Engineering is the most male-dominated field. It may perhaps be the most male-dominated profession in the India. Engineering is dominated by men, but the women successfully breaking into the sector report good things. Barriers to entry for women are numerable, but career satisfaction is high; more than 80% of female engineers are either happy or extremely happy with their career choice, and 98% find their job rewarding.

Women make up just 8.5% of all engineers in the India, and only one in five of jobs are held by women in the wider engineering sector as a whole.

We’re losing potential engineers at every stage of life, and it starts from a young age because bias and misconceptions in media and toys often implant ideas into children’s minds that engineering is for men and involves getting your hands dirty and fixing things, which doesn’t appeal to girls if they’re brought up to believe they should be quiet, neat and tidy. The mentality needs to be changed.

There’s so much embedded in our culture saying engineering isn’t for girls, and people still think of engineers as the men who fix your washing machine, not the people at the forefront of designing creative solutions to the world’s problems.