Domination of gender in degrees

[selcouthh]

I'm hoping this is the correct forum...
Anyways I am a female and I'm really interested in computers/IT/engineering/maths,, that whole technical section.
My only issue is that my parents don't really want me to go into this field as it is quite a male dominated field.
Are there any fields related to this that are 50/50 or majority female?
Or does anyone have any experience being in a degree which was majorly dominated by the other gender?
I would appreciate any guidance with this.

[Bri MT]

Hey,

I've done 5 units (classes) of maths at uni and my experience has been that yes there was a gender imbalance but also that there were multiple women in each of my classes and that I've never seen someone be treated differently for their gender.

(Overall I'm studying a science degree and my major is bio which isn't male-dominated)

[angewina_naguen]

I'm hoping this is the correct forum...
Anyways I am a female and I'm really interested in computers/IT/engineering/maths,, that whole technical section.
My only issue is that my parents don't really want me to go into this field as it is quite a male dominated field.
Are there any fields related to this that are 50/50 or majority female?
Or does anyone have any experience being in a degree which was majorly dominated by the other gender?
I would appreciate any guidance with this.

Hey, selcouthh!

This is a bit of a delayed response and Bri has a more relevant answer but I thought I'd offer a perspective from what I've noticed in my degree as well. We have the opposite situation where there are more female students than male students in Music Ed (a cohort of roughly 25 having 7 male students is quite a ratio) but I still find that they're being supported and treated just as fairly as the female students. I definitely feel like a lot of what we do in Ed may be read as gendered in that we are told to be things like nurturing and "maternal" to serve our students well and that in order to properly discipline them, we would have to put on a "male voice." That being said, there are active attempts made on the tutors' behalf to make sure everyone is included and feels welcome so perhaps it's my optimism speaking but I'd imagine STEM careers would have a similar approach 

I would also recommend joining societies to meet and connect with people! I'm pretty sure there is at least one women in engineering society and other societies of the like that hold social events, workshops and projects that can get you involved and to feel like you're in a community. Hopefully that helps 

Angelina 

[owidjaja]

Hey there,

So I'm studying an aerospace engineering degree, which is considered to be one of the worst in terms of gender equality considering how narrow of a field it is (electrical is also right up there since it's considered as one of the harder engineering degrees, and on the other hand, biomedical is better in terms of gender equality). And my parents had similar sentiments, in that they didn't want me to do aerospace since it's male dominated.

But personally, I ignored what my parents told me, because sure, it's male-dominated but it's going to stay that way if we don't try to normalise women in STEM. Another thing I would say is that sexism still happens but not as bad as before. In fact, a lot of the sexism occurs a lot more with the older generation because those were the values they grew up with (this is something my mentor has experienced so it's a matter of educating them), whereas a lot of students don't really care whether if you're a female or not. A lot of the times, they just wanna focus on completing the project and getting to know you as a person.

Hope this helps!

[Grace0702]

Hey,

So I just started a combined engineering degree and honestly I had a pretty good experience the first few weeks I was on campus, everyone in the engineering faculty is super supportive, and while they acknowledge the slight gender imbalance there isn't any discrimination.

However, my sister is a working engineer and has described her hardships to me. Basically it depends on the workplace and their attitudes. Some workplaces will simply hire the women because it looks good to have a female on their team when the man going for the same position may be more qualified (so yeah that's a whole other form of sex-based discrimination).

But anyway to be a woman in a male dominated field you definitely need to have resilience, because lets be honest there can be some real douches out there, (but like someone said above, it is more the older generations who just grew up at a different time in a different way) but so far, the guys i've encountered in my degree are super nice and supportive, but uni and the workplace are two separate things.

If you are passionate about it i'd say go for it, but just be aware that some days may be better than others. Also definitely join the women in eng societies, its a great way to network with supportive women with the same interests as you

Hope this helps