First things first. Female engineers are awesome, and they are doing an excellent job in every discipline of engineering. Without them, the Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) could never advance as fast as it is doing nowadays. But, how many times have you seen the female students being singled out and their work seen with overly critical eyes because of their feminity? Quite a lot I guess despite the increasing number of them present in these courses. They have to prove themselves over and over again just because their peers tend to think they cannot do it as good as male counterparts. Moreover, they do it just because of some screwed up gender bigotry towards females just like when they drive.
Both genders are equally at fault for creating sex-based biases and jokes that typically tend to become conventions about how we see the world around us. Men are generally perceived as clumsy and insensitive while women are associated with being, well, women, and we need to remove these biases in our workplaces if we want a better productive workforce.
Recently, a mechanical engineering senior at the Eastern Washington University wrote a comprehensive open letter regarding gender biases he sees in STEM fields and sent it to the editor of the College Newspaper The Easterner. He addressed to all women in the campus and told them how they were treated with bias at different levels and thus they weren’t equal at all. Although it may seem feministic, the root of the problem is buried far beneath what normally appears to us. Here is the complete letter:
So, you see the kind of bias we are talking about? It starts from the elementary school onwards and females never eventually stop facing it. STEM fields need to focus on this matter and showcase the brilliant work women scientists, engineers and mathematicians have been doing for all these years. This way we can help future Marie Curies and Hypatias to make the world a better place! What do you think? Let us know in the comments!