Many women are battling wife and mothering roles with their careers and that has imparted greatly how they raise their daughters. Growing up my mother used to tell me to study and become the best I ever wanted to be. As a child I didn’t realize just how powerful these words were, now I see the implication, well I am an Engineer! And she still continues to support me even now.
Most times I have talked to young girls in high school, primary school and they have the inbuilt belief that they are not good in sciences, well of course not everybody is good in sciences including men, but to have a whole gender predisposed and told not to be good at it is just plain mean and sad if nothing else, a total joke.
In most African households girls are told to strive to get a good man who can take care of them. When they fail their sciences it’s often common to hear phrases like don’t worry you will be a teacher, or thank God you are a girl you will get a rich man to marry you.
It’s time parents especially mothers woke up and empowered their daughters to take up the challenge to do STEM courses if they want to. In this world we need more female Engineers, the gap is still so wide and we have an untapped group of young women who are not well informed about the course. If you want to be a teacher and are good in sciences you can be an engineering lecturer,physics, biology or chemistry teacher, you can practice engineering in so many ways. Write books, go into research, be a consultant, start an engineering recruitment firm, own your own company the list is endless.
Don’t get me wrong, teaching is the most noble profession in this world , so is HR, PR ,business etc, but its not right to predispose one gender to be teachers, HRs etc just because they are deemed not fit for any other role. We have to let everyone be who or what they want in life.
Break the math myth. Having a natural competency for maths, physics can be helpful but like any other subject, intelligence and competency can grow with constant practice.
It’s time we told our daughters to be engineers and they will be.
If you know any woman engineer or student female engineer, tell them to contact on info@beetheengineer.com. We are starting a series on women engineers , encouraging them to tell their stories which will be published on the blog. The series will run from August 2020. Please share this widely.
08 Comment
We really need this
Thank you for this platform.
We need more women in this field, as an engineer, I can guarantee you that my fellow female colleagues do good a job as we the male counterparts do.
hey Brenda,
This is an impressive initiative.
I’m Crystal and I am an electrical engineer myself.
My young daughter seems to have a passion to create things. Think she is headed this way. She can help with some mentorship
Looking forward to the complete series.
Very insightful.
Thanks, we need to empower our young girls.