By REENA RATHORE
SUNNYVALE, CA — While most of her peers are navigating high school life, Indian American student Meenal Bahl’s days are not just about textbooks and tests, but also about creating powerful art, leading global service projects, and advocating for women in science — all while pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor.
The 17-year-old, who is a passionate advocate for gender equality in STEM, has created a mural that captures the essence of womanhood, feminism, and the resilience of women breaking barriers in male-dominated fields.
Titled, “STEMINIST,” the mural was unveiled October 18 at Sierra Circuits, a Sunnyvale-based circuit board manufacturer, and will be permanently displayed at the company led by Indian American entrepreneurs.
The inspiration for the mural came from an unlikely place. This past summer, Bahl interned with a surgeon at Stanford, who shared a riddle that highlighted society’s unconscious gender biases, she noted at the launch. The riddle involves a father and son in a car accident, and in the hospital when the surgeon says, ‘I can’t operate on him, he’s my son,’ many — like Bahl and the surgeon — don’t immediately think of the doctor as the mother.
“One thing that inspired me was my passion for both art and science. Art can be such a powerful tool to address deeply ingrained ideas and the idea that I wanted to tackle was the discrepancies in women not being encouraged as much to pursue STEM,” Bahl told India-West. “I created the mural to celebrate womanhood and feminism and recognize women in science who often go unnoticed and to also serve as positive reinforcement for girls who aspire to have careers in STEM…And I think it’s a reminder that we can break the barriers and challenge stereotypes that have existed for a long time.”
The mural itself is a masterful blend of symbolism and scientific motifs. At its center stands a figure of a woman of color and surrounding her is a cascade of meticulously chosen symbols: circuit boards, microscopes, DNA strands, beakers, and books. These elements aren’t just decorative; they’re a nod to the rich world of discovery and knowledge that women, too, belong in.
“At school, it’s also kind of disheartening to see the number of girls in my harder math and science classes reduced every year, and it’s very noticeable,” she noted at the event. “And these issues aren’t easy to fix, but I think that it’s important to start now to inflict change.”
A particularly significant feature is the DNA double helix spiraling through the mural, an homage to Rosalind Franklin, whose critical contributions to the discovery of DNA’s structure were largely eclipsed by her male counterparts, said Bahl.
“When you learn about who discovered the double helix, you learn about James Watson and Francis Crick, who are two men that worked together. But there was also another scientist like Rosalind Franklin, who contributed a lot to the discovery… but it’s mostly her male peers that are credited with proposing the accurate model of the double helix structure of DNA,” added Bahl.
Bahl described art as a creative outlet that helps her de-stress and balance her academic responsibilities. Having pursued art from a young age, she initially “focused on technique,” but her growing interest in science, particularly biology and neuroscience in high school, led her to create more intentional artwork featuring scientific themes.
A senior at Sequoia High School, Bahl excels not only academically — pursuing the rigorous International Baccalaureate Diploma — but also in leadership. She is the president of Model United Nations at her school as well as the founder of various nonprofit initiatives, including Teach A Friend, which addresses educational inequities in Rwanda, and Pad Pals, which combats period poverty by distributing menstrual kits to women and girls in rural India and Rwanda. These kits, which include pads and instructional pamphlets in various languages, have made a tangible impact on the lives of over 3,000 women.
Bahl is also a writer, having published a bilingual poetry book, which delves into themes of neuroscience. Half of the poems are in French while the other half are in English. She also runs a blog called Femmedicine, which is dedicated to highlighting women in science.
“It’s really important to spread awareness…especially with the inequality that exists today,” said Bahl. “Ultimately, I want to become a neurosurgeon and I hope that when I’m studying and on that career path, I see just as many girls as I do boys.”
This post was originally published on here
