Pipelines, Persistence, and Perfidy: Institutional Unknowing and Betrayal Trauma in Engineering

Abstract

Abstract:In this piece I examine engineering as a disciplinary site that routinely and categorically expunges critical feminist scholarship. I draw primarily on my experiences of numerous exits, both disciplinary and institutional, throughout my career as an overt queer feminist in engineering, and my experiences of marginalization, along a spectrum from nuanced exclusion and microaggressions, to epistemic frictions and disconnections, to bullying and gender-based violence. I employ two disparate theoretical frameworks in the piece to structure the analysis of my personal account. First Nancy Tuana’s taxonomy of ignorance explicates the ways of not knowing that contribute to oppression and marginalization. Second, Jennifer Freyd’s notions of betrayal trauma and institutional betrayal reveal the wrongdoings perpetrated by institutions upon individuals who are dependent on that institution, including unknowings, denial, misinformation, and failure to prevent or respond supportively to the wrongdoings of others. Drawing on these analytical tools, I hope to draw key inferences from the actions and inactions, the knowings and unknowings that lead to feminist exits, and locate key sites for intervention, from kindness, generosity, strategic prowess, and convivial creativity of colleagues and mentors, to welcoming new ways of knowing, to transforming structures for accountability.