@Sarahsitz, I found about AWID while googling “women in industrial design” just last week, prior to posting this topic to core forum board. AWID’s website looks very outdated and not at all resourceful…not quite sure how active it is in the design community. If anyone is an active member/contributor, please feel free to chime in! There is also a group on linkedin which might be worth joining? Sign Up | LinkedIn
@leezard: I like your thought on that. All ID programs do a good job of weeding out students who are just not fit for this field of work, and within that percent there are only a handful of female designers who follow through to be in ID post graduating. I’m a tomboy myself so that logic certainly applies in my case 
@jon_wienbrenner: Could you drop in a study link regarding the study of women inclined to be more competitive around other women? Thanks for pitching the thought from a male employer’s perspective…I never thought to think of it from that angle. 
I have high hopes and believe that good design work will surpass biases of gender, race, etc and that this is becoming true of all professional fields beyond ID. A good friend (co-worker) of mine who also attended the IDSA conference noted how your presentation inspired her to follow suit in being curious and observant to everything at all times…Part of me struggles with keeping focus and retaining memory of objects worth nothing–your ADDesigner-trait sparked me to start a blog to record mechanically-based objects discovered…so thank y…squirrel!
@yo, AH! Kimberly Wu’s work is mind blowing. Her style of illustration is unusually unique. Build block’s products are absolutely gorgeous… high quality of detailed work is worth praising.
@Ujay: Perhaps it’s a known fact, but I only started noticing how my design team(of 4 guys and 2 girls) at work sometimes has tendency to drift off into technical details and nerd out about how a product is going to be constructed, with slightly less interest in how it will be used or what the overall interaction is going to be. We go in full circle of development, so it’s interesting to observe how we all as individual take various focus + approach to designing a product…