It can be a little knife to your soul when you meet someone that you think you like and they belittle something you’re into, but, in my book, properly decent people don’t do that.
This is still the reason I don’t really talk about my gaming hobbies with a lot of people, though I know I should not be ashamed of it, especially nowadays.
My personal experience going to a school in that field (now 20 years ago), back then, there were practically no girls there. Our school had 5 years, and in the first year, of 5 classes, only 2 had any girls at all. By the end, I think of the 2 classes finishing, there were only a handful girls in about 50-60 people. So I think it is still no wonder there are so few female engineers around.
I honestly don’t know why so few girls choose a tech career. At least where I live, there is nothing preventing them from doing it. The only thing I could imagine is the “social norm” or peer pressure from their friends in middle school, to just choose a more social or non-tech school later on.
Man that sucks. :(