‘What a man can do, a woman can do better’ is something every Nigerian woman has heard at least once, either from her schoolteacher on International Women’s Day or a relative trying to convince her to turn on the generator in the dead of the night.

Unfortunately, the sentiment behind this phrase rarely lasts beyond the moment it is spoken. Out of 109 seats in Nigeria’s Senate, only four are occupied by women, and women continue to be overrepresented in low-paid sectors like childcare and teaching. In the past few years, it may seem that corporate baddies have begun to outnumber men in the workplace, but social media is not real life, and high employment participation does not translate into equal opportunities or working conditions.

According to a survey by the International Labour Organisation, women make up 70% of Nigeria’s poorest residents, and women earn 20-30% less than men despite having equal qualifications. This gender gap is most glaring in engineering and technology. Only 22% of women study engineering and technology in Nigerian universities. It is 2026, but female engineers in Nigeria are still as rare as unicorns.

Esosa* is one of the few women who have chosen to pursue a career in engineering, and in this article, she discusses what it means to be a woman in a male-dominated field.

What is the ratio of men to women in your workplace?

For every one woman you find here, there are three men, and that is how it is in most engineering spaces. In secondary school, I was the only girl in the engineering class. University wasn’t any better; out of the 83 students in my department, there were three girls. It is very hard for a woman to break into engineering. If not for the fact that I graduated with a First Class, one would think that I was a diversity hire.  

How do you feel about this imbalance in your workspace? 

Objectively, I know it is bad and really exhausting, but this is how it has been since the first day I decided to become an engineer.  Frankly, I’m not sure how I’d adapt in a better environment; I’ve just never pictured it. 

I’ve noticed that men have very fragile egos. Once a man sees that you are doing better than him, he will accept any narrative, no matter how ridiculous, instead of admitting that you are simply brilliant. At university, my classmates spread rumours that the only reason I had such good grades was that I slept with lecturers. I still face these sex-for-benefits allegations now that I’m in the labour market. My male colleagues even joke about it to my face.

Ah? As how?

It has happened so many times that I can’t pinpoint one incident. A senior lecturer once told me that the only reason I never had a carryover was that my lecturers knew I was brilliant and giving me bad grades would raise suspicion. According to him, about 90% of them had an eye on me but could not act on their desires because they had no leverage. 

While I was interning, one of my supervisors locked us both in a data centre so that he could tell me the sexual fantasies he had been having about me. Data centres are usually very loud, so no one could hear what he had to say. No one would have heard me either if I had needed to scream. Thankfully, he stopped at just words.

Did you report him?

No, it would have backfired on my career. Women are severely outnumbered, and men will stand in solidarity with each other when things like this happen.  Before that incident, a coworker reported one of our bosses for sexual harassment and was made into a social outcast by the entire office. A staff member said to my face that if she had done such a thing to him, he would have arranged for her to be beaten and raped. When things like this happen, if a woman doesn’t laugh it off, she would be told she’s overreacting and subsequently labelled a bitch.

To protect myself, I blocked his number and stopped going to work early so we would never be alone together. Even after choosing to keep quiet, I still suffered for it. My tardiness made me seem unserious. It was a bitter thing to swallow in a space where I was still struggling to be taken seriously.

Why do you feel like you have to struggle to be taken seriously?

The men I’ve worked with will refer to sexism as ‘perks’ women in engineering get. For instance, some supervisors won’t assign physically demanding tasks, such as inspections, to women. At first, it may look like an act of kindness until you realise that fieldwork is more than 50% of your job description. 

In the long run, we would have gained very little work experience, and when it’s time to be considered for a promotion, the men would be the better options.  A woman has to work twice as hard, have serious connections, or sell her body to compete with her male counterparts. It’s hard to find women in high positions in this industry. I didn’t have anyone to mentor me or warn me of this when I started my career.

Does this have any impact on the way you approach your work?

Yes, in every way you can think of. I find myself constantly getting interrupted when I speak at work, and I’ve had my ideas credited to others several times. Because of this, I’m constantly on guard around the men I work with. It is so easy to be taken for granted, even more than I already am. 

My work outfits consist of baggy trousers and big, unflattering shirts. I also don’t wear make-up just to divert attention from myself. Outside of work, I am a completely different person. I love wearing nice clothes, partying, and going clubbing, but I am extra careful about hiding my extracurricular activities. Men do these things, and nobody bats an eye, but I would become a joke if anybody from work saw that side of me. 

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Would you say all the men in this field act the same way?

I’ve worked at four different companies with different sets of people, and the overall experience is consistent, but I’ve also had a lot of good male mentors. One of these mentors was the Sub-Dean of my faculty when I was in university. Once, a lecturer reported me for misconduct (he made advances toward me, which I rejected). When he called me into his office for questioning, and I explained the situation, he wrapped up the matter immediately. He even told me that the best way to get those lecturers to leave me alone was to start asking them for money.

Why do you think the gender gap in engineering is so wide?

Men exaggerate just how difficult engineering is, and I think it’s because they are trying to gatekeep the profession. They also make it harder for women to advance in their careers. While I was interning at a large government parastatal in Abuja, I noticed that there were only two female engineers in the engineering department, while the men were sent on inspections, meetings, and training every other week, the women were always in the office.

When I asked my supervisor why, he said that women can’t just travel and leave their families, so the organisation doesn’t send them on trips. I’ve worked at a company that not only gave maternity leave, but also had mothering rooms, where new moms could bring their kids to be babysat while they worked. I know that if organisations wanted to make it easier for women to work demanding jobs, they could. They just don’t bother to.

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