Women Entrepreneurs Day: Why aren't there more women in STEM?

As per a World Bank report, 43 percent of STEM graduates in India are women. (Image: Cowomen via Unsplash)

“When I was in college, I had just three girls in my batch - a total of 15 girls if we consider students across all years,” says Sangeeta Wig, who graduated from Delhi College of Engineering (now Delhi Technological University) in 1982.

“Four decades later, I see engineering colleges like IGDTUW (the Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women) brimming with young women who wish to make a career in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics),” says Wig says, who now owns and runs a structural consultancy that helps design building projects for earthquake safety.

Wig has also started an NGO for Women, WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) which empowers young girls to take up entrepreneur roles in STEM.

As the world celebrates Women Entrepreneurs Day, the number of women in STEM in India continues to be low. As per a World Bank report, 43 percent of STEM graduates in India are women - still short of equal representation. The number of women in STEM dwindles as you go up the corporate ladder, though. We reached out to some of the leading women entrepreneurs from STEM industries for their experience and thoughts on how to improve the representation of young female entrepreneurs in STEM-related fields.

“I happen to know women civil engineers who have travelled to remote sites (for construction work). We see more women going for coding and fewer women going for core engineering branches because there is an increased global demand for coding jobs”, says Wig.

Ask her if she had to work twice as hard to get half as far as her male counterparts, and Wig says: “Initially it was a challenge as I had to establish my credibility and assure my boss that I can deliver quality design complete with codal compliances and correct implementation”. Wig says once she convinced her bosses that she was as good as her male colleagues, it was smooth sailing for her.

Long-standing problem

Sudha K.V., vice-president, Dell Technologies India, says when she started her career, “it was assumed my career was secondary to me and that my family would be my priority. Battling these assumptions was tough. It was assumed that I wouldn’t take on more work or challenging projects”.

Sudha adds that often the biases and assumptions were "unintentional" and came from "well-meaning people". Examples range from people assuming she would not want to work late to the idea that onsite opportunities wouldn't be welcome because they would get in the way of her responsibilities towards her family.

"I doubt if they would dare to ask a man (these questions)... Today, HRs can get fired for asking such questions because it is politically incorrect. A couple of decades back, things were different,” Sudha adds.

Sudha says she also faced bias as a manager when she took on the senior leadership roles. “Nobody said it to my face, but I was told some people do not like being managed by women. I had to use different approaches to navigate such situations,” she adds.

Leaky bucket

Why does this bias exist? Sudha attributes it to the leaky bucket phenomenon - a theory commonly used in share markets which Sudha feels applies to women in STEM too.

“Just like the water level in a leaking bucket never crosses a certain level, the number of women in tech also stays at the same level. A large number of women enter the workforce, which is evident across our campus hirings, but after reaching a certain point in their careers, they drop out due to many reasons - in-laws, kids, family pressure.”

Sudha says that a fallout of this phenomenon is that there is a large number of women in entry-level jobs but hardly any women at the top. “We need to make sure the women in mid-career level don’t drop out of the workforce,” she explains.

Dr Ezhil Subbian, co-founder and CEO, String Bio, agrees. “Women are entering STEM but not sticking around,” she says. A biotechnology engineer by profession, Subbian is heading a startup which uses biotech to solve complex problems around human and animal nutrition.

“Look at an average biotech engineering class: 50-60 percent of the class is women. I don’t see this translate to the middle layer. In the middle management and upper management in biotech companies, this number is less”, she adds.

Way forward

The last couple of decades haven’t been as promising for women in STEM but times are changing. “Look at Covid, for instance. Some of the leadership positions of key importance - WHO, et al - were led by women scientists during the pandemic,” says Dr Subbian.

“There are fewer women in structural engineering than I would like to see. But on an average, we have become more accepting of women in STEM,” says Wig. “Women are now working on sites, taking on big responsibilities including 24-hour working on construction sites. I don’t see women shy away from the responsibilities their position carry.”

Dell’s Sudha KV is on the same page as Wig on this. Her advice to young women in STEM: “Do not put constraints on yourself. Women wish to develop apps but I don’t see big ideas - it is like women are limiting themselves... Everybody has to start small. But that doesn’t mean you have to aspire small. Dream big, be confident and network well. If you aspire to become an entrepreneur, you have to dream big.”