Female leadership in engineering projects: choice of course, challenges, impacts and actions for equity

In the current scenario, gender equity in organizations has been increasingly discussed and translated into corporative actions. This paper had as general objective to know and provide information about the challenges of female leaders in Engineering projects, capturing their vision of the impacts of female leadership in the formation of new leaders, addressing the education aspect regarding choosing the Engineering course and to understand which actions should be taken by the companies to ensure gender equality and female representativeness. This research began with a bibliographical survey on the subject and descriptive research in interviews format was conducted with eleven women who are or have been in leadership positions in Engineering projects. The results showed that the greatest challenges for women who have reached these positions are strongly related to the issue of prejudice and gender stereotypes, factors that also interfere with their choice for Engineering course. This demonstrates that there is still a long way to go to achieve this equality. Taking a look into the future, creating an egalitarian culture is necessary and is listed among the main actions described by the interviewees. In addition, the balance of benefits and responsibilities between men and women during motherhood and, especially, the generation of representativeness will ensure a more balanced environment and the emergence of new female leaders.