International Women In Engineering Day: My Story

Tribe, you all know me as a passionate woman behind Sustainability Tribe, with a mission of spreading sustainability far and wide. However, very few of you know about my professional background and my journey as a female Mechanical Engineer. So, this International Women in Engineering Day, I decided to share my story, my journey in the STEM field, which I happened to share during a few of my talks in front of women engineers and realized that it’s worth sharing with a broader audience.

I am so glad that things are changing rapidly now than before, though we still have a long way to achieve gender equality. In UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s words, ‘To rise to the challenges of the 21st century, we need to harness our full potential. That requires dismantling gender stereotypes.’

I started my journey as a woman in engineering back in the year 2000 when I took the admission for Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering back in India. During my entire academic years, I had to explain to millions of people including my classmates, professors, neighbors, and socially; why in the first place I chose this stream of education? Whereas, not a single question was being asked to any of my male classmates who were more than 80% in the class. Apparently, people found it difficult to understand that I love the science behind how things work and love playing with machinery, fixing things. I am really grateful to my parents, who supported me in my decision. Initially, they were worried about my preference, perhaps because I would probably be the first engineer in the family, but finally, they wholly supported it. I was warned by many that it’s a mentally, physically challenging education, and there might not be any woman in my workplace in the future. However, my love for science was much greater. More importantly, thanks to my parents, I was raised in a way where I was not brainwashed in any way that just because you are a girl, you can’t do certain things. Maybe it was the privilege of being the daughter of a strong & independent working woman.

When I started my journey in traditionally male-dominated fields, that was the time that I also started becoming aware of the problem of gender discrimination. I had to take a stand and be strong whenever the gender card was played, be it in my engineering classroom or in the industry. I learned the most important skills for my career, standing strong and tall as a woman without feeling shy or getting ashamed, voice opinions, open dialogues, offer to collaborate, and not get pressurized by another gender even if they are stronger in numbers. Throughout my journey, I made great friends, partnered with many colleagues, and formed amazing bonds with my male colleagues. To be honest, I loved working with men many times and I know the skills I acquired during my journey helped me a lot. However, there were always some people who couldn’t see through my gender.

For my final year project, along with my team, I designed and built a stone crusher. We even won the National Level competition for our prototype. I worked on many research seminars and never excused myself from any practical lessons, be it forging, carpentry, welding, or working on a lathe or other machines, rather those were my favorite things. When I graduated, I thanked everyone, even those who were not nice to me. How can I not thank them, as they are the ones who helped me prepare for the challenges to come in my career! I prefer focusing on good outcomes from bad experiences.

In my first job as a mechanical design engineer for a quarry equipment manufacturer, I was the first woman in the 100-year-old history of this organization, even their receptionist was a man. This was the time when I came face to face with blue-collared workers on the shop floor and it was a bit terrifying at the start. But I decided to show up every day and find a way to get work done, by keeping respect and treating every day as a new challenge. Later in my career, it was not very difficult to go for site supervision on many construction sites in the UAE as a sustainability consultant when you are the only woman surrounded by avg. 400-500 men in blue.

In my first job in the UAE, the company even built their first ladies’ toilet, because I refused to use the dirtiest toilet I have ever seen (used only by men in the organization) for hygiene reasons and requested one for ladies. I faced many difficult situations where one time our client gave me excessively special attention ignoring the fact that I am married and not available. I had to educate him on ‘how to behave with a female colleague respectfully’ in a firm but friendly way and then went on finishing the project with this client. Throughout all these incidences, however, intimidating they were, I had only one option which was to resolve it on my own.

I learned quickly that professionally you have to get on with your work independently and your superiors (in my case always men), hardly understand what you go through. If you don’t want people around you using a gender card for their benefits, it’s better you also don’t use it. It is hard, even draining I know. During my 7 months of pregnancy, I used to walk construction sites in the scorching heat with a big baby bump.

Very interestingly even if your partner is an engineer, he can hardly understand the complications you face because of your gender. Throughout my career, I couldn’t find a female mentor and this is the reason why I always want to support other women engineers.

Like many professional women, I faced challenging situations that I overcame and become wiser. I faced many such challenges in the corporate world again and again, not just the pay gap and promotion discrimination but taking credit for my outstanding work. Humiliation attempts like asking questions, ‘are you sure, you can present your work to the client?’ Even demotivating things like selective ignorance towards my achievements and not acknowledging them.

When I started working as a sustainability consultant, 13 years back, one of the first few such consultants in UAE then, my gender played a big role sometimes positively, and sometimes negatively. Sustainability was such a new concept then. My job duty included implementing sustainability principles into an already established business. Imagine a young girl in her early twenties asking men more than double her age to change the way they have been doing business for years. However, thanks to all the challenges I faced before, I managed to successfully establish sustainability procedures and all new changes required to make construction more sustainable.

Being a female helped me in changing mindsets, I am sure I was more persistent because women in engineering need to have that skill to survive. We women also bring ‘out of the box thinking’, creativity, and sensitivity which helped me professionally to set up new departments, streamlining businesses, developing sustainability policies, and even launching pioneering initiatives like #ZeroWasteUAE or Sustainability Tribe 11 years back. It’s not a surprise why women in sustainability are much more effective worldwide.

My journey as a woman in engineering and later women in sustainability taught me values like perseverance, determination, a dedication which have helped me in my personal life as well as keep going our Sustainability Tribe & my ikigai of inspiring climate actions for more than 11 years.
Lastly, I want to say I might not have recognized for the contribution of my work and achievements but what is more important is believing in yourself. And yes, my numerous colleagues called me, ‘Queen Jhansi’ the epitome of feminism for Indians!

One of my past senior male colleagues, who was sympathetic to me and didn’t understand why I am in such a difficult job, once told me ‘I won’t let my daughter face the things you are facing in a male-dominated world’. After a few years, I met him in Ibn Batutta mall and he told me his daughter is an engineering student. That is a big win, my Tribe, for all the women in engineering fighting and surviving alone!

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