>>10981704Why was the environment intimidating and discouraging? Honest question, though I realize that, depending on your experience, it might be begging the point.
Did your male peers frequently voice disparaging comments about how "a girl shouldn't be in our club"? (If so, was it beyond typical dumb high schoolers being dumb high schoolers?) Did your male "mentors" actively discourage you from pursuing your scientific interests?
I'm honestly looking for clarification, because as far as I can tell from your post, it seems like it was just "I'm XX and everyone else is XY and that intimidated me". For instance, I know from personal experience that a lot of that anxiety is just in my own head. I spent 5 semesters of college doing a major I disliked because I felt like my family and friends expected me to go down that career path, so I *had* to stick with it so as not to let them down. Of course this was (mostly) nonsense, but I still felt like all the conversations I had with peers and my parents were just to discourage me from pursuing the subject and career I saw for myself. I did end up switching to what I actually wanted to study, but this caused me to take an extra year (since I wasted 2.5 years in the "wrong" major).
