Whenever it comes to technology, women were looked down or didn’t bothered to ask opinion on that subject. If it is about technology, women are not meant to be a part of this world. Why? What’s wrong if a woman wants to be an engineer or shows interests in technology?
To answer those questions and to help other women break the stereotype, we just need an impactful Inspiration and guess what we do have one such example.
Padmasree Warrior, the name itself enough to encourage someone. Her story breaks the gender stereotype in technology. She is often known as the most powerful woman personality in technology.
At the beginning of her career, she joined Motorola in the year 1984 and gave her 23 years to the company, she became the Chief Technology Officer in 2003 and was promoted to executive vice-president in 2005. Warrior left Motorola in 2007 to become the CTO at Cisco Systems, where she worked till 2015. Now, Warrior, who also serves on the boards of Microsoft, Gap Inc, and several advisory councils, is leading a mammoth effort to bring in the next wave of technology in transportation. She joined NextEV, a Chinese company that manufactures electric vehicles, as CEO for the US and global chief development officer.
In an interview to The Times of India, Warrior said:
“To me, balance suggests there is a conflict between work and family, especially for a woman. Women are always seen as the ones caught in a conflict. Hence, I prefer to use the word integration. This means the woman has to tell herself it is okay not to be perfect in both. We need to prioritise. There are some days when you must tell yourself that work is a priority, so go ahead and give it your best shot. And then if there is a family occasion, the family gets priority. So I am saying, integrate…There is no denying the guilt because most women always have a prefix or suffix. When someone pays us a compliment for good work, we don’t take credit so easily because of the guilt that we have achieved this by sacrificing something else is always lingering. Today, my 20-year-old son is my mentor. He tells me not to feel guilty for anything. I am saying, don’t feel guilty. Go ahead and take that break from work/career.”
Her life and struggle in such a male-dominated world and profession at the same time is quite amazing and surely is an inspiration for many women who want to take up engineering as their career.
