While women's participation in the national economic growth is seen as critical to sustainable development, women's underrepresentation in Cameroon's higher institutions, such as École Nationale Superieure Polytechnique (ENSP), tasked with training human capacity contradicts such development discourses. Despite calls to provide equal educational opportunities for women to enable their acquisition of the skills needed to compete in the global labor market, females in Cameroon too often lack access to girl-friendly, safe, and supportive spaces in formal schools largely due to patriarchal traditions which restrict women's roles in the society. Most recently, females in Cameroon have sought entrance into ENSP, which has historically prepared male technocrats to serve in the government and private industry. While the institution has opened limited spaces for women, it continues to discursively constitute them as "outsiders within" as women venture into traditional environments and participate in activities from which they have been expressly or tacitly excluded.