How Women in STEM Can Navigate the Gender Gap to Advance Your Career | TEDx Speaker Prashha Dutra
If you're a woman in STEM who's struggling to figure out how to navigate the gender gap so that you can advance in your career…
stay tuned because today I'm with Confidence Coach and TEDx Speaker Prashha Dutra, and she specializes in helping women in these areas so that you can find clarity in your career path.
Doug Howard: It's great to have you here, Pasha. Would you mind introducing yourself and telling us a little bit more about who you are, what you do, and who you help?
Prashha Dutra: Thanks Doug for having me. Like you said, I'm a confidence coach. I have spent about eight years in the industry working in the manufacturing field.
I have a bachelor's in chemical engineering and a master's in mechanical engineering. And now I coach women in STEM full-time to help them figure out what's next and hopefully that next is to stay in the STEM fields and grow within their organizations, whatever that might be.
Doug Howard: That's great. Thank you for introducing yourself.
What's causing the gender gap in STEM?
Doug Howard: And I'm just gonna dive right in, with your background in stem, I'm sure everyone watching this is aware, this is not like a news breaking statistic, but there's obviously a gender gap, in STEM. And I'm just curious, as a woman who has been very successful in STEM, what's your take on what's causing the gender gap in STEM?
Prashha Dutra: Yeah so it's a complex problem, right? There's about 27 or 28% women in STEM, and the dial moves very slowly. It takes about four years for us to get a census data. And every four years it's about a couple of percent. So it's not like skyrocketing or anything. And there are different points of attrition as well as entry, right?
So whether it's the students that are going into the STEM fields and then whether it's women who are starting their STEM professions. And the statistics are interesting because there is, there are different studies on this, but there is more interest in girls wanting to study engineering or study STEM related fields.
Even if you look at even if you start counting healthcare as a part of it, then of course those numbers are much higher, but they're more interested to join. And then where it they start to fall off is either the entry into the industry. Or in the first five years of being in the industry, and about 40% women tend to drop off at that five year mark.
So there's definitely like a complex number of statistics happening, throughout the pipeline.
Doug Howard: I guess the engineer in me and I would imagine you, you think like this too, it's even when there's a problem, it's like we can't really fix it if we don't understand what's causing the problem.
So I wanna dive deep into this, if you don't mind. I'm very curious. My first question is where do these women go, if they leave five years in are they going to other industries? Are they just going to other areas of STEM? Are they leaving STEM altogether? What's happening?
Prashha Dutra: So I think first, the whole thing about this problem is like the leaky pipeline, right? So that means we're bringing people in, we're bringing women in, but then we're somehow not able to keep them within the STEM ecosystem and then we tend to lose them over the course of their careers.
And, which is the scary part because if you look at a lot of the STEM initiatives, they're pushed to get girls in STEM, right? Who hasn't seen the STEM barbies and who hasn't seen the coding camps? And like all these things that we are doing, which are great and we need that. Because hopefully in the long run this would support, the growth of women in STEM as well.
But I feel like there should be more focus also on keeping those women that have already decided to be a part of this ecosystem. And that's where I come in and I try to like, again, when I work with my clients also, it's a lot about like, how do we keep them in these professions and get them promotions or get them a new job or a better job. Just 'cause they're not very happy.
Now where are they going? Good question and I wish there was more studies for us to look into, but I think a lot of women, of course because of motherhood tend to take a step back and go back to taking care of the family or stay at home.
A lot of women probably also choose a little bit more convenient or comfortable options that are not as toxic as STEM or more dominant professions tend to get as you get higher on the corporate ladder. And then I've also seen by recently the trend of people like me were leaving but starting their own company.
So I think that has been an exciting trend to watch, at least in my peers in the last, five, 10 years. It's interesting to see that women who have all these degrees and have all this talent, and now with Covid, I think running a business from home became much more easier than it was before. So starting their own enterprise or starting their own startups is also a new sort of thing that has started because of social media and access to a lot of resources.
So those are some places that I think women are dropping off to. And it's it's interesting, right? Because they're very, very talented people. It's not like you're just giving up on a, in a career, in service industry or like in, in just one of these more, more labor intensive industries because now you have a difficult, physical commitment to the child or whatever.
These are very highly talent, specific fields. And then leaving them to do something different, especially it's sad to, to hear because they work so hard for it. Something definitely is going on where they work so hard for it. They want to stay, they want to grow, but something pushes them off of course at times.
Doug Howard: There's a lot of things that bother me about, what you described. And I don't mean like it's all bad. I definitely understand it makes sense for women in their situations, to, they take a maternal leave or something like that. So I don't wanna put a blanket statement over that. Sure.
But I guess what I mean is what really hurts me is just the potential that's wasted. 'cause you're right. There's very talented people and they put a lot of time and effort into going to school and learning their skills on the job and, investing in the front end of their career and then to just throw it away.
And I'm not blaming them. I understand, there's challenges here, but I just feel like that's it. It crushes me, the engineer in me and, and I really believe in, developing the young talent in our industry. So I guess my question just at a deeper level is, I understand these other things you said, but
Why Women Are Under Represented by Companies in STEM
Doug Howard: What are the companies doing to push people outta the industry? What's happening there?
Prashha Dutra: I think it's not so much the companies or the industry is doing anything. I think just the way corporate America is set up, right? It was set up by men, it was set up, in a time where men were predominantly working and it can probably continue to because women have this burden of, childbirth and they have to do certain things differently.
But I think it was set up this way and then it gets harder to push through because you have to, get ahead of all this resistance and all the systems that were built, to not necessarily cater to women. I don't think they were meant to keep them out. I think it was just meant not to cater to them or their needs.
For example, America's very short maternity policy. So if you only have six weeks of break, which is just so bizarre and crazy, right? Like a knee surgery, you give more time than six weeks, right? Like a shorter surgery. And then here you have childbirth, which in a lot of countries is a year long, right?
So giving women that time to heal both their body and minds. It's a very tough time. And what happens usually is that women feel pressured to deliver because they're they're so obsessed with their careers. They want their careers, they're very good at it, but they're also people pleasing too. So they are not able to take any, if their work is suffering, they suddenly start to doubt themselves way more. If their work is suffering, there's no support at work, there's a lot of push and pull over little things. Or even like little things like, these are big things, but things like, oh, she's on maternity leave and acting like it's a vacation time. And it's just understanding and not treating women like that, you would treat your own wife or your own daughter.
So the systems are not set up to accommodate a lot of that stuff, especially in corporate America. I think Europe is making more progress. I know in India also, we have very long maternity leaves because we continue to understand that this is an important, part of life. And so not giving equal weightage to that and thinking that, bottom line is more important than families and kids. It's very capitalist driven economy. So I think the pressure of all of that definitely starts to take a toll on women, and then there's a whole confidence gap.
So there's, there is this, an actual thing about, women are less confident than men. Women are more confident than men in a lot of ways, but as they grow up the ladder, they tend to doubt themselves even more. So that gap continues to increase and that also creates more self-doubt.
They start to feel isolated and there's a lot more, mental stress on women while they're also competing with a lot of priorities at home and with families. And so there's a lot of these complex things that sort of, create a more difficult environment for women to thrive. And also to stay and grow in the same numbers that they join.
Because for some people then it's my happiness is more important than any of it. So I think companies are not doing anything wrong. I just think that, unless women make it up to leadership roles higher, higher up in the CEO roles, and they're not the women who accepted masculinity to get there, because that's what happened to a lot of older leaders, right?
Because they were the only ones. And I've had a chance to work with some of them. I've also heard stories about them. This is anecdotal more than research based. But women tend to just play by the rules, act more masculine, act more like men, because they understand that's the game. And that gets them much higher.
But the problem is, in that case, you're the only one who grows and you cannot bring everyone with you. So we need not only leaders who are women, but we need radically feminist leaders who are like really focusing on, no, I'm not gonna change. I'm gonna be the way I am. That way I can pull more people with me. And I think it's a big undertaking, right? I don't think it's a, it's something that easy, but I don't think industries are doing anything wrong. I think now they're putting in more effort. Even investors are asking for a lot of this data and a lot of this efforts that are being done or not done.
More protection is available for women in the sense that if you get fired for wrong reasons, or, even discrimination of any sort is almost at zero tolerance now. So those are good things, but it's just gonna take another 20 to 50 years for us to see if it's actually working and also what women also want, right?
Do women actually want that? That's another thing too.
Doug Howard: What do you mean?
Prashha Dutra: Maybe women do want to do their own thing, right? Like I, I imagine a world where women are like, nah, you know what, instead of turning this giant ship around, I'm much better off building my own ship and leading the way.
We're seeing a lot of more women entrepreneurs, with more women startup founders, things like that. So there could be a future where, we may not necessarily need to focus a lot on the industry as a whole, but maybe there are more avenues for women to do what feels good to them and fits their lifestyle too, because, as now they're asking people to go back to work. And that again, the burden on women is twice as hard. If you are working from home, even then the burden of women is more because they have to clean the house, they have to do the dishes, they have to take care of the baby. So it's like that uneven workload, will continue to be there.
So I think again, companies are taking the right direction with this stuff. But I just feel like if we cannot have leaders at higher levels, it'll continue to be an issue.
Lack of Female Peers and Mentors Compounds the Challenges for Women in STEM
Doug Howard: There's a lot to unpack with what you said. Lots of lanes to go down. I guess the first thing that jumped out at me is, you said a lot of female leaders, as they grow into leadership roles, they excel by pretending to be something they're not.
Prashha Dutra: Yeah.
Doug Howard: And I guess as a leadership coach myself, I'm a big advocate for anyone, men, women, whoever. I'm a big advocate of, developing a leadership style that works for you because that takes less energy. Just, we're not actors, we're not professional theater actors. We're engineers and we are meant to be, technical and more tactical and as you grow into leadership roles, basically optimizing people in a sense.
And I guess I'm just thinking is that a factor in this too? It sounds like what you've just described, there's women that kind of fake masculine is, I guess how you put it and they can rise. But I'm guessing there's a lot of women, and tell me your thoughts on this, that, they fake it until they can't make it. They are trying to be something they're not and then they just burn out and give up.
Prashha Dutra: Absolutely. Yeah. I think one of the other things that's missing in a lot of for women, the hard thing is also to find a community. There are already less people, there's a lot less support, so they gotta rely on whatever's left.
And a lot of times they end up with a lot of advice and mentorship, which, which guides them in that direction of you have to fake it, right? You cannot tell somebody that your child is sick or it's frowned upon if taking unnecessary day off, or oh my God, like you need to be back after maternity, like asap. You know what I mean?
If there's a lot of mentorship that's coming from, people who are not women and who don't know how it feels, or women who have to, who had to do that and now they're giving the same advice. So that kind of, that kind of stuff leads to unauthentic leadership or without even realizing, you start to act like somebody that you're not. Or you start to act less relatable to the people that are looking up to you because you're not no longer interested in being a role model. You're interested in getting ahead, which is great. At least you're winning, but we do need community in that sense, that women mentor women and there is more support for women from other women.
And I think that has always been an issue where there is a lack of support, like a, mutual support, which men get a lot more, right? I've seen it again, where men would go to lengths to protect a new hire, or they have more brotherhood in that sense, where they're like, no, he's from my college. And, they can defend. But women are much more afraid to do any of that for another woman. Instead, women may fall prey of being like, oh yeah, I also don't like her, just because not everybody doesn't like her. And so it's very important that women understand when they go to work, you are representing a lot of other women.
We have to continue to build that community and, we are part of the culture. I always tell my clients too, I'm like, yeah, culture is bad. It's toxic, but you're a part of it. What are you gonna do about it? What are you going to do to protect that manager that somebody's badmouthing? Or what are you gonna do about praising the other girl on the team instead of you also going, we are, anyways, very few, and we start competing with each other too, so it just doesn't work out in our favor. And that leads to a lot of that inauthentic leadership style. And that, again, that's just my perspective.
I'm sure they have also worked really hard and not that they've gotten where they are with ease or comfort. But I spoke to, I'm telling you, I've spoken to over 150 women in STEM and I've also spoken to many CEOs who are women, and I was inviting them to speak to me freely about their experience, and they were like, I don't think I can, I don't think, it's not that easy. I can't paint a rosy beachy picture when it's not true. Where I had to sacrifice a lot and I had to work way harder than other people in the room. And that tells me that, they're not living their a hundred percent truth. And that then scares other people, right?
Like then the women who just had a kid, they're like, I don't wanna live like that. I don't wanna work 20 hours a day. I don't want to be in these positions. Because it seems really like unrelatable.
Doug Howard: Yeah. I'm a psychology junkie. And as far as just understanding other people and what you're describing it it's, you're in the minority. And, thinking like hunter-gatherer brains that we have. When you're in the minority and you feel isolated, there there's no sense of security. And there's no sense of comfort. And you just always have this minor version of fight or flight syndrome going on in your brain.
Maybe you don't think of it that way, but, it, it sounds exhausting. And I guess all these things that we're talking about are just I'm understanding, you know this for me as a man, this unquantifiable thing of just okay, this is that constant stress.
Prashha Dutra: Yes.
PrasHha's Unique Perspective on the Gender Gap in STEM
Doug Howard: And I guess the big thing on my mind is, I know from following you on LinkedIn and I've listened to your TED Talk and everything, you've been very successful.
I know you've been successful starting your own business as an entrepreneur, but before that, you've had a lot of success in your engineering career. And I guess I wanna know what was your experience like, were you in the minority as a woman in your company? And were you in some of these situations that you've described where you had to stand up on behalf of a, of another female who was getting criticized? I think anyone who's watching can definitely understand what you're saying, but how do you handle these things?
Prashha Dutra: Yeah, for sure. So luckily for me I grew up in a family of cops, so I grew up with a lot of confidence and a lot of it didn't really matter. I was always taught to be my unique self, and, that was the competitive advantage. That's how I was raised, that if you start to blend in, then you suddenly lose this competitive advantage. So for me, it wasn't until like almost 2017, where I didn't even know this women in STEM was a problem. And in fact fun fact was that my team was all women engineers at one point, and we were from around the world and we were all mechanical engineers, which is even less representation in that field.
And at that time I didn't know anything about women STEM or anything, but I just felt this was special. I felt like there's something special. I was a part of something special. I just felt that way. And I wrote a letter to the CEO and I told him, and I said, it's all women engineers. I don't know what we should do, but we should talk about it. And he's like, yeah, write a blog and we'll publish it on the website. And we did that. And that was the start of my interest in the space.
And then slowly I saw like either they moved to a different company or the whole team. Now actually if I look back at the same team, there's no women in that, actually in that building. So imagine five years later. Women in that building as managers or as engineers. They've either gone to different locations, or they have moved to different companies or they have left STEM.
So either way, it's interesting that, that's what was the start for me was, but from that point on, I started to read more books and learn more things.
And I never got exposed to any situation where I felt like I had to defend myself per se, but I did have to defend my colleagues. Have conversations that were open and honest about, Hey, you made that remark. And I think that's distasteful and this is the impact of that, right? If you continue to do that, then you discourage this person or discourage this woman from doing more things.
Another example that comes to mind is I've always been that vocal and advocated for this stuff at work, and I think everybody can do that, right? Again, you are part of the culture. You can make a change. It's just you need a little bit more courage, than being all consumed by your own problems. I think that helps us deal with our own stuff too. When we focus on other people and helping other people, I think automatically we build ourself up in that situation.
I remember this example of this new person who came to work and they were working every day till late. And I found out from somebody that they're working late and they're like, oh, this is, my manager, should I also work late? And I'm like, oh my God. So I spoke to that person, I said, Listen, we have a good work life balance here. We leave at five. Do you mind working from home? Please go home. Take your laptop and just don't spoil it for others because then you put the same burden on a new mom. You put that same burden on a mom of three who has to pick up her kids. Then you change expectations suddenly in the office. So would you help us and go work from home? Like it's fine. And he got it. He's sure, like I get it. I'll work from home and thank you so much for bringing it up. Like I never thought about it that way.
So I think a lot of the work that I did in corporate American that helped me was having these conversations from a very neutral place of understanding that people don't have the knowledge. It's not that people want to do this. No, I don't think anybody on purpose wants to hurt another person. Like I believe in best intent, I don't think men are gathering in a room and saying, how can you make this woman's life hell?
I don't think that's happening. I don't think people should think that either. I think what has happened is systemic bias. What has happened is, we have intrinsic bias that we can't even process. Like it's in our subconscious. It's not even voluntary anymore.
So again my whole, experience was very positive. I, I met really great leaders who always saw me for my talent, and I like to believe that's true for a lot of women. But I also know that's not a hundred percent accurate, and so what started to help me was these leaders were grooming me and teaching me a lot of interpersonal skills and a lot of communication skills and a lot of leadership skills.
And I started to understand that. I was in a unique position that I was getting that kind of input, but not every woman was getting it. Not everybody was getting it. So basically, my business is basically built on everything I learned in corporate America from these amazing mentors and then passing it on and saying, you know what? You can also be successful if you just knew, like these little tricks of the trade, if you will.
For example a very excellent thing is like under commit and over deliver. And that's something that is not taught. We don't know. And no woman, even if she knows she's not gonna, she's not encouraged to like, go and share it with everybody. Because we're so interested in just the pompous show, right? Like this whole thing about D&I but we're not like, hold this pony show of oh my God, look at our diversity, but we're not interested in sharing the trade secrets and being like, Here's this amazing trick to write an email better and watch everybody respond quickly.
Like I had mentors who were actually doing that for me, and I think that's what I ended up sharing. So if anybody's in that situation where they're feeling isolated, I think it's so important that we work on ourselves, we continue to build ourselves up. It's very hard to change the system, if you are broken, right? If you cannot even pick yourself up and get to the get to work, what system are you going to change?
So it's first thing is you focus on your personal development and professional growth. You invest time, energy, effort, read books, whatever it takes for you to be ahead of the system and ahead of the biases that'll hold you back. Because if you stay at the mercy of the system, forget about it. Like you'll anyways loose. And I think with this wave of self-education, we have that opportunity now that the past generations didn't have. The women who have made it to the top, maybe by playing it with the rules or changing themselves, just didn't have all this, and now we do. So yeah, that's how I dealt with it, with where I just looked at every opportunity to learn, and grow, and take advice and like use that advice. Defend women when they were not in the room, just like men do when the other men are not in the room, and making it a point to educate people on diversity, inclusion, why it matters. So yeah, that was my approach.
Book Recommendations for Women in STEM - Positive Role Models
Doug Howard: That's very helpful. And I guess one quick question is you said, read up, what are, what is one or two books that you'd recommend reading for women?
Prashha Dutra: I would suggest not to read a lot of books that highlight this problem and make it worse. It's great to know what the problem is, but only if that helps you grow. We don't want you to feel that, oh my God, it's so doomed. First part of this episode probably sounds oh my God, like nothing, nothing good is happening. So you don't wanna get so seeped into data that you overwhelm yourself, not reading a lot of the books that talk about women not being in STEM. Instead reading books that are more inspiring of women who've made it. I think Indra Nooyi autobiography is a great book. She was the CEO of PepsiCo for over 20 years. She's still the Chairman of the board, I think. And she's from India.
My suggestion always is to, the way we'll keep these people in STEM, these women in STEM, is that if we can give them relatable role models, right? Like people who are three to five years ahead of them, managers, directors, CEOs, people who shared the same struggles as them. People who, who have overcome those struggles and challenges and people who have something in common something that feels like, oh, she's just like me. And if you can get there, then you can start to just simply map the path that they've taken and then you walk the same path, then it becomes much easier than directly looking up to a CEO or directly looking up to big bigger celebrities at your company. It's much harder to imagine yourself there. So having those relatable role models and finding some of those and reading on those memoirs, I think are very inspiring because it lays out their path and journey and you can get inspired by that.
And then self-help books, I think communication books, I think women, that's the only thing that's missing. I don't even think it's leadership skills because women are great leaders. I think it's the way something has to be said or the way you make people understand what you're saying and the influence that you bring with yourself is a total game of communication and how you present yourself. Whether it's spoken English or whether it's the way you speak of it, is the way you write emails. I spend hours and hours with my clients writing good emails, and they will send me their email. Of course they'll redact everything that's, proprietary. But I will go in and I'll just rewrite the whole thing. And it's just, it's so magical. Like you should see in 30 days, people are being asked like, What is happening? Like you're a different person. What have you changed?
I had a client who did that and suddenly like within six months they wanted her to be chief of staff. And she was doing the exact same things. There's nothing that she changed in her work behavior, it was just the way she's wrote and the way she presented herself was day and night. Otherwise before she was going into, I'm so sorry I did this, I am, so much explanation, like so much stuff about all the things that were not important. And in that somewhere was buried that, oh by the way, I finished the project in record time. And I'm like, okay, just take everything out and just leave this one and you'll be fine. So I think a lot of communication books, How To Win Friends and Influence People is my favorite book. If you can implement everything in that book, you'll go way far in your career, whether you're a woman or a man, but women definitely need to double down on communication skills and confidence, confidence skills. So reading up on those topics is what we recommend.
Doug Howard: First of all, that Dale Carnegie, how to Win Friends that was like my gateway drug into this realm of understanding people in a logical way versus it being like this abstract, soft skills thing. But I see what you're saying because it's like there's another layer, for women. It's as a man, I just I don't have to deal with that and it's not fair, but I just I can present myself and I don't have to worry about this being misinterpreted aspect or something like that.
Hidden Communication Barriers for Women in STEM to be Aware of
Doug Howard: I heard what you said about, this tendency to apologize and over apologize, and then how you have been coaching people on that. What are some other examples of communication barriers that aren't so obvious to women, what are things that they're doing that they don't realize that might be changing the perception of their communication?
Prashha Dutra: Absolutely. First is taking things personally. I see it all the time. I see it all the time. I think it's a flawed upbringing. It's just how we were raised where we, women and girls are supposed to please their parents. And parents are supposed to be very happy with them all the time. And they get reprimanded if they fall or trip or make a mistake. And I think it's because fathers want to protect their daughters, which is not natural instinct. And so most women were raised in a way that be a good girl, be a nice girl be, and again, the intent was to keep them safe. But what that has led to is that we have a people pleasing tendency very naturally to us. And we also take things more personally, is what I've seen in my experience. If you have outgrown that and you're listening to this kudos, right? Great job if you're not somebody who does it, incredible. But I have had experience of over 200 plus women, and I know every single one of them. The biggest challenge is that they take it personally.
So if something is wrong or bad or not done or not finished, they tend to blame it on themselves and they really feel it emotionally. And what that leads to is a tremendous amount of emotion that gets involved in the way the information is being transacted. It's very hard to then keep the emotion aside and still state the facts or still stand by what you wanted to stand by or, and that just complicates the whole communication situation, whether it's, whether it's in verbal communication or whether it's in written communication. I think it's important for women to understand that it's not personal, it's business. And I think men are very much better at that. They're able to separate the two. Not to say that men don't have mental health challenges or they don't. I think they also have a lot of ownership of their career and how they're perceived, which is another whole, episode on like how men are like completely ignored, right? Like in that sense of men feel alone and they can't talk about their own weaknesses. But I think women, I've noticed struggle more with that. So that's definitely the first thing that women need to start paying attention to that, I tell all my clients to put a post-it note like this is, it's just business. It's not personal.
Doug Howard: If you're watching now, I do actually have an episode on that if you wanna check it out. It's called Why Male Engineers Struggle With Confidence. I'll put a link to that in the episode description, and maybe you and I can revisit that topic, another episode too, because I can tell you have a lot of thoughts. But I wanna stay focused on helping women.
Prashha Dutra: That's the first thing that they take it to personally. And then the other thing is that they've, they're perfectionist, so they want it to be perfect. And I think in corporate culture, corporate America, you get left behind if you're waiting for too long. If you're trying to perfect it, if you're trying to be like, oh, I just, I can't send this email because oh, and then all of that insecurity either turns into somebody feeling like you're not as quick to communicate. I've heard a lot of times where women are like, I should have said it before, like every time, that's the feedback they're getting, but they're not able to overcome it because they are perfectionists in their heads.
And I think you can be a perfectionist if you can define what perfection is, right? If you can define it, go be it, right? So that means you should be able to tell me in writing, here's what I'm aiming to, one, two, and three. If you can tell me that's what you're aiming to and you control all the parameters of it, then justify it, right? Like you have to do that part. So if you don't do that, then you just end up being frustrated with your work. You are not proud of what you're presenting and it shows. It just shows in your presentation. It shows in the way you're conducting yourself. Unfortunately it's like a red flag or a negative point for you because you were not able to again, separate the two and be I can't be a perfectionist at this. It's just my business and just job and I just need to keep moving forward. And I think that all comes a lot from the upbringing.
I think lastly, in America, this is not true for all countries, but in, in America, unfortunately, talking too much about your family or your home is just a negative point. I see women open all their cards all the time, and I think it's, this is a game of poker, right? Like communication, leadership, growing in corporations. Especially as you grow. If you're starting as a, outta college student, I was exactly like that. Everybody knew my business. I was emotional. I was, not able to communicate properly. This is not my first language or my first culture, so it was very hard, but absorbing a lot of the, a lot of the lessons, and again, I'm very blessed with really great mentors who coached me and taught me to conduct myself differently. I learned that I can still be friends with these people, but that's outside this building and I can still share a lot more. But when we're at work, like there has to be some compartmentalization of like how much you're sharing because whatever you share will be used against you. It's just sad. But it will.
So for example, you yourself saying, I'm always late because my son is sick. Now, hold on. Like, why would you say that? Like why would you plant that seed? Like it's just a weird way to say it. Might as well say that I think I'll be coming in at 9:30 this week. End of story. And then if somebody has follow-up questions, then you can answer them very positively. But you don't have to say it the way you say it usually. And now you have again, messed up the way people perceive you. So it's very important to maintain images and maintain your reputation, but also not share everything about your life so that it's not used against you, it's all it is.
I have a client, she's facing something very similar being a single mom, having to drop off his kid. And that is a big problem because it's at a different time, and so it's like how do you deal with that? You deal with that with language. You deal with that, with composure. You deal with that with less sharing of information so that you can then have some leverage in the conversation. Otherwise, you yourself have framed yourself as a, person who is going through some challenges in their life. And suddenly people start to take that as a negative point for you. Even though we all go through challenges, it's just that whoever's best at keeping their cards close to them has more leverage than somebody who shares everything. So I think I've seen women do that a little bit more than men do. At maybe wrong forums, like maybe at wrong places, versus sharing it in, in, in public or after work or weekends. That's a different story, right? But just how you frame your sentences or how much information you end up sharing.
And again, I only say this for women because my experience is limited to women. I'm sure men do this too. I'm sure these are universal issues for both genders. But in context with my work and what I've seen, I think these are two, three things that women are not doing well in communication side.
And also, finally not knowing that email writing is a skill. Like just not knowing that these are skills that you can work on and improve, and If you don't know that, then you continue to blame yourself that something must be wrong with me. They don't even realize that it's just an email and we can change it and it'll look much better and you'll look great. They feel like it's all me. And so again, back to that being like taking everything very personally gets in the way.
How Being in the Minority Changes Your Perspective for Women in STEM
Doug Howard: And as you're saying all this, I think, you said, I think males can do this too, or, make these mistakes too. And I think you're right, but I think there's a different relationship because, and it, and I guess I'm seeing this through a different lens. I really thank you, 'cause I'm getting a lot of perspective from you today. The fact that you're in the minority changes every single thing. If it was a female dominated industry, then it'd be more probably understanding of these things. Everyone would be dealing with I'm always late be, I'm making, I'm gonna be stereotyping here, but like you, the example you said was.
Prashha Dutra: Nursing is a great example. My nursing. Yeah. Yeah. Nursing is a great example, right? Like I think nursing is a great example of a women dominated field where women are very supportive of each other, right? You always see nurses doing extra time or, helping each other out. At least from the surface. I don't know what goes on in the industry, but you're right. Like with minorities, I think the personal brand aspect becomes very important.
Doug Howard: What do you mean by that? I.
Prashha Dutra: Because like you said, like there is a big perception. There's a bias that you're fighting already. Existing bias. And then on top of it, any mistake in that, that confirms the bias now makes you less, less than your peers. So you have to build that personal brand inside and outside of work, but more, more so inside of work where you can start to fight those biases where you can start to prove people wrong. That no, like just because I'm a woman or because I'm from another country doesn't mean I can't perform. But then you have to also say it out loud that, oh, I did this and I did that. So that, because you're actually fighting that bias to change people's mind.
But right now what is happening is women are working twice as hard, but they're not using it to build their personal brands. And then they're expecting that people should just get it. Unfortunately, because you don't understand that there is an existing bias, which you have not tackled yet, because you don't self-promote or you don't share your, like why you are different than other people or what you bring to table, or you're not using a lot of these communication skills, then you're not just not able to break that bias. You're just putting a lot of stuff on top of it, but because of the bias, none of that stuff actually matters. So I think for people of minority, that, that's why personal branding is like utmost important. You decide, it's like taking control of the press, right? Taking all the narrative story.
Doug Howard: Yeah, the narrative.
Prashha Dutra: Yeah and so understanding what story do I want to tell and how do I want tell it? And then what do I want people to perceive me as? It's a very intentional and strategic thing. It shouldn't be taken lightly. I think. So you are right, like perceptions are a big thing and it's much harder to break them, but that's why all of this is like even more important for minorities to work on.
Doug Howard: I think you, you really hit on a great point, 'cause you're talking about influence. I mean we're focusing on women, but we're talking about re-influencing a system, a systemic problem. And it's not as simple as just quote unquote right or wrong, because that's a subjective thing. We like to think, oh, good and bad, right and wrong, but people have different definitions of what that means and different views on it and different exposure to knowledge and information and experiences. And I think, the thing you just said that I just want to double down on and make sure everyone heard is, we all have cognitive bias and our brain is programmed to just try to prove ourselves right. And when we meet someone, we measure them up and okay, this is Prashha, she does this, and this, and now my brain just kinda skips over that and then, and it stops learning about you. And it just oh, she did this, that confirms that my opinion of her is like this. And if it's a negative thing, if it's a positive thing though it's like gravity, it works in your favor if you're working with or against gravity.
Prashha Dutra: Exactly. And I think it's the same thing with the other side of the conversation too. In fact, when I was doing her STEM story, my podcast, I had a segment for men in STEM because to me it's goes both ways. If we say men are the problem, and then we create another echo chamber and we're like, wait a minute, the people who have the key to actually do the change, we're not talking to them now. And how's that helping? So we have those biases too. It's not just that minorities don't have any biases and majority people are like the only bad people who have all these biases, right? Like we also have biases. We also tend to create narratives in our head that are confirmation bias. We also tend to think that my manager's after me and they just don't want me to succeed, right? Like when that may or may not be true. So we all have those biases, and I think that's why it's important to understand what your biases are, regardless of your gender or ethnicity. And then understanding, of course, what other people's biases are so that you can actually break these boundaries and walls. Because at the end of the day, all this discussion, we are only having this because we want better solutions to our ongoing problems, right?
STEM is a, is the leading edge of human innovation and if women are left out of it, then we're gonna have a bigger problem of, of the solutions we are creating will not be the right solutions. Then business will suffer, then economies will suffer. Then people who are using these equipments will suffer. Like the example of seatbelt, right? Like when they first invented seatbelt, they didn't include the measurements of women and babies. So the first 10 years, a lot of women and babies actually died. And then they included that in ergonomics and now they have much safer systems.
So there's hundreds of examples of where when you choose to leave, like 60% of the population now in America is women. And you choose to leave them out, everyone is going to suffer. Business definitely, because women also control money, right? Even if men make all the money, women are the ones who go spend it. So the buying power of women is way higher than men. And so now your business is actually going to suffer too. And the products you'll make will be less acceptable, adaptable and less viable to the population that you're making it for.
So I think it's a it's a much bigger canvas, right? That, that we're dealing with and the reason we want all of this to happen has nothing to do with equality or feminism, like none of that stuff. It's more hey, like we are facing some really big problems and we will fail at solving them if we leave half of the population out of the conversation because we need that perspective. We also need to cater through that same population as well through our products.
The Best Ways for Men Be Allies for Women in STEM
Doug Howard: It's like with anything in engineering, I think we said this at the beginning, we need to understand the problem and agree on it before we can really work together to solve it. If I'm a man and I work in a male dominated department, how should I approach this? And just to give a little bit more context, I feel comfortable with it, but I was raised by a single mother and then also my aunt and my grandmother, so have heavy female influence in my upbringing. And that's not common, for most men. So I guess where I'm going with this is, it, if you're a man and you don't really know much about this, it feels like a hot button item, on the one hand I don't want to offend this person by, seeming like I, I'm acting like they can't do something that I can do. But on the other hand, I don't wanna be ignorant and not show support. So it's just like how should men navigate this to to be an ally?
Prashha Dutra: I think first we have to pause on the cancel culture, right? I think that has scared a lot of people from even having the conversation and then completely accepting that, okay, this one population is totally right and the other one is totally wrong, which is not true. We have to strive towards coexistence. You can have thoughts and I can have thoughts and you can have beliefs, and I can have beliefs. And sometimes they're the same beliefs and other times they're not, either way, it doesn't make one person a better human being than another person is just my belief.
So I think first thing is to take a pause on that cancel culture, right? I think where we just wanna cancel people for even trying to say something. And I think that has definitely have happened way too much now that I have a, a son who's half Caucasian I'm like, oh, like my mindset is changing too. I'm like, is this a good time for Caucasian men? I dunno.
Doug Howard: Very interesting.
Prashha Dutra: Yeah. Because of the online stuff that we see, again I'm not taking any sides. I'm just like stating the facts that it has been very prevalent.
Doug Howard: No, I hear you.
Prashha Dutra: And it's scary.
Doug Howard: We all see it from our perspective.
Prashha Dutra: Yeah, it's very scary.
Doug Howard: When you have someone that in your life that broadens that perspective, it's like you really just in a good way, you've been able to see more things. And I feel like a lot of people don't get that.
Prashha Dutra: Yeah. And that's the same thing with my husband, right? Like he never had any diverse person in his group. And now being married to me, he can see that, oh wait, that waiter actually did this to us on purpose. Like the waiter is actually ignoring us at this time. We live in New England and even though it's like super progressive and stuff, there's still a lot of this microaggression that happens all the time. And now he can feel it because now he's married to somebody and he's okay when people say that they face some of this stuff, it's not like false, like that actually happens, because again, we all have biases.
But that being said, I think how you can handle this topic is, of course, I think we have to genuinely build relationships, right? I think we need to be inclusive. I think that's the most important thing. I think I, anytime we think that, oh, it's not my place to speak, or oh, maybe I'll mess somebody's emotions or I'll say something wrong. I think we back went back to being exclusionary, right?
So I think from get go building inclusive relationships, maybe even like however you would deal with, a colleague, a male colleague, trying your best to deal with the female colleagues. Whether it's like, Hey, we're going out for a game afterwards. Do you wanna come? Asking is not it's not bad if you if the person is free, they can say yes. Because a lot of times that's where a lot of this stuff starts to happen, is that you have closer relationship with people who look like you, who tend to look like you. We all do. And then they end up becoming like these echo chambers where, because you know the person you trust the person more, you feel comfortable sharing something with them, but because you don't even know this person, you didn't make an effort because of their gender or because they don't look like you, you start to create a barrier of now you're in a very tricky space where you can't just speak up now.
You hope to have built some kind of relationship with them within the norms of the corporate culture. So basically even like checking in on them, or again, same thing like, we're, instead of having dinners all the time, or games all the time, going for lunch with everybody. Making it a little bit more inclusive so that, women can also join, or maybe if you only have one woman in your team, maybe inviting another woman for another team so that they feel comfortable going together.
At least this is what my mentors did for the longest time. They always made an effort to get to know me, and to spend time with me, and to understand where I come from and, take the time to learn about where I come from and what I think, which helped break down a lot of those barriers and made it more and more convenient for us to have a open and free dialogue. Otherwise, it's very hard to do that.
So I think investing in relationship building with more diverse people at workplace, if you don't have anybody in your team, then finding somebody, making that invitation, spending some quality time, or even requesting to have somebody of a different background on your team, on your project team. Or being like, this person brings away unique background because they worked in South Africa. I think they will bring some more insight because we're doing this project for South Africa, so let's bring this person in. These are simple things you can do to start diversifying your circle and getting to know people on a more human level. And then no matter what you say with good intent, I think that's all you can do. How they take it or what they do with that information is not up to us. So I think if you build a relationship, then they'll also accept information where they'll be able to listen to you as a mentor or friend versus if you don't know them, never build a relationship and now you wanna point out what they're doing wrong. I think that's a no brainer. That would not fly well. So I think people don't take enough effort to get to know another person.
Like I was working in a small town in Pennsylvania, Williamsport actually. I actually lived across the street from the little league stadium.
Doug Howard: Oh really?
Prashha Dutra: And I didn't know what it was. I walked the World Championship game and I was just clueless. I'm like ESPN, like playing. It was so bizarre to me. Like I just couldn't add one, one and two together. It was so bizarre. Was so cute. Like it's such a cute stadium and all these cute kids come to play from around the world, but there nobody knew an Indian person in that office. And they would, like, when I first started, they would make fun of me. And you can't do, you can't say those things now. You could say it in 2014, 15, but you can't say them now. But they were like, oh, do you fly on carpets? Or do you have elephants? And a lot of that was also jokingly, right?
But once they, once we spent so much time together where we were like, going on lunches or I was going to their house for dinner. They were the only ones who were there for me when my father died. Like when my father died, I had no friends and no family here. I just moved to Rhode Island and I actually called them and I said, can I come for a week? Can I just spend a week here? And they're like, sure. And so I went back and I stayed with them and they did a 5K for my father and they were all white people. They were all just people who were not my people, but they were there for me because we built a really strong relationship and I did not cancel them at the first joke that they made. I did not say, you are so racist and I'll never talk to you again. And it's you don't wanna end relationships like that. We make a lot of jokes too. And so if you can understand that the intent was not wrong and they genuinely don't know, and they're opening their homes for you, they are having you over for Thanksgiving. They're being kind to you. If they made a joke and everybody laughed.
I personally didn't, I don't take it personally, and I end up making really great friends through that process. But there was a lot of that breaking those walls that you don't wanna pull your walls back up just because I expect an old guy, like a 60 year old guy from Williamsport, Pennsylvania to know where Delhi is and like what we eat. And why would he know that? There is no reason whatsoever. Just like I didn't know where Williamsport was. Like I did not know anything about the Amish people. I did not know anything about a small town called South Williamsport. Like I didn't know anything about anything. So we were both starting at the same level field. If they were making fun of me, I was making fun of them too. And we were able to work through that. So I think it's definitely very important to, to build some of those relationships and just see humans for humans without the color of their skin or where they come from and, allow for mistakes so we can all learn together.
Why Cancel Culture Worsens the Gender Gap in STEM
Doug Howard: I think that's great perspective, and I think I completely agree with this, cancel culture, it basically cancels empathy
Prashha Dutra: Yeah. Conversation.
Doug Howard: And when you can't empathize with someone, you really can't understand them and you can't figure out how to work together and help each other and create that common ground. And you're hitting on it. It's just the cancel culture prevents that. And then because everyone's scared to be themself, And everyone's scared to, take a chance and say something that might get misinterpreted. And I'm not talking about things that, there's things you know, you shouldn't say, but like you said, if you're afraid to invite someone to lunch, okay, that's a problem. That's a problem that we're afraid to invite someone to lunch.
Prashha Dutra: If we're creating bigger gaps, right? Then how are we solving the problem? Like, how are we closing the gap if we are not comfortable? And why are we not gonna, now, that's the big question. Why are you not comfortable? Like, why not comfortable having a woman on the table? What is, what does the conversation entail that cannot be done in front of a woman? Or why are you afraid to invite a black woman to a leadership retreat? That should not be even a thought, right?
Like it has nothing to do with them being anything. So if your events are not inclusive, if your activities are not inclusive, then you need to take a look at the activities you're having, which were maybe set up to be exclusionary from the get-go. And that's how you build a more inclusive environment and inclusive organization to audit what are the things that are preventing people from getting to know each other. What are the systems that are preventing, women from participating and growing? Are we doing it on purpose or it was just set up that way and nobody questioned it?
Doug Howard: I warned you that I had two questions. I guess the other part of this, 'cause that was all about, what can a man do to help?
Best Ways for Women to Promote Gender Equality to Their Boss and Company
Prashha Dutra: Yes.
Doug Howard: We're focusing on women here. What can a woman do to bring this type of topic up to a peer or maybe their manager? And, if they feel like they're being overlooked or they feel like they're not being included in, work meetings that they should be included in, or they're not getting, the same treatment as other people, how should they bring that up in a way that isn't misperceived? And I don't wanna defend the other people, but, that doesn't make them even more worried about cancel culture.
Prashha Dutra: So that's a great question, and I think there are two, three ways to look at it, right?
One is, you know this well if you're in a, if you're in a toxic environment. So if you know that this is an organization that has continuously done or created opportunities for people to abuse their power in any sense, right? Like where I draw the line of non-negotiable, right? Whether it's like any kind of sexual abuse or verbal abuse or any kind of like actual hard lines are being crossed more than. For me it's zero tolerance. So even once, right then that has to be elevated and handled through right channels. Women are very afraid to do that, and I understand how difficult this can be, but I think as women, we have responsibility.
So if somebody gets away with it with one person, they're gonna get away with it for with many. So you've gotta decide those hard boundaries for yourself that, for me it's very simple. It's, sexual harassment, verbal harassment, any violent acts, they should not happen at work. Mockery, any, anything that is just insulting or wrong.
Doug Howard: Derogatory, yeah.
Prashha Dutra: Yes. Straight upfront. You know it. Then it has to be raised to the right channels.
Doug Howard: I've seen it. It's unacceptable.
Prashha Dutra: Yeah. So then first you have, decide those boundaries for yourself, right? They cannot be so blurry that you put everybody in that category, or you let everybody go. It cannot be that way. You need to know what are some boundaries. And some of them should not be tolerated. I faced myself an act of violence, and I did not stand up for it, it was, they wanted me to talk about it and fix it and da. And I was like, then I had to go to the HR and I'm like, no, I'm not doing this, because I thought you would do the right thing without me saying, but I guess not. So here we go we'll do it, but you have to raise it to the HR. You have to have proof, and you need to understand the rules and your rights in that situation. So that's the hard boundaries.
But apart from that, I think how can you bring this up to your peers and managers is by leading some lunch and learns, right? Like I think it's very easy to do that. Educate people, right? Like I know it's a big responsibility to put on minorities who are already struggling and are already having to do these extra a hundred things, but unfortunately, so we need more advocates, and if we just wait for this other group of people to care about us and then do X, Y, and Z and then still get it wrong most of the times, I would rather just do it myself than wait for others to do it for me. So I think, you want to do it, you wanna do it in a more neutral setting. Maybe even talk about, send them a presentation or a book, something that can get the conversation started on a softer level. Then if people are interested, you can do a webinar or you can invite anybody, you can invite Doug, you can invite me, you can invite anybody to speak and, drive some of these points home. You can get involved in ERGs and through the ERG also, you can have these conversation on neutral level. If you're wanting to have it directly with the manager saying, oh, I don't feel included in this project. I think there is no harm in saying those words as is. But at the same time, I think if you approach it from an advocacy place where it means that, I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about all the women, right?
Like for example, like if you just say, I feel like I feel this and I feel that. And so what happens is that again, you become the complainer and again, your brand starts to suffer because you're just coming to people with what's wrong. And I think this unwritten rule in America is that you don't come to me with problems, right? You come to me with problems and then you better come to me with some solution to it. If you come to me with just problems, then you're a complainer and I can't help you, right? Because everybody's overwhelmed. Stop complaining and start coming up with other solutions. Or even with that higher picture of if I'm feeling this way, others must be feeling this way too.
So saying to your manager we have this weird culture at our company where for some reason the guys have a golf tournament every Sunday. I don't get it. What's happening at this golf tournament? And it seems like all the people are going there and six months later they get promoted like, something's happening. Can we stop this golf tournament? And can we instead do something more inclusive where people can probably bring their families? And so now you're not just saying, I wasn't invited to the golf tournament. Now that's a problem. Yeah. Nobody's gonna hear you.
Doug Howard: That's a big difference. I understand what you're saying.
Prashha Dutra: Yeah. And instead you tackle the patterns, you tackle the issues that can hurt other women also.
Doug Howard: So what are your thoughts on this? As, as I was hearing you say this, I'm just thinking There's an element of risk, and there's a lot of variables here. What if the boss is a jerk? Just for argument's sake, do you think there's an advantage to, identifying a person that you think will be really receptive to this first and gaining their buy-in? So for example, if you wanna do lunch and learns, and maybe there is a white male who, will get into that buy into this and understand this and won't push back, do you think there's a strategy there?
Prashha Dutra: Sure. Yeah. I think allies are important, but I sure hope that your manager is one of your allies, because if they're not one of your allies then there needs to be work done there to build that allyship. Otherwise, you should change teams like, it's just, it's not gonna be a long, conducive relationship, and you should focus all your energy on finding a better team, and then when your manager's an ally, now you can do more things together collaboratively. Otherwise what will happen is that if this person is not necessarily your ally and they don't get you, then going behind their back or going around them or going around and doing it with somebody else would also backfire, right? You cannot make this person happy anyways, no matter where you approach it from.
So I think that's why like the work you do, Doug, about coaching engineering managers and coaching managers to be more, inclusive and more diverse and like more different things that, you know, whether it's soft skills and other things like that. Hopefully we have managers that are more inclusive from the get go. And, because I don't think you can do anything without that support from your managers. It's hard to, or you have like skip level mentors and people even higher up. Like for me, that was my advantage that my mentor ended up becoming a CTO. And so then what happened was I had a little bit of like support in the sense that if I wanna do something and everybody was like against it. Worst case scenario, I could tap into him and be like, can you help? What do I need to do differently here? And I would say if you have an ally, maybe you've been working with the ally to, to work on how can we turn this person into an ally? Like what do we need to change his perspective? Maybe you could talk to him and we can all do something together. But I think then your work is more important to try to make this person into an ally. Otherwise you just will suffer way more in the long run.
Doug Howard: Just to recap some of the main points we talked about, it's like we're talking about, fairness for women in STEM, but we're also just talking about there's a bigger problem here.
We're pushing some of the best minds away from the industry, and we have real problems to solve. And that's how I look at it too. I look, I look at it like, no we wanna include everybody because we want the best minds working together, understanding each other, communicating faster, seeing each other's perspective because we're engineers. We should want the best solutions, not just our ideas and our solutions. And I feel like that's where you're coming from too.
Prashha Dutra: Yes, absolutely.
Resources for Women in STEM
Doug Howard: We talked about a lot of stuff, but if there's someone, watching this right now, a woman in STEM who's just really struggling to figure out how to tackle these things, what's the number one piece of advice you would give them? Because you've given a lot of great advice here, but what's the most important piece of advice you think?
Prashha Dutra: I think find help. That's very important. That's the biggest advice I can give is that don't try to do it alone. Don't try to fight the system all by yourself or don't feel defeated. There's, there are ways to go around it. There are ways to work in the system and still be very successful with many examples of it. And you just need to ask for help. As much as we talked about statistics, those are just great to get a temperature on what's going on, right? But you're not a statistical data point. Like you're a person, you're a human being. You have aspirations, and you can beat these stats all day long, right? You just never need to be tied down with those stats. Like they're just the, again, it's just a temperature of the situation and you're so much more than that. So remembering that and then just asking for help, that if I really want to grow in STEM, if I really want to stay, and if I really see myself doing X, Y, and Z, I need help and I need support, and I need to ask for it.
And if the organization is not the right place to ask for, then you know, again, there are some amazing coaches available to you now. Whether it's you, Doug, or me, or there's so many incredible people online and all you have to do is just search coach, like career coach online or whatever type of coach you're looking for and I'm sure thousands of recommendations will come up.
Doug Howard: And that's a great point 'cause yeah, there's so many people who have figured out how to navigate all these unique situations and these unique, niches and these unique problems. This used to not exist, this support network years ago. But now you're right. You can find someone to help you with all these unique things. And I guess with that in mind, I want to ask how should people get in touch with you if they're listening right now and they can relate to all the things you're talking about and they know you can help, how should they get in touch with you?
Prashha Dutra: Yeah, so they can find me on LinkedIn. I'm very active and I accept messages and conversations. And they can also take my career Clarity quiz which is at prashhadutra.com/quiz. And that's basically to help you understand why you're actually stuck.
So if you're feeling stuck, if you're feeling tired of all this stuff happening around you, you feel like you're a victim of politics and you're a victim of the whole leaky pipeline, and you're like, I'm ready to quit or whatever. To taking that quiz will be the first gauge of diagnostic of like, Where are you feeling stuck? And hopefully that leads you to, into other things that I do, whether it's, I have a workshop coming up. And then I plan to do them every month and they call the Career Clarity Workshop where we sit together and try to figure out your long-term career strategy and also figure out what is the next three immediate things you can do today to start to move that needle in the right direction.
And then I also have a high level program where I work one-on-one with my clients, and it's called Believe In Your Brilliance Academy, where basically I call it an academy because they want to teach you all the things you didn't learn in school, right? Let's write some good emails and let's let's script some good conversations with your manager and let's help you not only overcome this mess that you're in, but also think about the future and what's next, and then build a plan and do the work to actually get there because we just don't want to build sandcastles, like we wanna actually make some progress together. So whether it's a promotion, whether it's a new job, whether it's quitting and starting your own business, whichever path is the right path for you, I can help you clarify that path and also walk that path.
Doug Howard: You're basically sharing how you did it, and it sounds like you're creating a community. One thing I've heard you say loud and clear today is connect with people, right?
Prashha Dutra: Yes. We are quite a big community of women in STEM from around the world. Again, of course, over 200 plus women and have a really strong network of of all my past, past clients and my presence on social media has been like also five years old. Opening up that network that you're not alone. Other women are facing this too. And again, in the cohort, we go through this together as a group as well as, through my one-on-one, one-on-one help for you. And so you get to see other people also expressing the same issues that you know, that you faced. And so you don't feel alone and, you finally have support to continue to move forward. Because I feel again, you guys are already very smart. I can't figure anything out, but with a little support and a little direction and a new set of tools, I think you can just do it much faster.
Doug Howard: Exactly. And Prashha as we wrap up, I just wanna thank you for being on. I'm a big fan of everything you're doing and I'm a huge supporter of everything you're doing. I think not enough people are talking about this stuff, and I'd love to have you back anytime but thanks again for being on.
Prashha Dutra: Yeah, thank you so much, Doug, and it was a pleasure talking to you.
Doug Howard: So before you guys go, if you're watching right now, one of the things we did talk about was, dealing with a bad boss. And if you're looking for help with how to deal with a toxic boss and you don't wanna quit or you can't quit, check out my episode on that. I'll put a link to that in the description and also put a link to all the things Prashha just mentioned, her LinkedIn, her programs and everything like that so that you have access to everything she just described. Thanks for watching.
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