When I first entered college, I was full of dreams. I had always wanted to be an architect, and I thought this would be the place where my passion would take flight. But what I didn’t expect was how quickly I’d come face-to-face with gender inequality in a field that I loved so much. From the very start, I noticed it—the subtle but constant undercurrent that told me, again and again, that being a woman in a male-dominated field was going to be harder than I had imagined. In class discussions, I often found that my ideas were ignored or overshadowed by the male students who seemed to always have something to say. When I tried to speak up, the professors sometimes looked past me, directing questions to the guys. It didn’t take long for me to realize that it wasn’t just my imagination. This was happening everywhere—in group projects, during critiques, even in casual conversations. I’d come up with ideas only to see them brushed aside, and then one of the guys would repeat them as if they ...