Gender gap in the graduation of Peruvian industrial engineers

In recent decades, the female presence has increased in areas related to science and engineering. However, its participation is still incipient in many of these fields. Consequently, the objective of this studywas to explain how a group of female engineering teachers represent the experiences of their students in acontext characterized by male dominance. The methodology was exploratory and descriptive, interviewing24 Peruvian teachers. The findings identify that female students exhibit differentiated behaviors andparticipation with respect to males, associated with performance expectations, attribution of characteristicsand differentiated treatment by teachers that tend to decrease them with respect to males. In addition, theytend to have greater family burdens, affecting their permanence in studies. This, however, varies dependingon the university, with the situation of women from public universities being the most vulnerable. The studyconcludes that the interviewees show a critical vision of these situations, but with a tendency to overvaluefemale capacities and to develop certain attributes to conquer the labor market; rather than to eliminatethe barriers that exclude them from it. This demanding reality for young women would explain their lowrepresentation in Peruvian industrial engineering