With women and girls making up roughly 50% of the global population, women should be equally represented at the highest levels of education, government and business...
And yet, men far outnumber women engineers, innovators and technologists in their respective fields. Men outnumber women CEOs at an even greater rate. As engineering and technology careers continue to rapidly increase, the gender gaps are set to increase in these industries as jobs that already attract fewer women will increase, and other jobs traditionally held by women may become obsolete.
As a Hispanic female scientist and technologist in mechanical engineering, I have found myself asking, why are there so few women in technology and entrepreneurship, and what can we do to start to close the gap of inequality?
I realized that even before girls enter school, and are shown what they “should” or “shouldn’t” do, girls need to learn that they can succeed in these fields. Social cues shape girls’ views beginning at a very early age, from gender roles observed at home, cultural iconography, or classroom gender bias. To correct this, and to foster a greater sense of empowerment among girls and young women, I founded VentureLab, an educational non-profit organization that develops youth entrepreneurship programs that prepare K-12 students with 21st century skills.
My passion is teaching and encouraging girls to pursue science, technology, engineering and math—STEM. In this paper I will share my key discoveries for educating and encouraging girls to become STEM industry leaders.
In this series of blogs, I will look at how you can create female game-changers, by teaching confidence, entrepreneurialism and the empowerment that comes from knowing that despite setbacks you can succeed.
In my next post, I explore why the STEM professions are losing female candidates, even as more girls than ever before excel in science and mathematics.
