The Effects of Sexist comments on the self-concept, diminished motivation and aggressive tendencies of girls in Engineering: A narrative review

Abstract

Engineering remains one of the fields with the lowest female-to-male ratio.
Researchers have highlighted numerous factors contributing to the persistent
underrepresentation of women in engineering, including the lengthy study
period, the discipline's challenging nature, and bias. While some engineering
schools and organizations have successfully addressed certain barriers, bias
remains a significant issue over the past two decades. It manifests as gender
inequity, discrimination, and sexist comments, negatively impacting the mental
health of those affected. Several studies have consistently shown that bias
hampers the progress of girls in engineering. Addressing these issues early is
vital for improving female students' success rates. It is very important to know
how sexist words affect the mental health of female engineering students. This
study looked at how sexist comments affect the way female engineering
students feel about themselves, their drive, and their tendency to be aggressive.
A literature-search on Google Scholar and IEEE from 2005 to 2025 turned up 42
articles, but 7 had to be thrown out because they didn't meet certain standards.
The results showed that sexist comments were a form of subordination and
abuse that hurt the mental health of female engineering students by making
them feel bad about themselves, less motivated, and more likely to act
aggressively. The study stressed how important it was to reduce this bias and
gave useful suggestions for fighting the bad effects of bias. The study als o
suggested areas for future research to learn more about how sexist comments
affect the experiences and performance of female engineering students. Taking
care of this problem is necessary to make engineering schools and the industry
as a whole more welcoming and fairer for everyone.