Rise Of Women In Male

College, Career, Life Career and life planning resources for college college students, latest grads, and career-changers. Primary Menu Rise of Women in Male-Dominated Professions: Interview with Sound Engineer Lenise Bent Andrea Women are gaining ground in every profession, but girls nonetheless maintain comparatively small percentages of jobs in sure fields and earn much less on average than their male counterparts. Despite these challenges, profession success in a male-dominated subject is possible, as many ladies are proving. DreamWorks sound engineer Lenise Bent supplied insight into her success and provided recommendation for ladies contemplating a profession in a male-dominated subject. Why did you choose a profession in sound engineering? How has the field of sound engineering changed since your career started? I started out studying movie and television yet my ardour has all the time been music. I come from a musical household and was in a youth orchestra when I was eight playing flute and learning piano. When I was 18 my boyfriend was in a band and the guitar player was additionally engineering for producer/songwriter/star Leon Russell who had a forty observe studio in his residence, quite u nusual at the time. I was a huge fan so once I was requested to cease by I jumped at the chance. When I noticed the management room and heard the superb music popping out of the displays I had my “Aha!” second, goose bumps and all. I knew right then that that is what I was alleged to do with my life so I dropped out of college, discovered a recording faculty and signed up. When I began out, everything was analogue and tape. Artists carried out properly or were anticipated to do it again. There had been enormous budgets and report companies dominated. If you needed to report professionally you just about needed to book a studio to do it as all the equipment was very expensive and huge. No ProTools or Autotune. Now digital expertise is so relatively cheap and out there that anybody can afford to record in their home or wherever. The similar primary recording techniques nonetheless need to be in place and understood to make an expert sounding recording. That hasn’t modified. It i s also still a male dominated field though there are a few more girls engineering than after I started. In your opinion, what keeps girls from coming into certain professions, specifically technology and engineering? If anybody, male or feminine, is passionate a couple of certain subject they will do whatever it takes to make that their career. That mentioned, often women would like to have more to their life than a profession, like a marriage and a family and have the ability to spend quality time with their children. I assume women may be extra thoughtful of this when selecting a profession path than men. In my explicit subject it is fairly challenging to have a relationship and family. The hours are long and unpredictable and the job must be the primary priority in ones life if one expects to succeed. I completely understand why some careers could seem unappealing to ladies, together with and particularly mine. Also, I think generally males define themselves more by their career than women. Work is important however there are different things simply as a lot or extra necessary. However, as I stated before, if an individual is pushed by their passion for a particular area they will make the sacrifices necessary to make it occur. It gets down to what is one’s precedence in life, one’s private selection. Although more ladies are getting into engineering and other male-dominated fields, they nonetheless earn less on average and hold decrease-ranking positions. Do assume this can change? I suppose this would possibly nonetheless be the case in the corporate world but in my industry talent, ability and data dictate one’s earning capability, not ones’ gender. I personally have never skilled this kind of financial discrimination. In the fields the place this nonetheless happens I count on this will change in time. Younger males are more used to girls working along facet of them as equals within the workplace unlike some older executives and they're going to eventually retire or die off and be replaced. What obstacles have you encountered over the course of your profession? How have you overcome these obstacles? I had the great fortune of getting three brothers they usually had plenty of friends so being around guys was all the time a part of my life and little doubt prepared me for working in a person’s world. I all the time knew, nonetheless, that on the first day of a recording project I not solely had to show that I knew what I was doing however that I had to overcome the shopper’s concern that I may not be as good as a guy would have been. Actually, I knew I needed to be higher than a man as a result of any mistake may have been construed to be as a result of I was a woman. At first I dressed asexually and wore my glasses so the shopper and studio would know I was serious about becoming an engineer/producer. Also, on the time there was this concept that some women had different reasons for being in the studio in addition to be ing a great assistant engineer, one requiring kneepads when you catch my drift. I received approached a number of occasions and always turned them down so for a short time I was given the nick name “The Dyke” as a result of I wouldn’t have intercourse with them. AND I had a boyfriend! Go figure. It was the egotistical knuckleheads who couldn’t consider that anybody may resist them that might typically trouble me. I seen the higher the musicians have been, the much less my gender mattered and the more respectfully I was handled. I made it a degree to not pull the woman card for any cause and always felt that I might do anything in the studio as well or higher than any guy. Being female may by no means be a problem. What was more necessary was that I made myself an asset to the project by anticipating what was wanted, taking the initiative and being fun to be round. Once I established my status I was good to go. My challenges have been about competing for initiatives so one of the simplest ways for me to beat this was to be one of the best particular person for the job. What advice can you provide women considering a career in a male-dominated industry? My first thought is to mentally drop the male/female factor. No one ever purchased considered one of my records as a result of a female recorded it. I’m not a successful lady engineer, I’m a successful engineer who can also be a woman…massive distinction. Be absolutely GREAT at what you do and let the “powers that be” know by your actions that you are sincere. Be completely professional, i.e. on time or early, good hygiene, work well with others and NEVER get intimately concerned with anyone you’re working with. Know your individual price. Your colleagues and superiors will treat you with the respect you give yourself and prove that you simply deserve. Be sincere, trustworthy and confident. Keep your “eye on the prize”, no matter that factor is that you just want to achieve, and go for it. Lenise Bent is a Dreamworks Sound Engineer and instructor at SAE Institute in Los Angeles who has worked on blockbuster movies together with Shrek, and whose early experience as Chief Engineer with producer Mike Chapman is the driving pressure behind Blondie’s Platinum selling album “AutoAmerica”. About SAE Institute Founded in Sydney Australia, 1976, SAE Institute has campuses in 54 cities throughout the globe and is a number one international provider of audio engineering, animation, multimedia and movie manufacturing programs. By offering arms on tuition together with entry to the very newest state-of-the-art gear in a practical, actual world setting, SAE ensures college students’ data and talent levels are related to business expectations. SAE currently has schools in New York City, Nashville, San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta and Los Angeles with plans to increase to a number of other US cities close to time period. Please visit -usa.com for more info on USA campuses. Copy right secured by Digiprove © Categories advice, Blog, career Tags profession tendencies, DreamWorks, engineer, interview, Lenise Bent, sound engineer Post navigation