I recently attended an awards ceremony to acknowledge my receipt of the Arkwright scholarship (an engineering award) there were three ceremonies and I can say at mine there was about 200 people who received the award, out of these 1/4 were girls. I know that 27% of applicants for the awards were girls. this upsets me.
We were asked to fill out on information sheet before hand and the presenter would read our facts and aspirations as we walked along the stage. My interesting fact was “I am a keen feminist wanting to work towards increasing the number of female engineers in the UK, starting with me.” I was proud to walk across the stage with that phrase. when I told my sisters and peers about it they told me it was cringey and awkward, “I can’t believe you wrote that” they said. I am not ashamed to be a feminist, I am not ashamed for people to know that I am a feminist. Why do girls think it is a shameful think to be, this angers me greatly.