Energy of the Istmo

MAN BY DEFAULT

In her poem “Myth”, Muriel Rukeyser imagines a different outcome to the Oedipus legend. In it she tells how the King, now old and blind, asks the Sphinx: “How did you not recognize my mother?” The Sphinx reminds him that he incorrectly responded to the riddle: “What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three in the evening?” The correct response should have been “a man”, without mentioning a woman. To which Oedipus replied: “When one says ‘man’, women are also included, as everyone knows.”

This literary theme, raised by British journalist Caroline Criado Pérez in her essay “The Invisible Woman”, is relevant because it describes a reality: the vision of man as human being by default has a crucial importance in the structure of human society.

There’s not a woman today who has been born into a society where gender equality exists. A report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that a girl born today would need to live more than 200 years to enjoy the same opportunities, salaries, rights and status at work as men. Small details, imperceptible on the face of it  - like how, from 12 onwards, girls raise their hands less often in class in more patriarchal countries – are a key in eroding the opportunities girls have to express their ideas. And this occurs due not only to external barriers, but also their own biases.

Fortunately, glass ceilings constraining the development of women in many areas of our society now have cracks in them that are opening little by little. ACCIONA’s project, “Energy of the Istmo” supporting women in STEM careers (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) is an example. Below, we look at what the project entails.

BRINGING FEMALE TALENT OUT OF THE SHADOWS

The “Energy of the Istmo” program designed by ACCIONA is an initiative for attracting, selecting and capacity-building conceived to support the entry of women into the world of work in maintenance and operations of renewable energy assets. The project, located in the wind farms of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca, Mexico, focuses on 10 women engineers who were incorporated into a year-long training program in wind turbine generator maintenance tasks and of whom seven have already gone on to form part of the Company workforce.

The program facilitates job offers to women who live in the communities where there are ACCIONA wind farms, according to their academic qualifications, and aims to consolidate the roots these professionals have in the area so that they use “their skills” and make ACCIONA “their company”. But, also, so that they become a benchmark for the new generation of engineers in the country, women able to exploit this open door and democratize gender equality in occupations till now totally male-oriented.

“Energy of the Isthmus” is already in its second year. When these women join the ACCIONA team in the wind farms of Oaxaca, it will mean 21% of the wind turbine generator maintenance staff will be women, a highly promising statistic when you consider that, before the project, the ratio of men was 100%!

The essay mentioned at the beginning of this article, “The Invisible Woman”, is a revealing work, full of statistics and stories showing how gender bias configures our world, from language to how even car safety measures are decided, and how half of our lives have been conceived by, and for, one half of humanity, almost always leaving the other half aside.

Many productivity-related issues are subject to this reality. The progressive entry of women into management and maintenance work at wind farms, in which they have to climb the turbines in harnesses, has led to an evaluation of team safety needs and a workplace in which gender equality is a priority and all differences are challenged.

If we want to design a world that aims to function for everyone, we will need women in the room and in all work spaces whatever they are. The “Energy of the Isthmus” program was born out of this vocation.