Breaking myths about female engineers

Girls are smart at math and science but start losing confidence by age 6. It’s time to challenge and replace outdated myths about girls, math and science with empowering narratives that celebrate their potential. By reshaping these beliefs early, we open doors for girls to thrive, innovate and lead in fields where their talents belong and will contribute to solving real problems. In honour of the theme for this year’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science—From Vision to Impact: Redefining STEM by Closing the Gender Gap—I’m calling on every one of us to change how we speak to girls about their innate intelligence and capacity to excel in math and science. Unfortunately this is what girls hear, see and believe, through our words and actions: * Boys think more logically and are smarter at math. * Girls are less confident in math and science than boys. * Girls don’t like competition or hard challenges. The truth is: * Math and science skills are learned, not gendered. Girls perform just as well as boys when given the same opportunities and attention. * Confidence grows from experience, not ability. Girls’ math ability is strong; what’s missing is equal encouragement to take risks and keep going. * Girls thrive in challenges when the environment is inclusive. Girls engage deeply with complex problems when collaboration and learning are valued over bravado. We must encourage our girls to pursue STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) before stereotyping has them believing old lies and closing off career & leadership paths brimming with opportunities. Girls start closing doors to STEM at a shockingly young age. Research has found girls begin doubting their own intelligence by age six. Another study confirmed that by Grade 2, before any performance differences are evident, many girls already lose confidence in math, while boys the same age are more likely to say they are strong in math. Like many stereotypes, the old myth of the math brain persists. It’s the misconception that boys are naturally better at math, and girls are naturally better at language and verbal skills. The reality, shown by many studies, is that there is no substantial difference in the innate cognitive ability or aptitude of boys and girls. In Canada, girls perform just as well as boys in science and math proficiency. The problem isn’t nature, it’s nurture. This programming hurts a girl. It erodes her confidence in these subjects, discourages her from raising her hand or showing her abilities, and falsely attributes her success to effort alone, not innate talent. These unspoken myths and stereotypes are so pervasive, they can make opting out of STEM subjects feel rational to her, not pessimistic. Imagine the possibilities girls will open themselves to when they feel our unwavering belief in their potential, and they start to believe in themselves and their brilliance from day 1? It’s time to rewrite and change the narrative.

There is a myth that we need to work harder to get girls into STEM. That they are not interested or do not have the confidence. That they need to be ‘encouraged’ more. The truth is, girls are already curious. Already capable. Already problem solvers. The issue is not the girls. It is the system around them. The way the curriculum is framed. The way workplaces are structured. The lack of visible role models. The culture of quiet exclusion. At Stemettes, we focus on creating environments where girls and non-binary young people can see themselves, be themselves and still succeed. No compromise. No code-switching. STEM does not need fixing. The way we teach and run it does. What would a truly inclusive tech industry look like to you?

What if the stereotypes we still believe are the real barriers in engineering? Every time someone says “engineers are all analytic, not creative,” or “you need to wear a hard hat and get your hands dirty to be credible,” it sends a message. One that makes people feel they don’t belong before they even try. Here are a few stereotypes that are long overdue for retirement: – Engineers are always logical, never emotional – Creativity isn’t part of engineering work – Engineering is only for those who are physically strong or rugged – Leadership is about technical seniority, not emotional intelligence These myths don’t just hurt feelings. They discourage curiosity, silence smart questions, and block people who could lead with safety and inclusion in mind. Lots of change is possible when we shift what behaviour we celebrate. When creativity, empathy, and vulnerability are seen as strengths – not liabilities. Our work helps teams recognise these hidden barriers, freeing more people to bring their full selves into engineering spaces. What stereotype do you think is most harmful, and first in need of retiring?

💻 20 years in IT. That’s how long I’ve worked in this industry. In that time, I’ve built my career on technical knowledge, hard work, and a deep love for what I do. But despite that, I still walk into rooms where people assume I can’t be the technical SME. Not because of my experience. Not because of my skills. But because I’m a woman. Over the years, I’ve had to fight harder to prove myself than male colleagues with less experience. I always believed things would get better, that we’d evolve past those outdated assumptions. Sadly, even in 2025, I still encounter that same disrespect, and not just from men. Sometimes, it comes from other women too. Let’s not forget the women who helped shape this industry, Ada Lovelace, Margaret Hamilton, Dorothy Vaughan. They were pioneers, innovators, and leaders. Women have always belonged in tech. 👉 So here’s my ask: If you work in IT, assume the woman in the room knows her stuff. Assume she’s the SME. Assume she’s a badass. Because more often than not, she is. Let’s break the bias. Together. #WomenInTech #GenderBias #InclusionMatters #TechIndustry #STEM #BiasInTech

Madras. 1930s. A girl is married at 15. A mother by 18. And a widow - four months after her baby is born. No noise. No answers. Just silence. And a baby in her arms. But her story did n0t end there. It began there. Her name was Ayyalasomayajula Lalitha. And what she did next? India was not ready for it. Her father - Pappu Subba Rao, a professor of electrical engineering - saw a spark in her eyes. He did not just console her. He rebooted her future. He walked her into College of Engineering, Guindy. A fortress of men. No woman had ever entered. Until she did. 1943. She walks out with a degree in Electrical Engineering. India’s first woman engineer. No quotas. No campaigns. Just courage. While others whispered, she designed transmission lines for India’s biggest dam. Bhakra Nangal. When nations were building walls - she was lighting them up. She joined Associated Electrical Industries (AEI). Calcutta. Worked for three decades. Designing systems. Fixing failures. Bridging two worlds - British hardware and Indian ambition. No site visits - because widows “should not travel.” So she sent brilliance instead. From behind her desk, she powered grids. She was not loud. She did not fight. She just outperformed - every day. 1964. New York. The First International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists. She is there, in a saree, representing a country that barely knew her name. By 1966, she becomes a full member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers (London). Not just an Indian story. A global statement. But ask your textbooks. Ask your engineering colleges. Ask your dams and grids. They will remember the voltage. But forget her name. So the next time someone asks: “Was engineering always a man’s world?” Just smile. And whisper: “Before we had panels and policies - Lalitha broke the current.” She did not rebel. She redesigned what rebellion looked like. With no protest. Just precision. Her name was A. Lalitha. And every circuit she drew was a quiet slap to the rules. So, if she could do it against all odds, why can't you? #engineering #construction #motivation #humanresources #RoshanNisar

Happy International Women’s Day 💜 A gender gap persists in STEM globally. We’ve made progress, but women are still woefully under-represented. Tackling our greatest challenges - improving health to combating climate change to developing AI as a force for good - must harness all talent. Gender diversity expands and extends the talent pool and is essential as today’s technologies demand different ‘Power’ skills: ▪️Emotional Intelligence: to manage emotions and navigate interpersonal relationships effectively, enhancing teamwork and leadership in STEM ▪️ Collaboration: fostering effective teamwork, with a focus on joint problem-solving ▪️ Adaptability: STEM is moving fast, I see that every day, being able to quickly learn and adjust to is indispensable ▪️ Empathy: drives solutions that truly resonate with human needs ▪️ Creativity: Brings unique perspectives that fuel innovation ▪️ Ethics: development is responsible and beneficial for society However ▫️Women are given smaller research grants and, while 33.3% of all researchers, only 12% of STEM academics are women ▫️In cutting edge fields such as AI, only 1 in five (22%) is a woman ▫️Despite a shortage of skills driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution, women still account for only 28% of engineering and 40% of computer science graduates ▫️Female researchers have shorter, less well-paid careers. Their work is underrepresented in high-profile journals and they are more often passed over for promotion ▫️Although STEM fields are widely regarded as critical to economies, so far most countries have not achieved gender equality in STEM So what? Not only is this unethical, unfair it’s also misinformed, I mean stupid: ▪️The crash test dummy is a classic case. Initially, modelled on the average male body. Women were 47% more likely to be seriously injured and 17% to die in car crashes. Despite efforts, the gap in safety due to a lack of diverse testing persists ▪️Cardiovascular research has long been skewed towards men. Women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed with heart attacks and treatment is less effective ▪️Trials for medications did not sufficiently account for gender in pharmacokinetics so dosages were based on male biology, women experience adverse drug reactions nearly 1.7 times more often ▪️Medical devices have focused on male anatomy, for example, women are 20% more likely to have a stroke or die within 30 days of being treated with stents for artery disease ▪️Voice recognition technologies were developed using data from men leading to error rates for women’s voices up to 70% higher ▪️Famously Amazon discovered that its AI-based screening was biased against women favoring male candidates by a significant margin ▪️Facial recognition has error rates of up to 34.7% for dark-skinned women, vs 0.8% for light-skinned men So, should you need it, today is a reminder that women play a critical role in STEMs and that our participation must be strengthened #iwd2024 #BeEqual #GenderEquality #DEI

"You're not from IIT or IIM? Then forget about a high salary." "Small-town background? You can't possibly be worldly or updated." "Traditional middle-class family? Independence isn't for you." "You're a woman? Safety will always be your biggest concern." "No family wealth? International opportunities aren't your path." These weren't just statements I heard. They were cages I was expected to live in. But here I am: a techie from tier-3 city and tier-3 college, living independently in Dubai , one of the world's most vibrant cities. And here's what I've learned watching extraordinary people defy expectations. The truth about potential: ➤ Your college name is just a starting point, not your destination ➤ Some of the most innovative thinkers come from towns you've never heard of ➤ Middle-class values often build the resilience that privilege cannot buy ➤ Women aren't just surviving in challenging spaces, they're revolutionizing them ➤ Financial constraints breed creativity that abundance rarely inspires I'm living proof that we can tear up the scripts handed to us. My journey from a tier-3 college to working as a software engineer in Dubai wasn't supposed to happen according to those limitations. And I'm not alone, you can do bigger things in life if you have a “strong will” for it. Our potential has never been defined by where we started. Only by our refusal to accept the limitations others place on us. If you need guidance from senior professionals to prepare for your next role, you can checkout topmate.io for assistance https://lnkd.in/gq2RyqzF Who in your network has beautifully shattered these expectations?Tag them All that I mean to say is that your story doesn't have to follow anyone else's rules. Make your own and live it to the fullest. #BreakingBarriers #WomenInTech #GlobalCareers #SoftwareEngineering #Potential #DubaiLife

It was my first month in my early career HR job. I was trying to understand why some hiring managers were reluctant to hire women engineers. 'These young girls get married and leave the job soon, so there's no point in spending time training them,' was the reply. I responded that I would look at the last three years' attrition data before drawing any conclusions. My stakeholders found it odd that I needed data when everyone already knew what the issue was. Upon analysing three years of attrition data, we found that more male engineers leaving for an MBA contributed to higher attrition than women leaving after marriage. Relevant, easy-to-understand data is crucial for making informed decisions and debunking myths. Most of the time, you don’t need statistical tools or advanced analytics to do this. What's your story of debunking myths with data? #peopleanalytics #humanreources #leadership

Only 27% of STEM graduates in Germany are women. In Tunisia, it's 44%, one of the highest rates worldwide. When I tell European founders that more than half of Tunisia's engineering students are women, they usually pause. Then they ask if I'm sure. Yes. Around 56% of Tunisia's engineering students are female. Tunisia didn't stumble into this. Since independence, education has been universal and merit based. Women entered universities in large numbers. No one told them engineering was "for men." Walk into a lecture hall in Tunis today and you'll see rows of women coding, designing, solving equations. I studied engineering in Tunis for 3 years before moving to Germany. The contrast was immediate. More than half of Tunisia's researchers are women. Female engineers lead teams, build products, shape public policy. Europe has a gender gap in tech. Tunisia doesn't. They're 2 hours apart. While Europe hosts conferences about closing the gender gap, Tunisian universities graduated generations of female engineers through consistent education policy. I've seen Tunisian engineering teams where collaboration flows naturally because competence drives decisions. Tunisia quietly built one of the world's most gender-balanced engineering ecosystems. That's worth celebrating. #WomenInSTEM #Tunisia #Engineering #TechTalent #Diversity

Women’s contributions to tech are often overlooked. Case in point: We call it “software engineering” because of Margaret Hamilton. She coined the term while leading NASA’s software team for Apollo 11, arguing that software should be engineered with the same precision and discipline as hardware. And she proved it. Minutes before the Lunar Module was set to land on the moon in 1969, alarms started flashing on board. The guidance computer was overloaded. Most missions would have aborted. But Hamilton’s design was built for this. Her software was smart enough to know when to ignore non-essential tasks and prioritize critical ones: to keep the mission on track. That’s fault-tolerant computing at its finest. Her work shaped asynchronous programming, modular architecture, and error recovery. These are concepts that power AI, cloud, and distributed systems today. Another inspiring thing about Hamilton? She was a self-driven learner in a time when no formal training for “software engineering” exists. She learned by building. That’s how great engineers should grow: by experimenting, learning, and iterating. On International Women’s Day, let’s celebrate the pioneers who shaped tech, and the women pushing it forward today. Who’s a woman in tech that inspires you? Tag them here so we can give them the recognition they deserve. #SoftwareEngineering #MargaretHamilton #WomensHistoryMonth #InternationalWomensDay