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Growing up, I changed 
career paths many times.

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First,

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I wanted to be a teacher like my mom.

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And then, I wanted to be a singer,
the next Taylor Swift.

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Finally, I wanted to be an actress

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because what 10-year-old
doesn't want to be on Disney Channel.

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Whatever I thought my future
occupation would be,

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an engineer was not it.

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Engineering wasn't even on my radar.

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In my opinion,

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math and science weren't for girls.

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They were for nerdy boys.

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It sounds silly, but it's true.

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When I was a kid, I imagined engineers 
and scientists and mathematicians

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as really smart men in lab coats

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discussing complex theorems, 
years beyond my understanding.

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I thought women in STEM were anomalies.

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And for a woman to be an engineer, 
she had to be some kind of prodigy.

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And then one day,

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my older stepsister told me
that she wanted to be an engineer.

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And I realized then
that women in STEM weren't prodigies.

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They could be anyone.

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A female engineer doesn't 
have to be a prodigy,

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just like a male engineer 
doesn't have to be a prodigy.

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And I decided then
that I wanted to be an engineer too.

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After making the choice
to follow this new career path,

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I started to realize
it's a whole lot easier for guys.

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In most cases, 
from the time they develop,

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boys are taught how to use tools
and put things together.

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They're the ones 
who are pushed towards cars,

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and we're the ones 
that are pushed towards Barbies.

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Toys that inspire passion 
to go to engineering,

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like robots and Legos,
are typically marketed towards boys.

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And the ones marketed towards girls 
aren't trucks or spaceships -

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they're princess castles and pet shops.

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I think it's the little things
that cause the gender gap

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in science and math careers.

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The rare little comment 
that girls aren't as smart as boys -

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a son being taught how to fix a car 
while a daughter is taught how to cook.

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It's nobody's fault.

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We unconsciously do these things

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because gender differences
and inequalities are things

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that have been around for a long time.

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And now, they're drilled into our heads.

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We solved a lot of this
back in the early days

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with women's suffrage 
and equal education.

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And now it's time for us 
to fix the little things,

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so that we can grow even closer 
to achieving equality.

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The lack of women in STEM 
isn't all across the board, however.

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In fact, in areas such
as medical science and social science,

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the ratio is actually very balanced.

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But in areas that are often 
considered more "taxing,"

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such as computer science and mathematics,

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women make up about a quarter
of the workforce.

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I want that number to even out.

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There's a constant fallacy
that's spoken from the beginning:

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teasing, stereotyping, marginalization.

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Countless articles discuss

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how women feel out of place
in classes relating to STEM,

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due to reasons such as other
classmates mocking them

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or a professor not paying 
as much attention to them

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or a lack of other female
classmates in the class.

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And if gender inequality 
isn't a reason enough

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for wanting more women involved in STEM,

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take into account 
the scientific discoveries

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that have been made by women.

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Cardiovascular disease symptoms 
were always being based off male symptoms.

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Despite the fact that it manifests 
very differently in men and women,

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the average male is the model

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for investigating diseases
and designing treatment

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because men were the ones 
doing the research.

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For years, women died
from incorrect diagnoses

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because no one took into account

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that a person's sex 
could have such an effect

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on how a disease appeared.

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Now that more women are getting
more involved in medical research,

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however, they themselves are taking
into account these differences

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and are consequently saving lives.

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Women have been advancing their fields 
farther ahead for centuries.

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Ada Lovelace created a plan for a machine

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that could perform complex 
mathematical calculations.

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She did this in the early 1800s.

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It was never built during her lifetime,

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but her plans were used a century later
to build the world's first computers.

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One of the world's first 
electronic computers, called the "ENIAC,"

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was programmed
by six female mathematicians.

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Now, Amy Sheng, an engineer,
is developing a smartphone attachment

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called CellScope,

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which allows mothers to detect
ear infections in their children.

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Hadiyah-Nicole Green, 
a medical physicist,

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is designing a cancer treatment

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that uses lasers to destroy
cancer cells exclusively.

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Despite these achievements,
women are still isolated in STEM fields.

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I can also get into other problems 
such as the gender pay gap.

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But the fact is that we have 
made so much progress,

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and yet we are still miles away 
from the finish line.

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It's because of the internalized
beliefs we don't get it,

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plus it's the type
for both men and for women.

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Project Implicit conducted 
an investigation on half a million people,

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and found that 70% of them

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automatically associate men with science
and women with the arts.

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My goal is to get the word out there

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that any little girl or boy
can be anything they want to be,

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including an engineer.

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They don't have to be a prodigy 
to be a scientist or mathematician.

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As long as they work hard,

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they can be anything
they would like to be.

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Parents, teachers, and friends 
shouldn't hold them back.

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They should encourage them.

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I want that internalized bias to be gone

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because that's what stopped me
from wanting to be an engineer

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when I was little.

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And I don't want to stop anyone else
from wanting to be an engineer ever again.

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Thank you.

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(Applause) (Cheers)