Rising up in the rubber industry: Women make gains, but stats show progress is slow

Bonnie Stuck used to be one of the few. And she remembers it clearly, those early days of her career.

Just out of college, she'd been hired into the Tire Division at B.F. Goodrich—the second woman to join the department.

"It was difficult," Stuck said. "… And you pretty much kept your mouth shut. In other words, you didn't complain."

Stories like Stuck's are common across the industry. Countless women understand what it's like to be the only one who looks like them at the conference table, in the laboratory or on the sales call. They have faced challenges that their male colleagues haven't—and maybe even couldn't understand.

And these women persevered.

"I think the ones who survived were the people who really worked hard on learning and making yourself valuable to the company," Stuck said.

Stuck, of course, is one of the survivors—building a career in rubber that has surpassed the 46-year mark. Part of that is due to the respect she earned along the way, simply from doing her job so well.

She also remembers the moment it became apparent that her performance defined her career far more than her gender.

While working at the BFG tire factory in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Stuck and a male co-worker were rushing to reach the Banbury mixers. At some point on their run to compounding, her co-worker took the short cut—the one that went right through one side of the men's restroom and came out the other.

Stuck followed him, anyway.

When her co-worker realized that she had, he apologized. "I forgot you were a woman," he told her.

"And I thought, 'He doesn't think of me as a woman engineer anymore.' To me that was a defining moment that things had changed," Stuck said.

Changed, indeed.

More women have joined the rubber industry ranks as technicians and chemists, scientists and engineers. They've stepped into executive, leadership and sales roles and onto shop floors. Today, at Akron Rubber Development Laboratory Inc.—where Stuck serves as president and senior technical adviser—she is far from one of two.

Roughly half of the ARDL employees are female.

For the rubber and plastics industries, specifically, the percentage of women employed steadily increased between 2017 and 2020. In the years since the pandemic, those numbers have begun to wane.

Women accounted for 25.8 percent of the 529,000 employed throughout rubber and plastics in 2017, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those percentages rose to 26.2 percent in 2018 and 28 percent in 2019, before reaching a five-year peak of 32.1 percent by 2020.

Subsequently, the total number employed in the rubber and plastics industries also peaked that year, at 548,000.

Since then, women's employment figures have dipped a bit for the two sectors—along with employment overall.

Of the 525,000 employed in rubber and plastics in 2021, about 31.5 percent were women. Last year, women represented 29.3 percent of the 499,000 employed.

That's a trend that tracks with manufacturing figures, too.

Women represent 47 percent of the U.S. work force overall, BLS data shows, but they only account for 29 percent of jobs in the manufacturing space—which includes rubber, plastics and all other manufacturing sectors.

The non-tire rubber goods sector has seen its employment steadily decline over the last five years, and the percentage of women making up the work force has fluctuated.

In 2018, women made up 27.7 percent of the 87,000 workers in the non-tire space. The following year, they represented 32.2 percent of the 72,000 employed.

From there, the overall employment numbers dipped to 65,000 in 2020; 59,000 in 2021; and 56,000 last year. Women comprised 35.4 percent, 31 percent and 25.6 percent of that work force, respectively, for those years.

On the other hand, the number of women employed in the tire industry is trending upward. In 2017, they accounted for 16.1 percent of the tire industry's 68,000 member work force.

Last year, women represented 30.1 percent of the 66,000 tire industry workers, according to BLS.

There are several factors contributing to this growth, according to BLS, and the pandemic plays a role.

Following the lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, many industry veterans chose to retire, opening the door for younger employees. At the same time, tire plant openings and expansions added to the work force numbers. With the labor shortage in full swing, companies were looking to expand their pool of talent and already had begun efforts to recruit more women.

These combined factors led to the surge in employment for women, BLS said.

That's good news. And while they applaud that growth, women across all sectors of the rubber industry also would contend it's just the start—an indication of how the industry can and should go.

Marjolein Groeneweg, global marketing director of synthetic rubber for Synthos S.A., is one of them.

Admittedly, Groeneweg is at times discouraged by the representation of women across every facet of the rubber industry.

"I remember when I started working in the industry. I was young. I was as passionate as I am today," Groeneweg said. "I generally felt that by the time I am of the age that I am now all would be equal. There would be no difference between men and women. And that's still not the case."

Groeneweg, though, loves this industry. It's the reason she sees its potential and wants to see it grow stronger. And it can do that with representation.

Most companies, she said, don't reflect the diversity in the world around them.

"When I look and see people celebrating certain events, signings—these kind of things—sometimes there are one or two women, but very often it's only men that you will see in those pictures," Groeneweg said. "That, for me, is not representative of the world we live in.

"I don't want to look at 'people sitting around the table who are all wearing similar outfits, who all have similar haircuts, who wear the same shoes, and they talk about the same thing' pictures," Groeneweg said. "That is not diverse. And it doesn't make any difference whether it's male or female. It is really about getting that balance of different ideas, different thoughts and different backgrounds as well."

That's the kind of diversity that Juliane Hefel advocates for. She, too, wants to see the rubber industry grow, adapt and diversify. And she has vowed to use her voice and talents to make that happen.

"I am also a believer that diversity drives better business results," said Hefel, general manager for PPG Specialty Coatings and Materials. "In particular, in today's complex world, we need more diverse voices than ever to succeed."

That's why Hefel uses her voice to help others raise theirs.

"I am paying attention," she said, "to be sure that all voices are being heard equally and that everyone is being part of the conversation, whether it is asking team members that normally don't speak up in group situations about their opinions or being an advocate for our women's group leadership network across PPG."

But there's also part of Hefel that uses her voice because she—like Stuck and Groeneweg—understands what it's like to be an "only" in the room.

"If you look at myself, I am an outlier in the field that I am operating in," Hefel said. "So, I think by default, I am looking for allies. I am looking for people who look like me, which makes this topic (of advocacy) something that is near and dear to my heart."

Advocacy is a critical tool for ensuring that women are granted opportunities to prove themselves and their capabilities. Because women, Hefel said, still are often overlooked for promotions, even when they have proven they have earned the opportunity.

"I do feel that, every now and then, we do have to prove ourselves twice and three times before we can be considered for the next move," Hefel said. That was, after all, the case for her career.

"What helped me, in particular, was being persistent and being very outspoken about where (I) want to go," she said.

Hefel, certainly, is not alone in believing that her advancement opportunities may have been unnecessarily delayed.

The Manufacturers' Alliance Foundation, in a July report—titled "In Her Own Words: Breaking the Glass Ceiling is Good for Business"—detailed the results of a survey in which they asked men and women if they believed promotions at their company were biased by gender/sex. Men—78 percent in all—said they thought promotions were not influenced by gender.

But 52 percent of women responding to the survey said they believed the promotions were, indeed, gender-biased.

There are a number of factors that may impact the ability of women to move into executive positions or higher-level managerial roles, and they are extremely nuanced. Still, there are biases—often implicit—that could be holding women back.

Just look at manufacturing.

While it's true manufacturing mirrors the public sector in that roughly one in four management positions are held by women, they represent just 12 percent of manufacturing's C-suite positions.

And women represent almost 30 percent of its work force, while making up 47 percent of the U.S. work force overall.

The divide in opportunity is bearing out in pay gap figures—for manufacturing and beyond.

BLS data indicates that the pay gap across all industries and sectors widens over time, an indication that perhaps men are receiving pay increases and promotions at rates higher than women.

That said, it should be noted that the pay gap is narrowing for every age range, but it is doing so more quickly for the youngest generations—typically those with base salaries.

For full-time salaried employees between the ages of 25 and 65-plus, the most notable change may be for women ages 35-44. In 1980, their median incomes were equivalent to 58.3 percent of the salaries of men the same age. It was the lowest percentage for all age brackets.

But by 2021, the gap had narrowed to almost 80 percent, the second-highest for the age groups being paid salary wages for full-time work. The percentage was highest for women ages 25-34, who made 90.6 percent of men's salaries.

For remaining age groups in the category, BLS data shows the following pay gap percentages in 2021:

• Ages 45-54 – 78.1 percent
• Ages 55-64 – 77.7 percent
• Ages 65+ – 76.8 percent

A recent survey conducted by the Manufacturers Alliance sheds light on the differing perspectives between men and women, particularly as it relates to the manufacturing industry's progress.

When asked if the manufacturing sector made significant progress toward equity in both pay and opportunity, 82 percent of the men surveyed said "yes."

Just 38 percent of women said the same.

"Yes, women are increasing their share of employment in manufacturing, but the pace is very slow," a report from the Manufacturers Alliance said in the July report. "… We are marching in place."

The report also pointed to the growth manufacturing is experiencing. From 2010 to 2021 less than 500,000 women in the U.S. took jobs in manufacturing—all sectors, both inside and outside of rubber.

And U.S. Manufacturing is growing, the alliance said. Manufacturing is on pace to employ 12 million by 2031. And women are expected to represent about 30 percent of the manufacturing work force—nearly the same percentage as today.

"Especially after COVID, women took a really huge step backward in the workplace," Jacquie Boyer, senior vice president and chief commercial officer at Sensata, told Manufacturers Alliance Foundation. "Prior to COVID, the World Economic Forum was saying women were going to reach parity with men globally in about 60 years. After COVID hit, it was more than 130 years. And that statistic hit me like a ton of bricks.

"So it wasn't going to happen in my lifetime. It wasn't going to happen in my daughter's lifetime, and it wasn't going to happen in my granddaughter's lifetime. That made no sense to me."

Victoria Rooke is where she is because of the women who came before her.

And she is determined to be the reason someone else finds their place in manufacturing.

Rooke, a 24-year-old CNC machinist and team leader at Westminster Tool Inc., is one of the youngest, most cross-trained employees in the company. She is driven by a deep-seeded desire to learn and grow professionally.

But she's also found a lot of inspiration along the way. She's listened and learned from other women in the industry—some of whom were the impetus behind her pursuit of a career in manufacturing.

And just as they inspired her to build a career in rubber and plastics, they also inspired her to give back to the industry—to advocate for it. She hopes to do exactly that by inspiring girls and women in her small community and beyond.

She volunteers for advocacy groups such as Women in Manufacturing, Manufacture Your Future and other Connecticut work force development programs aimed at attracting women to manufacturing. Some of the programs she partners with mentor students as young as first grade.

"STEM education needs to start young, and truly needs to be made available at any age, whether it is at community colleges or workshops," Rooke said. "They need to be able to dip their toes in to see if it is something they would be interested in pursuing."

One of the best ways to encourage females to pursue STEM, Rooke said, is to give them an environment where they can experience and see it in action.

"Exposure and empowerment are what we need more of," Rooke said. "Females have been generally taught that they weren't smart or capable enough to work in STEM, but that couldn't be any farther from the truth."

Because the truth is that women are driven, she said.

According to the BLS, women are pursuing higher education—and subsequently higher levels of employment—at higher growth rates than men.

Twice as high, actually.

From 1970 to 2021, the proportion of women ages 25-64 in the labor force who held a college degree more than quadrupled. During that same period of time, the proportion of men in the labor force with a college degree more than doubled.

In 1970—just seven years before Stuck took her first job in rubber—11.2 percent of women held college degrees, and 33.5 percent of women in the labor force had not received either a high school diploma or an equivalent.

As of 2021, 47.6 percent of women ages 25 to 64 held a bachelor's degree or higher, and less than 5 percent of women in the labor force had less than a high school diploma.

That trend could continue, and rubber industry firms could stand to benefit—especially if women across STEM-related fields continue to be visible, vocal proponents for their industries.

Stuck, Groeneweg, Rooke and Hefel are certainly among them.

"There are two things that I personally do, and one is sharing my story, which is all about thriving as a woman in a nontraditional environment," Hefel said. "I hope that will encourage other female talents to dive into male-dominated environments, and at the same time, show them that it is absolutely possible to have a successful career in such fields."

Rubber News Editor Bruce Meyer and Correspondent Patricia Faulhaber contributed to this report.