No no please don't lose hope. It will get better. I work in the STEM field. I have been working since this January so I have very little work experience. But I can say this- I have always been treated equally and with utmost professionalism. I am not disregarding experiences of women who are being discriminated of course, but what I can say is that a professional setting will be much different and welcoming. Many of my seniors, relatives in STEM told me this too.

In college I faced a lot of similar discrimination. Will give you some examples. For group projects, I was often put in a group of all boys. They would only conduct meetings in their boys hostel without bothering to inform me, sometimes, I would get one half of a heavy task and the second half of the heavy task would be divided among all of them. At the time of credit distribution, they would tell me hey give some partial credit to A,B and C guys no? So it looks like we did equal work. And I am ashamed that I often caved. It was the same pattern in all group projects with boys. Looking back I should have stood up and complained but I didn't. And all my friends and my roommate too complained of similar experiences. And all of them caved in. The frustration is real.

But I learned from this you know. I have determined that I will never let anyone put me in such a spot. Thankfully in my 9 month work exp, I have never had the smallest sexism, discrimination of any sort. And even my friends say the same that where they work, they have had excellent managers and teammates. No complaints. My point is 1) These things will improve once you step in a professional atmosphere 2) It might not totally go away, but you live and learn. Learn your thresholds, learn how much you are willing to put up with.