This paper is a reasoning paper that brings forward the issue of an increased outsourcing trend of European manufacturing industry. Not to loose product development abroad, new ways of thinking and new competitive advantages are asked for. The paper aims to bring forward women as one important resource in the process of developing and producing new products, a resource which has not been fully employed. Two cases are presented, one from industry where a concept car has been developed only by women and one from academia where traditional engineering design educations has been redesigned to attract more students and specially women. The authors conclude that a change in engineering design educations in order to attract women to the business is one way to get new competitive advantages. Focusing on functionality and practicality in products will attract women and keep women in the educations.