we have to share the informations and work together.   
I don’t think that women are better in communication than men, both at the beginning we don’t know how to do, after some years you know how to do that, I think it depends on your experience.

• Do you think that a mixed team is helpful for working atmosphere and/or is linked to team performance?

I’m managing 3 engineers, 2 boys and 1 girl. I think that the mix is good because different people have different ideas and different advantages, it helps to solve problems, if everyone has the same opinion, you can’t solve the problem! Honestly, I don’t care if they are boys or girls, if they can do team work and if they do a good job. But I think it’s important to have girls in the factory because sometimes there are conflicts and if there is one girl it helps boys to communicate.
I think the work is better if there is boys and girls, we have different skills, if you only talk to males or only to females, you will find it very boring! And the difference is interesting!  



3rd PART:  Vidéo


• Short representation

My name is Helen, I work in Saint Gobain abrasive China. I’ve been working here for 5 years. I work in process department, it’s very nice for me.

• Which advice would you give to any young women who hesitate to start engineering studies?

Please select what you like! If you like it, please love it! Put your interest and your hopes in it!
• What has been your biggest difficulty as a women engineer?
I think that the difficulty is to work with the others, communication, team work...
• What has been your best satisfaction as a women engineer?
To solve problems, develop and manufacture new products and have my contribution in the company.
• What is your next challenge?
To manage well with my CP process department and improve our work, to do the right choices for my career!

Interview with Wen Wen (14/02/2012)

1st PART: Woman’s history comprehension/understanding

•     Can you present yourself in a few words and explain us what is your job/responsibilities?

My name is Wen Wen, I joined the company in March 2000, 11 years ago. I’m doing quality control in the team of Zhao Xiao.

•     How did you came to engineering and sciences?

Actually my major is not chemical but pharmaceutical. My mother is a nurse so I personally have been influenced by my mother and that’s why I choose pharmaceutical as my major.  I wanted to work at the hospital to provide medicines for the patients. After graduation I realized that it was difficult to find a job at the hospital, so I applied to non hospital organizations. Fortunately I was hired by Tipco, chemistry is more or less related to my major.

•     What do you like in this company?

I like team work, here there is a real team work culture. An other reason is that we have very good relations between the staff. Finally, I learn a lot here. When I joined this company I was trained for 2 weeks by a specialist group,  in the head office of Bangkok. We learn every day in our work and sometimes we have the opportunity to go to technical conferences (Shanghai...)

•     Did you have to face any difficulty as a woman in your studies/in your job? Or do you think being  a women facilitated it?

I did’nt encounter any difficulties during my studies. We where as many girls as boys in pharmacy. In that field there is sometimes more women than men.

•     What are the specific qualities required by your job?

I think responsibility, motivation and good mood are important to do this job well.

•     What are your everyday motivations?

Family responsibility is the biggest motivation.

•     Did you had any experience of mobility?

No, I’ve always been here! Except for seminars.

•     How do you conciliate professional and personal life?

I never felt that there was any contradiction between my job and my family life. I have a 16 month baby, my husband also works in this city. My mother takes care of my baby during the day.

•     Could you tell us professional realizations you are proud of?

I have many satisfactions in my job. A few years ago we did many experimentations in the lab and on the road and we succeeded in developing a new product, we felt very proud. In fact every time that we have successful results in our testings, I’m proud.

•     What is your next challenge (professionally/in your association)?

I believe in this business. This industry will keep on developing new products and new technologies. My challenge is to keep up learning, watch the market and catch new technologies.

2nd PART:  General debate on woman engineer: differences and new things a woman can bring in a male team

•     Do you think men and women work differently? Could you give us concrete examples (personal works, project works)?

In this industry there are more men but more and more women are joining this field. I don’t see any obstacle for a woman to do my job.  We have many procedures, if one test has to be done in this period of time then a man or a woman would do it in this period. In my job I have no chances to see differences in the way men and women are organized  because we all follow a strong procedure. I think that the way of thinking is maybe different. Men would like to go to the depth of any subject. They are normally better than women in analytical thinking. Women have a narrow view.  Men are more realistic, female are better in theoretical analysis.

•     Do you think that a mixed team is helpful for working atmosphere and/or is linked to team performance?

For sure, it’s better to have diversity. We have a Chinese expression which says  “you will never be tired if you work in a diversified team”. If a women work with boys, she will be more happy and more motivated. 

3rd PART:  Vidéo

•     Short representation

Hello everybody, my name is Wen Wen, I joined Tipco asphalt since 2000. OU lab department has really good team work. We always do our best to solve problems. And we will always be proud and happy for success or whatever we achieve.

•     Which advice would you give to any young women who hesitate to start engineering studies?

Personally, I think if you study hard enough during your university or High school education, that will pay, it will give you very good conditions for your future job.

•     What has been your biggest satisfaction as a women engineer?

To live is to learn, so we always keep learning something new.

•     What has been your biggest difficulty as a women engineer?

It’s for sure that for whatever job, we will always meet some kinds of problems or difficulties. Such kinds of difficulties we don’t need to worry too much about since if we are determined to try our best to solve it, the final job will be a success.

Interview with Zhao Xiao (14/02/2012)

1st PART: Woman’s history comprehension/understanding

• Can you present yourself in a few words and explain us what is your job/responsibilities?

My name is Zhao Xiao. Actually I have joined this company for 10 years and this is my second job. Before I joined Tipco Asphalt, I also worked as a test woman in another company also related to chemical engineering because my major is chemical engineering. When I joined Tipco I had a technician work, I was a tester lady, I started with a very lower technic job, and I have been promoted after to quality control. Now I’m managing 4 people. I took the position of quality control of this plant more than 5 years ago.

•     How did you come to engineering and sciences?

Actually China is very different from other countries. At around 15 years old, here the students have to decide which way they should go, it’s mainly based on how were they improved already in different subjects. If you are better than other students in technical subjects, teacher will advice you to choose a technical field for your studies. It’s more or less based on their previous school results. Otherwise maybe some of them in their heart they would go to the opposite way, but they would not be able to pass the examination to enter the university. 

•     Why did you choose Tipco Asphalt?

When I applied for this job, first it’s because it was more or less related to my major in chemical engineering. After, as my friends work for similar plants or similar companies, I knew from them what the job would be like.

•     Did you have to face any difficulty as a woman in your studies/in your job? Or do you think being  a women facilitated it?

Actually yes. In general in all the chemical field of studies, the number of men is more higher than women. In my major there was 30% of women, this was not bad, it’s because we after go to testing jobs and it’s a laboratory job. My parents were supportive with the studies I choose, even if they were not in engineering field, my school was in my city but as it was far from the school, I was living in the campus. Studies are more and more expensive in China, 10 years ago, the universities didn’t charge for the studies, but now it’s the double each year. But we have more and more universities, and to enter a university it’s more and mor hard. It is not easy to find a job in my field but I was lucky, I did not had any difficulty.

•     What are the specific qualities required by your job?

The essencial for the people who do this job is to have some ideas about chemical industry. As a manager of this department, I should know really well how to asign job to my supportives. Another important thing for me is to be able to communicate well with other departments in order to get the best support from them, like production department, sales department, because mostly we need to know the feedback of our costumers, so we need to coordinate with the sales very frequently, and also with the production, we need to know when they will start to produce in order to organise testings. 

•     What are your everyday motivations?

First: the working environment, it’s a good motivation! Second: doing what I’m interested in. Third: this job is stable, so good for my family.

•     Did you have any experiences of mobility?

A part of tourism, no.

•     How do you conciliate professional and personal life?

I think there is no contradiction between the job, the professional development and the family life. Sometimes, because of your job, you have to reduce your time with your family, but in that case, the family can understand and we can find solutions. But to me one of the major reason to stay so long in this company is because this job offers me the perfect opportunity to conciliate the needs of my family and of my personal professional development. I have a son of 10 years old. My husband is engineer too, we were classmates. He works with an other company but is also in charge of quality control, so we have a very similar job. I take care of my son more than my husband, this is the responsibility of the mother.

•     Could you tell us professional realizations you are proud of?

In many occasions, I feel really proud. When we encounter any problem in the production, when we have quality problem, we have to do analysis and find the cause of the problem, when I can find a solution that makes me really proud. I’m also proud when I find a new formulation, then I create a new product. Here in this plant we try to be able to produce a new product, the PMA (Polymer Modified Asphalt), our customer needs it but the head office of Colas doesn’t know it. So we have to find ourselves how to produce it.



2nd PART:  General debate on woman engineer: differences and new things a woman can bring in a male team

•     Do you think men and women work differently? Could you give us concrete examples (personal works, project works)?

Yes, there are of course some differences between men and women, even for the same type of job, specially in quality control. I have one boy in my team. For instance for routine tests, there is no difference between men and women. Girls are maybe more careful, but men to do this job have to be very careful, finally  for our job there is no real difference between men and women. Frequently we have to go out to the job site, depending to the client requirements. Sometimes the job site is very far and remote, there we have to stay in a very simple residence and this is easier for men. As girls, we sometimes don’t feel really safe staying in a remote area for a few days.

• Another difference is when we test products. For some tests we have to climb up to the very big tank to take asphalt and this is easier for the men, they are stronger.

As a manager, when I arrange the job with my subordinates, I pay attention to give to the boy the work which necessities to stay late at night or sometimes all the night. My female subordinates have to take care of their children.

For me there is not so much differences by gender, it depends on the people.

•     Do you think that a mixed team is helpful for working atmosphere and/or is linked to team performance?

Of course, it’s quite helpful to have gender diversity in a team. Men and women can be complement. Men have some advantages and disadvantages and women also. So when they work together they show more advantages than disadvantages. In our tests the results would be better if they are made by men and women, women have a sharper eye, they can be more careful, more concentrated. But the boys are easier to deal with, to talk to.

3rd PART:  Vidéo

Hello everyone, may I have your attention please! I’m too glad to have the chance to speak here ! I’d like to share with you my feelings. My name is Zhao Xiao, I’m working in Tipco Asphalt limited company. I’m manager. I have been working in this company for more than 10 years. During my college, I choose my own profession interest, then according to it I choose to work in this company. Working with my own interest, I feel very content with my present situation. This job brings me happiness and satisfaction as a woman. This job also brings me certain courage, and when we face difficulties it gives me a great satisfaction.

If you are a girl like me, you can also choose your own job according to your own interest and happiness, you will feel happy, which is how I feel inside me now.

Thank you for your listening and good luck for all of you!

Interview with Yan Ruina (13/02/2012)

 
1st PART: Woman’s history comprehension/understanding

•     Can you present yourself in a few words and explain us what is your job/responsibilities?

My name is Yan Ruina, you can call me Ruina. In the plant, I’m responsible for the maker line process. I joint Saint Gobain in 2008 when this plant opened, it’s already 4 years for me. The plant has just been constructed. It was my third job. My work responsibility includes new products tries, support the production team to run the line and make good quality product, promote the production efficiency, improve our process parameters. So my job is about new products and mass production process. I’m the whole day in the line, my office is in the plant, not here in the office ! 

•     How did you came to engineering and sciences?

For me, after graduated from university, I choose engineering, but I didn’t really know what it was ! And now, I’m really happy with my job. It’s really interesting. Here you never know what will happen tomorrow ! You have to keep thinking all the time ! My father was engineer, but it’s not because of this that I became one too. You know, I really don’t like paper work, I prefer active work. When I was a child, I was really really shy, I was speaking really little and stayed quite. At that time I didn’t think I would become an engineer. But you know, a person changes all the times depending on surroundings. So, now, I speak a lot, but 5 years ago I was not like this ! Work for sure helped me, but more generally it’s because I grew up...

•     Did you have to face any difficulty as a woman in your studies/in your job? Or do you think being  a women facilitated it?

In my school, I was in mechanical department, we were only 6 girls among more than 30 boys. But it was not more difficult because of this. When I looked for a job, this was difficult. You know in China some companies prefer men to do some technical job. I graduated in 2004 july and I begun my first job in july, but it’s because I was not regarding too much do I like this job offer or not. And I changed my job because people told me it’s good if you change job quite often when you started to work, you get higher salary.

•     How do you conciliate professional and personal life?

It’s not too much difficult for me because I have a husband but not a child yet. My husband is sales engineer. But maybe after 2 or 3 years it will become a problem. But I’m not sure it will ! Actually I don’t know. You know in China you have 4 months holidays, and traditionally the mother of the woman and the man help a lot when the woman has a baby.

•     Could you tell us professional realizations you are proud of?

When a new product is accepted by the marketing team and the customer likes it and the sales are good, I’m proud. And it’s good for us because the company earns more money thanks to our works, and our salaries increase ! A.21.5 product is our first product, at that time it was really difficult for us, we had no experience to do it. It was not a technical product, but as it was the first one...we spent a lot of time and efforts on it !

•     Is there something special you like in this company ?

Suzhou team is a young team, with a lot of energy. I like this !




2nd PART:  General debate on woman engineer: differences and new things a woman can bring in a male team

•     Do you think men and women work differently? Could you give us concrete examples (personal works, project works)?

I don’t think there are many differences between men and women. The difference is between persons, not gender, especially in professional projects. Different person may have different angles to dill with but it’s not only because they are men and women.

I think that women work more in details, compare to most of men. But some men have the same thinking as women. That’s why I don’t think that it’s linked to the gender. At school, girls study more than boys, boys work faster than girls and with the same level of details.

An other difference is that women don’t have the same time to spend at work.

In communication, I think that us, women, when we ask for something to a worker we say “I need this because then we will be able to do this" but a boy would say “do this" and would maybe not give any reason.

I can do at least 2 or 3 things at the same time, the boys need to do things one by one.

Sometimes women are sensitive to something but men are not. You need to try no to think about your problems in life, not to focus on them to feel comfortable. Sometimes women are thinking about one thing all the time and it makes them sad. We have to learn how to deal with stress, which is easier for the men.

Girls are more able to say to some worker that he’s not doing a good job. Girls will say it in a soft way and try to imagine how the worker can improve himself, I think it works better.  But sometimes we have to be rude to the workers. The first time I explain something, if the worker is not doing it the right way, then I will give him a chance and explain again but if he’s still not doing it the right way and I have to explain it a 3rd time then I will be rude. 

In the plant, we have 80 boys, and including me we are 4 girls. But there are much more girls working in the office, there, there is the same number of girls and boys. The managers are only boys apart from the financial manager.

•     Do you think that a mixed team is helpful for working atmosphere and/or is linked to team performance?

Boys and girls together work better than only boys or only girls. I like when there is more boys and less girls. Boys and girls have different attitudes and different angles about the things. In a team that has women, communication will be better, boys are rough between them. I think more boys and less girls is the best.

  




3rd PART:  Vidéo

• Short representation

Hello everyone, my name is Yan Ruina, I’m working in saint Gobain Abrasives Suzhou company. I’m an engineer. Suzhou plant has 3 lines. I work on maker line. Our line has 20 workers and 3 process technicians. They are all boys except me! My work responsibility includes new products trial, support production team to make good quality product, line purpose, promote the production efficiency, and so on.

•     Which advice would you give to any young women who hesitate to start engineering studies?

As a woman, I want to say: you can do what you want to do and what you like and trust yourself. You can do better than boys!

•     What has been your biggest difficulty as a women engineer?

I remember at the beginning of the make line there was only one process engineer, me. And at that time I was not experienced about the machine and the produce. And our first product A215 was really difficult for us at that time. The speed was really high and too much scrap. It was a disaster! But after, with the team efforts, we succeed. And now I think there is nothing difficult!

•     What has been your best satisfaction as a women engineer?

Every time when a new product goes from launch stage to mass production stage and is accepted in marketing or produced and the customer like it, I feel a very big satisfaction!

•     What is your next challenge?

This year, our plant will have a new line called multi functions line. I’m the responsible for this project within the process Department.

And this project is really important for our plant. So this is my next challenge!

Interview with Xin Ya (10/02/2012)

1st PART: Woman’s history comprehension/understanding

• ‭    ‬Can you present yourself in a few words and explain us what is your job/responsibilities‭?

‭My job is engineer of environment, health and safety, my daily work is about industrial lost prevention. Every year the group St Gobain have an evaluation of the plant and according to this evaluation, the plant has a score, this score determines the amount of the assurance. This score is done by another company and after every survey we receive a recommendations list, I follow up these recommendations to improve our score. Like this we can reduce the cost of the assurance. In China St Gobain has have 5 plants, 3 in Shanghai, 1 in Suzhou and 1 in Handan.

• ‭    How did you come to engineering and sciences?

‭We choose it during our high school, you can choose sciences or literature. If we choose sciences we study math, biology, chemistry... and pass the tests in these courses to enter the university. In China actually it depends on your scores, if you have better scores in math and physics you will choose sciences. We haven’t much chance to choose like in France or other countries because in China more often if you are good at sciences you will choose sciences because there are more universities in science part and then you have more job opportunities. In China it’s not because I like sciences very much that I would choose sciences. There will be some reasons like this. For example in my family my parents all studied sciences and my father is an engineer, I grow up in a factory which produced iron so I’m very familiar with the environment of the factories. And in my home town the environment pollution is very serious so maybe for those reasons I studied environmental engineering. My mother is a teacher of mathematics, it’s an other reason.

• ‭    Did you have to face any difficulty as a woman in your studies/in your job? Or do you think being a woman facilitated it?

‭In my school of environmental engineering we were as many girls as boys. In other fields of engineering, for example in physics, there were more boys but not in mine. In fact there was no difficulty in the study part but there was difficulty in the job research. In China usually the people prefer to hire a boy to be an engineer, it’s very serious. In China people think that a girl can’t do engineering better than a boy because sometimes you should go to the sites and because the working condition is not good they think a boy is better. In some work you could need body strength, boys are better in this. 

• ‭    How do you conciliate professional and personal life?

‭The girls are equal to the boys in the professional part but the girls should find a balance between the family life and the profession. Actually I do things like this but I’m young so I don’t have a husband nor a child. I spoke with an older women who is a manager in an international company and she told me that finally the women in China should return to the family because once her work is developed to a high step they will start to pay more attention to the family instead of the work, they can’t do like the men who focus on the job and will go to higher level. Women try to find a balance between the profession and the family but more often it’s very hard to find this balance and we pay a lot of attention to the family.  For my future, I haven’t thought a lot about the family part, I think that I’m going to get married very late. I want first to improve my career and then to think about my family. Whatever I have in mind I think it will change according to my development, but I think I will first keep focused on my career and try to reach a high level. Family in China always put pressure on the child so maybe one day my parents will say that I should quickly find a husband and get married. I don’t know, situations always change! My best situation in 15 years would be to have developed my career and of course to have a family so I have to find a husband who would understand me. I would like my husband to take care of my child as much as me. Now in China usually family has one child, my parents have only me so I should not only earn money for myself but also for my parents. In China, once the man is retired, the social assurance is not very good. We have to pay ourself so as I’m the only child of the family I should also earn money for my parents, especially in case they get sick. There is not enough money for that if I stay at home and if only my husband works, I should also work to support my parents. My parents don’t live in my city so they won’t be able to take care of my child.

• ‭    Could you tell us professional realizations you are proud of?

‭Maybe to get in the group of St Gobain after my graduation. As I studied in France for one year, I always wanted to work in a french company and in the field of EHS there are not many companies here in China: there are Total, St Gobain and Michelin. Actually these 3 companies have relations with my university. My master program is in cooperation with those companies.

‭2nd PART:  General debate on woman engineer: differences and new things a woman can bring in a male team

• ‭    ‬Do you think men and women work differently‭? ‬Could you give us concrete examples‭ (‬personal works,‭ ‬project works‭)?

‭Of course there are differences. But actually I don’t think it’s because one is a man and the other is a woman, it’s more because they are different persons. In the Chinese society some people think that the men have a different way of working than the women, but me I don’t understand this difference they are talking about and I think there is no difference. But people always say there are differences. People think that men can support more pressure than the women, in emergency cases or things like this, men would be cooler, would come down quicker than women. In communication people always say that women are better than the men I think, I think there are differences in the way of communication of the men and the women but we can’t say who is better. For example if there is a problem in the plant, women would maybe say things softer, more gently, and men would be more direct, sometimes the softer way is better to solve the problem but actually I haven’t seen many cases like this, this is only what people are always talking about, the common conscious. I don’t think that men and women are organized differently. I don’t think that the characteristics of a girl like me are different from the characteristics of a boy. I think it’s the same! People always think that boys are faster than girls but me I don’t think so. I think it’s the same, it depends on the person. In fact people always talk about differences between boys and girls but I think there is no difference.

• ‭    Do you think that gender diversity in a team is helpful for working atmosphere and/or is linked to team performance?

‭It also depends on the situation and the work they have to do. Sometimes it’s more convenient to have only boys, for example in commercial teams, if they have to develop the business with a male customer, sometimes it’s more convenient and more easy for the guys to seat down together and to talk. But actually sometimes in other groups which have both girls and boys, they will think that the working condition is better because they will enjoy to work together. Boys will enjoy to work with girls and girls will enjoy to work with boys. Concerning the performance of the team, as I told you I think that there is no difference in the way of working of the boys and the girls so I think the performance of the team would be the same with or without girls. If they are typical boys and typical girls maybe it’s better to have both of them in the team. I think it’s good to have girls in plants because I like my job and if there was no girls in factories I could not do this job, I like to work in industry. I think it’s good to have girls in factories for the equality between men and women. And because the majority of the boys are typical boys and the majority of the girls are typical girls and they may have different characteristics so it’s better to have both of them for the productivity. But me I think that I’m not a typical girl so I think that with me there is no difference. When I say a typical girl I think about someone who pays really attention to the details, who is not as innovative and creative as the boys, who does things more gently, especially in the communication and the cooperation, in the relationships.  

‭



‭ 3rd PART:  Video

• ‭    Short representation

‭Bonjour, je m’appelle Sylvia, j’ai fait mes études à l’école des mines de Paris dans la gestion des risques industriels et maintenant je travaille pour Saint Gobain en tant qu’ingénieur en hygiène, sécurité et environnement. 

• ‭    ‬Which advice would you give to any young women who hesitate to start engineering studies‭?

‭Je pense que c’est très sympa pour une fille de travailler en tant qu’ingénieure, je suis moi-même contente d’être une ingénieure,  je suis contente de la décision que j’ai prise et je pense que vous le seriez aussi.

• ‭    What has been your biggest difficulty as a women engineer?

‭En fait, ma plus grande difficulté a été ma recherche d’emploi en Chine, les chinois préfèrent embaucher des hommes à des postes d’ingénieur, je pense que ce ne sera plus un problème dans le futur.

• ‭    What has been your best satisfaction as a women engineer?

‭Chaque jour je fais des choses intéressantes et ca c’est très aggréable.

• ‭    What is your next challenge?

‭Mon prochain challenge, comme je viens d’intégrer Saint Gobain, est de montrer que je suis une bonne ingénieure et qu’ils ont pris une bonne décision en m’embauchant. 

Interview with Shirley Chen (02/09/2012)

1st PART: Woman’s history comprehension/understanding

• Can you present yourself in a few words and explain us what is your job/responsibilities?

I joined St Gobain last May so I’ve been here for less than 1 year. Previously, I worked as an EHS (Environment Health and Security) consultant but I wanted to see the applications of projects and not only work on them for one year and then do not see the realizations. Here I work as an environment manager for the China Delegation EHS department. In China we have almost 35 plants, in my team we read the standards of St Gobain group in terms of environment, health and security and translate them to the plants here in China, and we coach the local people to the requirements of the group. We do the local requirements on EHS for the factories of China. We also explain these requirements to local EHS contacts in the plants and in case they have any difficulty or need any explanations we go to the sites to provide our support. We do a lot of training. We go approximately every month in factories; we also do some audit to see whether the management respects our recommendations or if they need improvement in the EHS field.  

• How did you come to engineering and sciences?

Actually I’m not very good at speaking or writing, I like more sciences, calculations, mathematics, informatics… When I had to choose between literature and engineering I choose engineering because I’m better in this field, it was easier for me to do that.

• Did you have to face any difficulty as a woman in your studies/in your job? Or do you think being a woman facilitated it?

When I was in the university, some departments only had 1 or 2 girls, but in environmental engineering, there was 30% of women so it was not a problem to be a woman. My parents were living in a province 2 hours south of Shanghai but I studied in the north of China, I left my house at 19 years old but my parents were really supportive. I did my master in North Korea. My mother is a housewife and my father does some engineering, he does maintenance work in plants. It helped me to think about the idea of being an environmental engineer in a plant. I have an older sister but she is also housewife. I’m married and have a 18 month son.

• How do you conciliate professional and personal life?

Luckily my husband parents already retired so they moved to our house and they take care of the child, in China it’s very normal, the parents help us to take care of the children. My husband works a lot too and for my work I have to travel so we really have no time to take care of our child. I really apologize to my son because of that.

• Could you tell us professional realizations you are proud of?

Our job is to protect human beings so I’m proud of my everyday work. Our job is very meaningful for the people; we provide training to the workers to deliver the message of safety.

2nd PART:  General debate on woman engineer: differences and new things a woman can bring in a male team

• Do you think men and women work differently? Could you give us concrete examples (personal works, project works)?

Yes I think so. I think men are better to work on projects, women are better when you have to look more in details, their thinking way have some advantages and disadvantages, a company can not only have men or only have women. Some balance between men and women would be better. In communication, women are nicer, think sometimes more than men before speaking, but sometimes it depends on personality. About organization in the work, here we are 2 women and 1 man in EHS and we are doing the same work the same way. I don’t think there is that much difference, it depends on your ability to handle with this work. In my previous work we were working in a team, one part, the audit group, had to read the documents to see the way the company was working, another group was investigating on site. In this last group there were more men. It is sometimes too heavy for women to be on the site. Women are more careful and are sometimes better for the audit, they review the documents, for men it’s too much routine, they most of the times don’t like this kind of job.

In my work, I noticed that when there are women in the plant, the EHS recommendations are better applied. For document parts, women are sometimes better, but in technical field, if you have to redesign a machine for example, I think that by nature, men are better.

• Do you think that gender diversity in a team is helpful for working atmosphere and/or is linked to team performance?

I think it’s good. In China we have one sentence: if men and women work together, the work won’t be boring. In a team with only men, they all have the same thinking way, but if there are some women in this team, there will be more brainstorm, much more good ideas because they communicate differently and women are more focusing on the details. Women are better at time management, sometimes men are only focusing on the work and are not good in time management. When you have a time period to finish the work, the men think about HOW to finish this work whether women firstly plan.  So a team with women and men will have a better performance.

When you are doing a project, you don’t only think about the work but you also handle the people relationship in the team, I think women are more careful in that, they think about making the team work together, they would suggest to have some fun after the work, or invite the team in their family to cook something, men would sometimes only focus on the project.    

3rd PART:  Vidéo

• Short representation

My name is Shirley Chen and I work in St Gobain China delegation EHS department and currently I work as an environmental manager to oversee and provide a support training to the plants within St Gobain China.

• Which advice would you give to any young women who hesitate to start engineering studies?

My first advice is that if you are interested in engineering just do it. Nothing is much more difficult, if you are interested in it you will find the energy and focus on everything of this topic and do it much better. Don’t worry about the fact of being a women, you will see in the future that it’s not that difficult. And if you’re scared not to find a job, you should know that it’s really changing know, especially in China, and you will see that big companies like St Gobain have diversity programs and they will not refuse you the job because you are a women, they will only see your professional reasons, your studies and professional experience.

• What has been your biggest difficulty as a women engineer?

I think sometimes men have more energy for physical work, on the site men can work faster, they can handle heavy things.

• What has been your best satisfaction as a women engineer?

I think I don’t have big projects to be proud of, but in daily work I sometimes can feal proud, when I visit the plants I stop some actions of the workers, they sometimes don’t realize that they are behaving dangerously, when I stop those actions I avoid accidents dangerous for their lives. 

• What is your next challenge?

EHS is a very professional work, we should understand lots of standards, lots of regulations so I hope my challenge is to work more to expend my professional scope.

Interview with Zhimin Dai (17/02/2012)

1st PART: Woman’s history comprehension/understanding

• Can you present yourself in a few words and explain us what is your job/responsibilities?

My name is Zhimin Dai, I work in Saint Gobain for 5 years. Before this, I worked in university as a teacher in chemistry department. Before this I did my Phd in China then in 2004 I went in Germany to do my post doct, in Munich. It was a really interesting period for me !

My responsibility now is R&D manager for whole China. I’m managing 10 people, we have two plants one in Shanghai and one in Beijing, so I have to travel a lot between these two cities. Each beginning of the year we work with marketing development to decide which product we’ll develop this year. After that I communicate with my team, and depending on the background of each person we decide who is responsible for each project. Then we decide time schedule and what are the expectations of sale.

• How did you come to engineering and sciences?

I didn’t know what to chose between research at University or real engineering in company. When I was young, I liked chemistry and biology, and after high school I choose chemistry. I did my studies in north China. My parents were happy with me working in University, they didn’t really care about the subject, but they like me doing research because the timetable is more flexible than in a company, they thought it’s better for a woman. But actually I’m really happy to have changed and come to a more challenging job !

• Did you have to face any difficulty as a woman in your studies/in your job? Or do you think being  a women facilitated it?

20 years ago in my high school when I was studying chemistry we were only 11 girls among 60 students. In my PhD we were 2 girls among around 10 people. But it was not difficult. To find job, I didn’t have any problem. But it’s because in China it’s easy to find job for a woman when you are already married and have children because you’re considered as “stable”. When you just graduated it’s not that easy because employers think “maybe you’ll need some holidays later” and so on. But you know in China not a lot of women stay at home, everybody works. In Germany it is different, I could see when I was there that a lot of women are housekeepers.

• What are the characteristic you need to have to do your job ?

You need to be able to pick the responsibility, you need to handle the high pressure, to be strong inside. You need to be organized and patient too !

• What are your everyday motivations ?

You can chose the easy life if you want, but when I compare the different lifestyle (University/company), I can see that in a company you can have more experience. You meet more people, you need to discuss, communicate in different ways. I think it’s really important in the life to have high pressure challenges !

• How do you conciliate professional and personal life?

The most difficult part for ladies during the work is the professional travels. If you have a lot of travels to do, you need to share your time, and sometimes it’s really difficult to be understood by your family. I have a daughter, she is 14 years old, and sometimes I feel a little guilty because I have really few time for her...I have sometimes only week-end ! I’m lucky that my husband understands me, and is really supportive. My mother helps me a lot too, she lives in our home.

• Could you tell us professional realizations you are proud of?

I worked on a really big project one year ago, during it we had to organize big team work, with 24 people inside and outside the company.  We need to visit job sites, organize meetings and so on. Everybody learnt a lot from each other and it was a great success. Such a big team, it was a really big challenge, really difficult, and I’m proud of it ! 

2nd PART:  General debate on woman engineer: differences and new things a woman can bring in a male team

• Do you think men and women work differently? Could you give us concrete examples (personal works, project works)?

Yes, sure ! Men and women are different, so they work in different way... Women care more about details, and men care more about the target. Women care a bit more about the process. In my team I work nearly with only men, but I could notice this. Men care only about the result. An other point is that for a women it’s not so easy to create close professional relationship with men, because we don’t have the same language. A man can build with an other men a good relationship really easily, invite him for a beer, talk about football. But for a woman to be trusted by an other guy, to find a common language, it’s more difficult. And so for a woman to be well integrated in a male team is quite challenging ! Talking about communication, I would say women are perhaps more emotional and more sensitive to the attitude people have and the way they speak to them. I think when you are more sensitive sometimes it’s better because you can understand more things, but for sure the best is to be balanced, it’s important to be able to forget quickly the sensitive side when you have to ! Being able to take the pressure is an other thing. I’ve met women who stopped their jobs because they thought pressure was too high for them. Physically, they were feeling it was too hard. But for men, it’s different. I’m not saying that they like the stress/the pressure. Nobody likes it. It’s more that I have the impression that it’s nearly a need for them to take the pressure !  Maybe it comes from when they were young ? And anyway, they don’t have the choice to take it or not : they are so important for the family ! A woman can think “Ok, I stop, it’s too hard, I want to stay at home.”. A man cannot. All this is about traditions for sure. An other difference between men and women that you can see at work is that men don’t like to speak about what they feel, whereas women use to do. So sometimes you think from outside that the woman feels more, but it’s not true ! Of course all this depends on the character of the person, not totally on the gender.

The people like to think women and men are different and that men are more strong and more clever and can take more pressure. But I think all is about experience. If you have more experience you can be more confident and then to take more pressure. And then you can do more. At the beginning you think you are a woman and you give you excuse then you have less experience and you are less confident and you can take less pressure and its worst and worst. So the point is to challenge yourself !

• Do you think that a mixed team is helpful for working atmosphere and/or is linked to team performance?

Yes, for sure ! I like to work with men and women. It’s good to have different people, some strong, some sensitive. each one has its own advantage. We need different ideas to work efficiently. And different ideas come from different people !

 3rd PART:  Vidéo

• Short representation

Hello, my name is Zhimin Dai, I have a family, I worked in Saint Gobain for 5 years. Before this, I worked in University. So, now my job is mainly for the Research and development work, I’m R&D manager for Saint Gobain in China, and I like this job and I enjoy the life in the company.

• Which advice would you give to any young women who hesitate to start engineering studies?

My advice is firstly you need to know if you like it. It’s very important. After this you decided to do something you like, even if you commit some difficult decisions but that is life.  So my advice is doing follow your heart.

• What has been your biggest difficulty as a women engineer?

During the work, how to solve the doubts from the men you are working with.

Then try to make the good result so people can trust you and forgot that you are a woman or a man. That is not important for the work. 

• What has been your best satisfaction as a women engineer?

I work in this field for seven years and I’m still happy, I’m still passionate. I think passion is really important if you want to continue.

• What is your next challenge?

If you can still continue work like before, and if you can live with passion in your life, I think the next challenge would be to meet again in ten years!