Workshop for Women in Engineering Design

Only IEEE numbers are mentioned. This seems a less than scientific way to measure employment.
Also, related to this:
"The female membership is about 10% of the total IEEE membership. It seems obvious that women are under-represented in the largest professional organization in our industry. "
How is it obvious that women are underrepresented, when the percentage of women engineers is not given? It could be the IEEE over-represents the number of women.
In addition, what of the current economic circumstances and real reduction in working engineers? Has this overly effected women? The same?
This is the downside of writing articles to engineers, they ask too many questions :-)