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A Future For Young Working Women

         The men have been doing a passable job, but more women need to take leadership roles in the building industry, particularly home building. If more women were architects, houses of all sizes would have more organized storage space, including broom closets. Houses and apartments would be functional as well as aesthetic. If women were builders, there would be more energy efficient, easy to clean spaces and products.

         So young women, this is your call to study architecture and engineering. Women are not limited to interior design. Why not do it all, electrical, plumbing, building products design and manufacture, heating and air, and landscaping. Women are capable of doing these things but have stayed away from these "manly" fields. Women can excel in math, drafting blueprints, electricity, and chemistry. Why not use these fields to improve the quality of American homes?

         Who knows better where electrical outlets should go, or where switches should be placed. Only a man would place a light switch two feet away from a door. Why are homes never designed with a place to store the vacuum, the mops, buckets, and chemicals? Why are cabinets designed with inaccessible corners? If you buy slide out components, you lose valuable space. And we want products in our homes that don't exude chemicals that are harmful to living things. That involves manufacturing those safe products. Women can run factories and design products, too.

         The bottom line is that girls don't have to plan on just being teachers, or nurses, or clerks, as necessary as those jobs are. They can pursue the many types of engineering, math, chemical, and mechanical studies out there. Women mastering these fields will only benefit all of us in the future.