Women could well be the answer to the skills shortages affecting the mining and energy sectors.

Indeed, in the mining industry women have already proved to be highly competent haul truck drivers. Many mine managers believe them to be less hard on the trucks than their male counterparts. But how do women fare in areas such as engineering?

The problems the industry faces in getting women to join seem to be largely perception-based.

One way around this is to promote the industry at schools to show women can have a positive impact. One way to do this is to set up an organisation drawing together educators, parents, the industry, women and other key stakeholders to help overcome the knowledge gap.

Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University dean of institutional relations Dr Zlatica Kraljevic - who was one of the keynote speakers at the Australian Information Industry Association's Resource Sector ICT Symposium - believes women are a largely untapped resource to answer the skills shortage. She goes so far as to say that by encouraging more women to join the industry, it could double the skilled labour resources at its disposal.

For her part, Kraljevic was the first woman to graduate from the University of Arizona's chemical engineering program.

The dean said she was "challenge-driven", which - along with an aptitude for maths and science - led her to pursue a chemical engineering career. In turn she has held several senior management roles in the energy sector.

Kraljevic's experience is not unique. Women have been able to carve a niche for themselves in the mining sector - not just in the main mining arena but also in the support industries.

For example, Sandra Close founded mining consultancy Surbiton after starting out as a field geologist in the 1960s. Another consulting industry leader is Valerie Snowden who, with her husband Phil, founded consultancy Snowden.

Interestingly, while Close is much more involved with the mining side of the business these days, she joined Shell in the 1980s in financial planning and management roles.

She said she was considered a novelty at the time.

Both Elizabeth Lewis-Gray and Julie Massara have carved successful careers at the head of their respective mine support-focused family businesses Gekko and Australian Mine Services. Gekko is developing world leading technology in the mineral processing arena while AMS is a mine maintenance specialist.

However, while these women have led the way for others, females are in the minority in senior mining positions.

That could be largely down to lack of education.

Kraljevic argues women are just as competent and technically able as their male counterparts - they just do not realise the opportunities awaiting them in the extractive industries.

"Women are as capable as their male counterparts but have a slightly different viewpoint," Kraljevic said. "The combination of the two different view points will make the industry more powerful."

Runge business development executive Donna Luxton also believes women have a lot to offer the industry but does not believe that increasing the number of women seeking jobs in the industry will necessarily double the number of skilled workers.

Luxton started out in computer science before moving into mining. She was a mining engineer on BHP opencut coal mines in her native Queensland before leaving to join Runge with her husband, who was also an engineer on BHP mines.

"There weren't too many barriers when I was working in the mines," she said. "In technical situations in Australia I never had anyone blatantly say to my face that they didn't accept my opinion."

The problems the mining and oil and gas businesses face in attracting women are largely perception driven. Firstly there is the belief that the bulk of work in these industries is either out in the bush or; in the oil and gas sector; on oil rigs out at sea. Secondly there is a belief that the industries interfere with things such as having a family. Then there is the issue of peer pressure for them to follow more "feminine" career paths.

Luxton said she had seen some of these problems first-hand. "I grew up in Brisbane, which was so close to the central Queensland coal mining industry but it was never mentioned when I was looking at university courses," she said.

"When I was looking at careers the guidance officer said, 'of course there's also engineering if you're a guy'."

Gaining acceptance in mining has often proved difficult for women, particularly in the underground side. Superstitions that women were bad luck underground led to prohibitions on females even visiting underground workings being written into each state's mining legislation.

"I can remember when the Queen came to Australia and it was a big issue about her not being allowed to go underground at Mt Isa," Luxton said.

Kraljevic said the industries needed to take a more marketing-driven approach and promote themselves to women to overcome these negative connotations.

"My experience has been that women in other professions, once they learn about the energy industry, say they wish they'd known about it when they were making their career choices," she said.

"These are capable women [and] if they'd had the information the choice would have been to go into the industry rather than more traditional professions.

"The other thing I've seen is that high school girls are doing very well in maths and sciences. But once they graduate they face pressure to go into something more 'feminine' than oil and gas or mining."

Her answer to these problems is to start organisations drawing together key stakeholders such as women, educators, industry representatives and government, that can show the benefits of the resources sector and shoot down a lot of the misconceptions people have about it. After all, fear and bias are often driven by ignorance.

One such initiativeArticle continues, click here.