No room for political correctness

People would be stupid to pick you just because you were a woman, says Sue Ion.

Sue Ion OBE FREng is no rabid feminist. The Director of Technology of British Nuclear Fuels, she is not in the least bit fussed by the politically incorrect exhibit in the front lobby of the company’s London HQ. There, in a glass case on a plinth, sits a small piece of darkened glass. The caption on the brass plaque proclaims that this glass “paperweight” is the same size as the captioned to tell us that it is the same size as the nuclear waste created by generating electricity for “a man”.

Perhaps it is Ion’s business that makes her reject notions of political correctness. Anyone who has spent their working life in nuclear energy clearly doesn’t worry too much about what people think. Ion is passionate about the nuclear business and it can be hard to get her to talk about herself. “Nuclear power is the closest thing to sustainable energy that has been given to mankind,” she enthuses.

Ion always wanted to be involved in nuclear energy. She first got interested when she was in her early teens and even picked a book on the subject for a school prize. It was the quality of the science teaching in her all girls grammar school that guided Ion into a technical career that started off in materials science and moved into engineering when she discovered the subject as an undergraduate at Imperial College in London – which yesterday (26 October) awarded her the status of Fellowship.

With a PhD to her name, Ion joined BNFL in technical support and then moved further from research into sales and marketing. “My job has been absolutely fantastic,” she enthuses. “I would never have had that opportunity in any other sector.” Ion returned to R&D when, as Executive Director of Technology, she was responsible for all of the R&D activity in the UK in what must be one of the most research intensive businesses around. In this role she was in charge of more than 1000 people on five sites.

Ion became an engineer long before the “token woman” factor reared its head. “I don't have any hang ups about that sort of thing,” she insists. “I have always taken the view that people would be stupid to pick you just because you were a woman.”

She also rejects “some things that people really get bent out of shape about” like plaques on bits of glass or the use of chairman rather than chairperson. “That is awful. In my view there is nothing wrong with madam chairman.”

Then again, Ion is not blind to the fact that her gender may have helped. “I guess there are occasions when I have had an opportunity to contribute because they have had to look for gender balance in some way.” And there is, she believes, a case for gender balance. “There are times when women look at things differently and women interact in groups in a different way from the way guys interact. You will always get stereotypes at either end of the spectrum. I just think that balance is generally helpful.”

Ion’s own contributions to “balance” of other bodies includes membership of the Council for Science, the UK government’s top-level advisory body on science and technology policy issues, and the council of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the major source of funds for academic research in its subject areas. She is also a vice president of The Royal Academy of Engineering.