Viewing the Future through the Past

Welcome to the first issue of SWE Magazine in 2025, the year the Society of Women Engineers celebrates its 75th anniversary.

In this issue, we look back at SWE’s founding and early years, when the Society first sought to engage with students and practitioners at all levels. We examine how closely the present resembles what past science fiction writers predicted would happen in the future. And we consider what the future might hold for women in leadership positions.

In Scrapbook, SWE’s expert archivist Troy Eller English tells the story of the Society’s founding, when members of four organizations of the same name came together at The Cooper Union Green Engineering Camp in Ringwood, New Jersey, to form a single national organization. 

We also launch an ongoing feature called “Building a Legacy.” Each issue this year will showcase an abbreviated selection of the stories, photos, and memorabilia highlighted in a spectacular traveling exhibit created by Eller English and designed by David James Group. The exhibit chronicles SWE’s history to the present and will be displayed at WE25 and other events throughout the year. 

It is intriguing to wonder if those founding women could have known then how important it would be for women in STEM to continue to gather, years later, to share information, trade experiences, and offer one another support. Could they have envisioned a global organization of more than 47,000 women and allies in every conceivable field of engineering and technology and at every level of academic and professional achievement?

Maybe; maybe not. Predictions of the future are often left to science fiction writers. In our cover feature, “Straight Out of Science Fiction,” by SWE contributor Seabright McCabe, we explore what sci-fi writers of the past envisioned in their futures, reviewing which predictions have come to pass and which have not.

Here in the present, we grapple with some of the same issues as SWE founders: How best to educate women engineers and how current practitioners can navigate gender-based expectations and biases to become successful leaders. In her article “The Community College Connection,” contributor Sandra Guy points out that the 1,026 community colleges in the United States play a vital role in educating 1.6 million STEM students each semester, and many are expanding their offerings both regionally and online. Many community college students find the process of transferring to four-year institutions daunting — but that is changing.

Many students also learn the rudiments of team and project leadership at school. But in practice, many find that women leaders face a double bind. If they lead with authority and resolve, they may be labeled as too masculine and unappealing. If they employ what are thought of as more feminine skills — empathy, encouragement, and inclusiveness — they risk being passed over for leadership roles. In her article “How Women Lead,” contributor Meredith Holmes observes that women and men do often have different leadership styles, though no one is locked into those approaches.

The women engineers of the past may not have been able to predict the extraordinary successes of future generations of women engineers, nor the endurance of some of the sexist attitudes and work cultures they continue to face. Yet their inspiring, intrepid, and ingenious spirits are with SWE members and all women engineers and technologists who strive to advance and remain successful in their careers, solve the considerable problems facing this generation and the next, and move forward as their authentic selves.