Recently, someone alluded to the fact that when I was in college, I was one of the rare women in a male-dominated field. The topic of conversation that led to this was how difficult it is for guys at Georgia Tech to get girlfriends and that most eligible women there were flanked by two or three guys.
The nature of the conversation was such that I was able to say that I had the experience of being one of very few women in my classes, but not what it meant for me or really anything else about it.
I've also seen comics about how women in engineering and other male-dominated subjects have to dress down so they don't get unwanted attention, but then get it anyway.
It wasn't like that for me. Mostly the guys just ignored me.
The closest I came to being in high demand was in my physics class, where there was a significantly higher proportion of women than in my regular engineering classes. It wasn't until near the end of the semester that I realized my two friends (who were not studying engineering and were in classes with a much higher guy/girl ratio) that sat on either side of me both were interested in me.
However, that was only one class during one semester out of the dozens of classes I took while in school. The guys just weren't interested in me. I didn't feel bad about it, though--I wasn't interested in them, either. It would have been nice to have more friends, but it's awkward to have friends that are interested in you. They also probably thought I'd think they were interested in me if they were friendly towards me, which would also make them less likely to befriend me.
So, long story short, not all women in male-dominated fields are in high demand. The end.
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