ONLINE CHAT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE IN THE MALE DOMINATED FIELDS: THE GOOD AND THE BAD

This is a summary to our August #STEM4Girls chat held on August 25th :) . We discussed women's experiences in male dpminated fields especially the engineering fields. Enjoy the read.

I bet every single one of us at one point have heard the statement “We need to get more women into the Science, technology, engineering and mathematics field” some would say women and the girl child have been actively discouraged from pursuing these careers either directly though societies s still slow diversifying believes or indirectly through the experiences of women in the field. This online chat was focused on hearing it from the horse’s mouth, what women in these fields go through day in and out.

Experiences:

• Mistaken identity: Clients assuming you are the Personal assistant to the male colleague at meetings. The client passing right bay you to greet the driver because they just assumed they are the engineer.

• Women tax: This means working twice as hard to prove that you are capable to keep up and do everything men can do, and checking your work twice because you start to second guess your work as everyone around does too

• Classic Pregnancy syndrome: “soon you will be pregnant and not be able to go up a scaffold, that’s why women should not be allowed to be engineers”

• The sex card: Males in the field believing that we are advancing in our fields because we exchange promotions for sex or we have it easy because the boss likes us.

• One of a kind: But some have met those few who have seen the light and work hand in hand with the women in the fields to achieve wonderful results

In conclusion there is still a lot to be done as far as getting men to accept us as equals but no one said it was impossible.