I work as a consultant software engineer, so my anecdotal evidence here has to be taken with more than a grain of salt as it approaches a reasonable sample size

I work as a consultant software engineer, so my anecdotal evidence here has to be taken with more than a grain of salt as it approaches a reasonable sample size. I have worked in a LOT of different environments. On the frequent occasions that I do work with female engineers, I have noticed that things mostly go one of two ways: 1.) she is acutely aware that she's an engineer in a "male" profession, and will either act with extreme imposter syndrome constant self doubt, or go to the other extreme to the point that it becomes noticeable and odd 2.) just be an engineer, seemingly unaware of her gender What is strange is that I have met some absolutely fantastic female engineers who fall squarely into camp #2, and if you were to ask them how many grievances they've faced because of their gender, they would probably be nuisanced that you're even asking about it. They act like engineers and they get treated like engineers. If you were to ask the female engineers who fall into camp #1, they would have a completely different story. They'd be likely to say that they can never get a word in, or people walk right over them, people review their code more harshly. In my observations, the biggest hurdle is an internal struggle for a female engineer to see herself as an engineer, because people will see treat you like an imposter if it's clear that you see yourself as one. The more female engineers there are, the less they will feel like imposters, and the less they will be treated like them. In other fields, I imagine things aren't exactly comparable, but I do think it's absolutely ludicrous for you to say that "every single day people make jokes about you sleeping your way to the top." This is not reality. If someone said that once, or that is some guy's "go to joke," it's obviously in poor taste and not funny, but this is not something that women experience every single day in the workplace. At this point, I've worked with more women than men (engineers excluded), under more women CEOs than male. I'm in the offices...these conversations are not happening "every day." For the most part, I would say that most of the places I've worked at largely feel like the women run the show, to be honest. That kind of shit does not fly anywhere outside of some very odd working environment unlike anything I've ever encountered.