I gazed at him. I could feel the blood rushing to my ears as my face turned crimson. Did he really just say that? Nah. Who would even think of something like that? I could still hear it ringing in my ears. “Why would you want to be a woman engineer? No one will ever respect you.” I turned away to hide the fury that I was positive was clearly written all over my face. I took a deep breath and then just walked away.

Hillary Clinton, an American politician, diplomat, writer, and public speaker says~

Women are the Largest Untapped Reservoir of Talent in the World.

When you are a woman engineer, most people have an opinion about you. Some people commend you for being brave and courageous while others just pass on negative comments to tarnish your confidence.

Introduction:

Gender equality remains a major issue in the corporate world, and women remain significantly under-represented in the corporate pipeline. Despite an abundance of research confirming that companies are more profitable when they have more women in the C-suite (executive-level managers), we still have a gender gap in most companies.

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (hereafter referred to as “STEM”) is considered a male-dominant field. The underrepresentation of women in tech is not a new topic, and even though progress has been made, it is moving at an extremely slow pace, and this issue will become a fundamental economic challenge for the economy if unaddressed.

It’s a known fact today, that superior innovation coming from unique mindsets of men and women brings new perspectives to the fore, contributing to the overall organizational success. Lately, the topic of the gender gap in stem careers has been spotlighted in the news. Studies show that computers and technology have been targeted mainly towards males.

My mom and especially my dad always affirmed that computers are the future and the sooner I learned about them, the better off I would be. Without even knowing it, I incorporated computers into my daily lifestyle and learned more about them than the average 13-year-old girl. I was a member of the Tech Club of my school and participated in various hackathons.

So, the women in tech I admire is truly My Mom. She is the one who inspired me to choose any career trajectory that I aspired for. Through tough times and good times, my mom has always been my rock. She is a warrior.

Presently, my mom is in LIC (Life Insurance Corporation of India). A decade back, the technology was not that much advanced so the office work was mostly on papers and done manually. But a while back, due to huge advancement in technology, all the office work had to be necessarily transformed to online mode. All the records of clients had to be maintained in computers in Excel sheets. My mother, deprived off the knowledge in computers, started facing a lot of problems, as she had two options either to leave her job or learn computers and get on with her work.

Today, women hold 34% of the IT workforce share in India, which is far better than a decade ago. However, challenges don’t end here. It has been observed that many female employees drop out of work during the first five years of their careers, typically during their initial professional progression.

Reasons:

The reasons include marriage, family planning, among others. They fail to return to work even if they want to because of a lack of favourable infrastructure, inflexible work policies, the wage gap, and undermined opportunities.

Many people suggested her to resign from work and apply for another job which doesn’t require the knowledge of computers. But my mother overlooked all this because she was so determined to learn computers. Even my father supported my mother’s decision, at night my father used to make her understand the basics of commands on his laptop. Sometimes, she used to just sit and watch me doing my work on laptop asking questions like: “How did you do this? guide me also”. Gradually, she learned, practiced and even mastered her work. She resumed her job setting an example not only for me but for every woman out there who thinks that:

"The tech world is still a man's world”.

Several studies on women in STEM, show that a lack of support for women to get into these fields is a major cause of low interest. These studies suggest that young women are unable to find strong female role models who encourage them to pursue stem majors.

Today, it is very clear that superior innovation is achieved by having a diverse team where members can challenge each other and bring new perspectives. Following are the reasons more women are needed in tech industry:

Diversity in solutions:

A right balance of male and female co-workers brings distinct ideas to the table, enabling them to challenge each other and work together to identify optimum results that drive growth. Having female members on the team helps break the unvaried processes and inject new outlooks to amplify success.
Promoting female role models:

Empowering women to identify their inner potential and take leadership roles is necessary to prepare future tech idols. The efforts will drive colossal talented female youth into the tech industry, positioning them where they should be.

Rise In Revenue:

Compared to their peers, high-gender-diversity companies deliver slightly better returns, and they have outperformed, on average, less diverse companies over the past five years. Companies that not only hire but also manage to retain more women put themselves in a position to automatically gain a competitive advantage, a benefit that extends to all stakeholders.

The study showed that companies with the greatest gender diversity (those in which 8 out of every 20 managers were female) generated about 34% of their revenues from innovative products and services in the most recent three-year period.

We Need:

‍‍👭We need genuine interest in technology, promoting the education of women especially in the field of computer science.

👭To help a company realize its full potential, we must make gender diversity a business priority. Personal choices are never made in a vacuum. Economic, cultural, organizational, and policy obstacles shape both men's and women's choices and opportunities.

👭In the end, we need more women who are willing to take on leadership positions, men who are willing to take on more responsibilities in the household and employers who embrace a more flexible workspace. ‍‍Encourage women to be mentors for other women and men and teach them the basics of coding and commands.

I don’t believe that there is one perfect moment when you realize that you want to be an engineer. For me, it has been a long time coming, that eventually, I had to stumble upon this field. I changed my major many times until I found engineering. It is one of the best decisions that I have made, despite the challenges faced but my family is always there to hold me up in my endeavours. With their encouragement, I have been able to push past the frustration and embrace being a future woman engineer.