Have women in STEM experienced any setbacks because of their gender?

Juliana, it is AWESOME that you are thinking of going into a STEM field. I think first of all I should say GIRLS RUN THE WORLD!!!! As a girl and a minority one at that, I have learned that I have to faster, smarter, work harder, study longer and just generally be better when I go into areas that have been male dominated. When you go into it knowing that, you already know what you are up against. I think you should watch the movie 'Hidden Stars," It will give you some insight on being a woman in a male dominated field.

I've worked in the telecommunications industry for 25 years, and yes, people (both men and women) can be 'odd'.

There have been more experiences where I've told folks the answer, and they opted not to listen. One time, there was a big outage in a data center and I saw the problem . .actually knew how to fix it ... but no one would listen. So I whispered to a friend who was anatomically correct just to help them out of the problem, As he stated the fix, he was kind enough to prefix his thought with 'As Joanne said .....'

So, you learn to write down what you said and keep it for the record. Also, you learn not to hold grudges. "At the end of the day" as my manager liked to say, everyone is here for a paycheck. If we were rich, we wouldn't be working, so there's no need to be one of the 'mean girls'.

The secret is to be good at what you do and confident in how you do it.

Sometimes we (women) tend to come across too hard in attempt to prove something. Prove your worth through your competence and integrity.

I have, but I don't let that hold me back. Recently I had someone that I had corresponded with for weeks through email hear my voice for the first time, mention that he didn't know that I was a woman, and then ask to speak with my manager and that all our meetings from now on include my manager, even though all our past meetings had just been the 2 of us. I just get through it, report it if it gets to be harassment, and realize that the STEM fields still have a long way to go for gender equality. We can just do the best we can to encourage more women to join STEM fields.

Hi there, as a male, I can't speak for women's experience in STEM. But I can tell you that we are seeing more and more females in our industry these days. And, I'd encourage you to pursue a career in it. Women tend to be more analytical, whereas men tend to rush things out. At least that's been my experience, but of course there are exceptions.

Good luck, Fernando.