Start with the math. In mechanical engineering, women earn about 17.9% of bachelor’s degrees. That is roughly 5:1 men to women (American Society for Engineering Education [ASEE], 2024).
It does not balance after graduation. In the U.S. workforce, women are 11.4% of employed mechanical engineers, which is about 7.8:1. Call it 8:1 if you like (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS], 2025). Compared with the usual suspects, ME is near the bottom. Among branches with published workforce shares, only aerospace is lower. Electrical sits a bit higher. Civil and chemical are higher still. Industrial is higher again (BLS, 2025).
Those ratios matter when you are young and building your life. College and the first few years of entry-level work are where most people form friend groups, meet partners, and find early mentors. In ME the pool is skewed before you show up, and it narrows as you move through labs, clubs, and late projects. The social world that rides along with your major has fewer mixed-gender spaces and fewer same-gender peers for women in particular. The long hours do not help.
If you are a man, you will spend four to six years (see Reason #2) in rooms that feel like a sausage fest, then step into offices that feel the same. If you are a woman, you will look for same-gender classmates to team with and for mentors who look like you, and find fewer. That is not a single bad course or a single bad shop. It is the standard mix for this field in this country, repeated each fall when the next cohort arrives with the same ratios (ASEE, 2024; BLS, 2025).
You can build a career here. Many do. The shape of your days will still reflect the headcount. Fewer options for who to study with, fewer options for who to ask hard questions after a design review, fewer informal networks where people pull each other along. That is not neutral background. It is the water you swim in.
Eight to one is not a community. It is a headcount.
References
American Society for Engineering Education. (2024, October 27). Engineering & Engineering Technology by the Numbers, 2023. https://ira.asee.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Engineering-Engineering-Technology-By-the-Numbers-2023-27-October-2024.pdf
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025, January 29). Table 11. Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity (2024 annual averages). https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm
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