> I come from a country and a back ground where intelligence and the ability to work extremely hard is valued highly, with beauty, money and popularity ranked far, far below. Growing up as a South Indian in Mumbai, neither me, not anyone I know or grew up with, has ever had to defend their choice of or fight an uphill battle while selecting engineering as a career choice, regardless of their sex.
I come from the different country but I've got few Indian colleagues. We're talking a lot because I've been always interested in cultural differences. From what they said I feel like above sentence is not true. Male's role in the society is to become an engineer and bring money. Female's - to get married and raise kids. Society's expect you to fit in your role and it's difficult to do something else without tons of comments from your family and friends. One example could be a male colleague who's interested in cooking and wish he could open a restaurant. Yet, he's an engineer. Another one says he didn't really have a choice - he could be an engineer or nobody so, obviously, he choose to be an engineer.
Could anyone confirm how does the reality look like? Maybe it differs by region. It's a big country after all.