Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Thanks for sharing!

That is a very interesting study.

I did some super quick research to find more details about women retention rates in STEM overall and found this review.

For those that won't read it I'll highlight some points here:
The attrition of women in STEM has been extensively investigated and some major findings are:
1.) Qualitative studies indicate their decision to persist in STEM is influenced by the perception of self-efficacy
2.) Others factors affecting persistence are positive relationships with advisors, mentors, and interest in
STEM classes
3.) Women may need assistance to function in mixed-gender teams, especially when dominated men
4.)Women exhibit lower self-confidence than males even when academic preparation and performance are
equal or superior
5.) Professional role confidence is a critical factor in the persistence of women in STEM

"Self-confidence appears to be a key variable, with diverging self-confidence scores between those who persist and switchers. This disparity was not correlated with actual performance, as measured by GPA. Other barriers were: feelings of isolation, discouragement based upon grades, poor teaching, and unapproachable faculty."

"In examining gender-based difference several indicators point to a decline in the self confidence of women as they progress through STEM courses. Women tend to rate themselves as less capable problem solvers with fewer of them planning to continue to graduate school. While women seem to internalize failure and credit others with their success, males (particularly Caucasian) tend to do the opposite. "

The article goes on and on but basically keeps restating the fact of "women tend to value themselves less even though objectively they are of the same, if not then greater, caliber than their male counterparts."

The way to fix this, and encourage females to build their self confidence in certain fields of STEM that they might not be a 100% confident in. Because females feel bad about themselves after a small little failure in something they may not have been too confident to begin with.

Events like these that promote females to learn and fail/succeed in a comfortable environment where a lot of others are in the same boat help females realize that it's okay to fail, and they shouldn't take it to heart. It helps build a female's self worth.

Getting to be on drive team as coach this year (I do believe I genuinely earned the position), helped me learn to value myself and be more confident in my abilities. I can imagine that if for one day females got to be on a drive team and be more involved in the technical aspects of the program, it could boost their confidence and help retention rates later on. This event could help the next female who might develop a world changing program or invention build up the persistence they will need later on in life to keep doing what they are doing.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

To start you did earn it as the person who put you in that position I can assure you of that. You didn't earn that from the most hours or most knowledge you earned if because of competence.
But here's my question and this is for everyone would being on drive team feel the same if the only reason you were there was because no boys were allowed there?

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I'm sure a couple other people are wondering this as well, so this is an open message to all, and not just Sam

I don't care who was there as long as I got the experience I was able to communicate with other teams and strategize, as well as absorb a variety of technical knowledge from being in that atmosphere. I also learned leadership in a scenario. All these aspect would remain the same regardless of who else was around me.

The above is applicable to me, and I can only speak for myself. This is because I have learned how to cope and various techniques when I feel dominated in a male-based setting.

What would be different is level of comfort. I don't care if this is the right thing to say, but I feel more comfortable around those of the same gender as me. This fosters an environment for those who might not be comfortable in the traditional setting to build their skills in a comfortable way before thrown into the real world.

This skill building in this environment helps other females grow and could potentially increase female in STEM retention rates.

So, it's not about being able to get that "coveted" position by kicking out all males. The feeling of drive team was simply one that allowed me to build my skills, and if more females can build that skill in a non-traditional setting, I am all for it.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

That is a good idea. I am aware of 5 such events.
girlPOWER by FRC team 433 in PA
Girls Generation by FRC team 1540 in OR
Girls Generation by FRC team 2046 in WA
Bloomfield Girls Robotics Competition by FRC team 2834,33,469,68 in MI
IndyRAGE(Robotics All Girls Event) by FRC team 234 in IN

I think it is a good idea to hear from the teams and the girls who attended these events. What did you like or not like about it? Did you get to try something (drive team, pit crew etc) that you didn't get a chance to during the regular season? What was your experience? Should these events continue?

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

The gender pay gap is a statistical myth for the exact reason you mentioned. Women traditionally take on lower paying jobs (Psychology, pediatrician, art vs math, cardiac surgery, orthopedic surgery) as well as take more time off for child rearing.

Pay gap exists, but only when you total up all the money earned by women and all the money earned by men- which is a deceitful way of looking at it.

A man in field X and a woman in field X will make the same amount provided they work the same number of hours at the same level of rigor.

I do agree that the reason there is a bigger push for women in engineering is because it pays more, simple as that. Nobody wants to be a garbage collector, so nobody is going to push for a man or woman to become one. However, the women that do go to college and graduate tend to pick majors that lead into lower paying fields.

Whether this is a result of some sort of systemic sexism, that's up for you to decide.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Alright.
I'm going to stray from my original intention of simply pointing out the massive difference in lunch discussions at the IndyRAGE event, and move on to something I've noticed a lot in recent posts.

Most of the females talking about not getting into high-paying jobs because of male dominance, are mainly talking about jobs like Engineering, software design, business management, etc.

But none of the aforementioned females pointed out that more women should be involved in male-dominated jobs such as: Oil drilling, Mining, Sheetrock Layers, or any "Down & Dirty" Jobs that possess similar pay.

I find this to be unfair to the male population, for if you are pushing for equal rights, in order to get females into office-based jobs like the ones mentioned above, you should also be pushing for more in the physical labor.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Go start a program that is designed to inspire people to become oil drillers, miners, sheetrock layers, etc., have a public internet forum organically spring up from the community it forms, and take that discussion there.

Or you can continue being a misogynistic troll here and people will continue to tell you to $@#$@#$@#$@# off, even though those efforts clearly are in vain.

Alternatively, delete your account.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

No. The "aforementioned females" get to push for more female representation in any career field they're interested in because all individuals have a right to pursue a career they're passionate about and competent in.

Also, this whole thread began because of YOUR objection to a robotics event that featured women in STEM.
Changing your arguments after losing your first isn't clever or mature.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

You are literally on a discussion board about a program aimed to get people into engineering and sofware development fields, in a thread about an event specifically aimed to achieve this. Of course that's what everyone is going to be discussing.

Already talked about this.

Sidenote, but when did this trend of replacing the word "women" with "females" happen? It might be just me, but it sounds incredibly demeaning and almost dehumanizing, especially since it never goes the other way.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I understand the sentiments laid out by the OP. However, I do value the options of having events such as IndyRAGE to encourage females to take on roles that are not typically set aside for them.

FRC 4607 has a fairly large female segment (~40/60 this last season), and yet it is like pulling teeth to get some of the girls into the programming/fabrication side of things.

Part of this is our collective issues with societal/cultural differences or perceived 'gender appropriations'. Another aspect is the lack of female mentors in these areas. We (4607) do try to include/encourage females into these areas - but even then they are subjugated (unwittingly) to meaningful tasks that demean these girls; i.e "take notes on this because you have better hand-writing". This drives me nuts.

My concern this coming season is to get more females to transition from our Marketing/Business squads to the fabrication/design squads. In fact, one of our best fabricators this last season was a female. And she commanded respect from the males in the lab - because she was one of the best fabricators we have ever had.

But I will state this - even as good as she was, she took a lot of crap. Not from the fabrication squad (don't get me wrong, she took some ribbing from the guys, but it was in a situation where she was able to give it back - and she had fun with it), but from the other females on the team. In fact, it got to a point that she wanted to quit because of her excelling amongst the boys. Again, not from the boys, but from the other females. After a very long talk, she decided to continue with the team. How can we prevent this type of female vs female bullying?

Well, this is why we need these types of events - so that females can showcase their worth amongst their female peers. And so that other females can see that success in these fields are not only possible, but so that they can gain confidence. And that girls such as the aforementioned can gain POSITIVE notoriety amongst her peers.

Just my 2 cents.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I shouldn't have to push for anything. You have no right to tell me what I should or shouldn't be passionate about. Responses on here want to push for females in STEM because you are on a forum about robotics engineering.

At this point, I think you're just a troll, and not genuinely worried about this event or rights and equal opportunity in STEM.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

First of all, there is a pay gap between men and women working the same jobs. I don't have time to look for a citation but I'm sure someone has one.

Second of all, what I find much more alarming than the handful of anonymous trolls, is the fact that somehow this guy has 4 rep bars!!! There are clearly some fairly high-rep CD accounts that support his garbage for him to have 4 rep bars after 8 posts, all of which are offensive comments on this thread.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

It took less than ten seconds of Google searching to find a US Department of Labor article debunking all of these claims, showing that the gender pay gap persists even when you control for time off due to pregnancy, presence of advanced degree, job title, etc.

The information is out there and is, quite frankly, very easy to find. If you don't want it to be true, that's another story. Discrimination isn't a myth.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Having an opinion that differs from the norm shouldn't be considered offensive. The overly PC culture present in FIRST and CD is ridiculous. God forbid anyone say something that might be interpreted as misogynistic. /s

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

A question that might help some folks who aren't used to managing systemic inequality and their piece in dismantling it: does anyone have any resources (specific to marginalized people in STEM, maybe) that others can use to learn more without women/PoC having to prove their marginalization?

Here are a few I have found: link a, link b, link c, link d (this one is a little more jargony and isn't specific to STEM).

I am open to critiques on the choices of articles I am sharing as well as starting a collection of more resources to share with others. I am also open to PMs if anyone needs any help implementing change on their own team or needs support.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Yes, please let us forbid that. It might be hard for you to understand, but from an outsider looking in's perspective, if FIRST/CD condoned posts that could be interpreted as misogynistic we would turn off so many prospective FIRSTers. Not to mention in a professional setting it can be called sexual harassment and/or discrimination and can cause some serious issues.

These certain posts are catalyzing the demise of the already dwindling hope I had left in the thread.

Going back to the post about the pay gap -
As others have cited there are a variety of sourcing offering information that it exists. I have done a lot of research on my own time about it and contacted several different agencies working on improving it. The number one cause I was able to conclude was that women under negotiating their salaries. Women tend to value themselves less and hence negotiate less as opposed to males who tend to overvalue themselves and negotiate for more.

This comes down again to confidence, and multiple arguments on this thread work in favor of the argument women aren't as confident in their abilities even if they are objectively on or above par.

That's why events like these help build females confidence and get them psychologically ready to deal with things like negotiating pay based on your confidence or retention in STEM after a small failure.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

There's a big difference between "I think eliminating bag day would irreparably damage the FRC experience for a majority of teams" and "Because of your gender, you are likely to be less capable at math and science." One is an unpopular but valid opinion that spars debate, the other is an offensive declaration that directly insults and discourages a large group of the very people we're supposed to be inspiring and building confidence in with this program and on this board.

Please don't make this a bag day thread now. Though that might be an improvement. :)

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

My take on the diversity gap / gender gap was probably similar to yours when I was in high school, because it was based on the idea of a zero sum game. If a society is going to promote something, it must be ignoring something else, right?

The more experience I gain in the real world only shows me this couldn't be further from the truth. The number of opportunities available is not a fixed number, like it might be for an admissions office at a university. Growing a percentage of a population in engineering doesn't mean the rest of the engineering population needs to lose that percentage - the overall number can grow!

Applying it to this example, adding a girls-only event doesn't take away any other opportunity a boy might have.

Last point. In fields requiring a brain (creativity, critical thinking, etc.), diversity of thought is an admirable goal. If we can't approach a problem from every angle, we might not find the best solution. I don't have to think long to imagine life experiences that I have not and cannot experience simply because of my gender - and those are perspectives that I lack and cannot use in solving a problem. Imagine where the world could be and isn't because of the lack of diversity in engineering.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

At first look this is a pretty terrible thread. But then again, if you just ignore the disrespectful/trolling posts that keep sparking the debate, you have a list of some really great responses as for why All-Girl Events are great. Might be nice if someone made a white paper of all of the positive responses from people in this thread.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Here are some of your posts along with some of the quotes that preceded them in italics. I went through the trouble of bolding what some might interpret as offensive or misogynistic (and I was fairly conservative with it) and underlining things that are untrue along with some commentary in case you don't understand why. I tried my best to explain these problems, but if anyone else can explain it better, feel free to chime in.

Taking a discussion about women and immediately trying to change the focus of the conversation to the men. This may be interpreted as you not caring about the issues women face and only caring about your own gender.

I shouldn't have to explain how this is insulting.

Any elementary schooler would be able to tell you that excluding someone is in fact, quite rude.

Textbook definition of predjudice and sexism and just because you use the word typically, it doesn't change anything. It is the exact same as this famous quote:
I might do a part 2 if I have time and it's necessary, but I've spent way too much time on this for now.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Your words, not mine. You're making up your own narrative, I never said anything of the sort.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

You're looking at it too broadly. That was a specific reply to Karthik's image. A very useful image with a lot of information, that was unfortunately being viewed in a very one-dimensional way. I pointed that out.

I don't find that insulting.

Any elementary schooler would be able to tell you people have freedom of choice in association.

Prejudice definition: preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

Using biology as an explanation for gender differences isn't based on reason? Well I'll be.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I could not agree more with this! Girls in FRC tend to have to prove themselves repeatedly to gain any respect in the community, and many girls don't have the confidence to show time and time again that they are just as capable as their male counterparts. While I normally am not a fan of "girls only" events, I think that this is a great event to show girls who may be struggling on teams that they are completely capable of everything that their male counterparts are, and I hope that it gives the girls in attendance the confidence they need to keep pushing and stay involved in engineering.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

"They're just dots"

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Are you actually going to cite something that claims your stereotypical ideas of differences in the behavior of people of certain genders are actually rooted in biology? You're just spouting prejudiced ideas and saying "it's biology!", but haven't vetted any of your claims at all. If you're going to use the idea that your prejudices are rooted in scientifically verifiable truth, you'll have to at least cite some sources so that your claims can be critically analyzed.

I'm betting the best you'll be able to come up with are either speculative evo-psych papers, which are rarely if ever evidence based, or outdated studies. It's difficult if not impossible to control for cultural and societal influence when analyzing gendered behavior. I don't believe this will stop you though - you've decided your opinions are objective truth.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I know I shouldn't post on CD while angry, but I'm going to do it anyway.

One of the classic techniques of the anti-feminist and women's rights groups is to always turn every conversation towards the men. Focusing on just the men in every conversation and ignoring the women is misogyny because you are saying that men and their issues are more important than women and their issues. An English teacher would be able to explain this much better than me.


You said there is nothing wrong with excluding your coworker, presumably on the basis of gender. How is that not insulting? However, that is not nearly as bad as you saying "Do you honestly think you have the same definition of fun as them?." HOW DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND HOW SEXIST THAT IS? First of all, you don't know the OP or her coworkers, how do you know what any of their definitions of fun are? YOU DON'T!! You are assuming that she does not like the same things as them SOLELY ON THE BASIS OF HER GENDER. Furthermore, you are not making a general statement about men and women, you are saying it about a real person.

Rude: offensively impolite or ill-mannered.
Legal: permitted by law.

HOW DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE TWO WORDS. Yes, you have the freedom of association to not hang out with someone, just like I have the freedom of speech to call it rude. No one is going to arrest those kids for excluding someone, but it doesn't mean they aren't horrible people for doing it.

Okay give me your reason or actual experience, not just that men and women are biologically different, but that it is the largest influence on who they are as a person.

You are defining women by their sex and saying that they have limitations because of their gender. Research the women's suffrage movement, you will see a lot of the same arguments being used. Once again someone else can explain this much better than me, but it shouldn't be that hard for you to understand.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Not going to get involved as much as possible, but here's the links he posted:
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...40#post1596940
Rather sketchy links to support his opinion IMO (very little in there that's directly related to this topic), but you can't argue with a sexist anymore than you can argue with a racist.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I know they are just dots, but behind those dots are respected CD members agreeing with him. It's not like one person gave him all that rep because his rep has fluctuated like crazy over the past few days which means a not insignificant group of people KEEP giving him rep.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

First of all, welcome to ChiefDelphi. You'll notice as you look around that the overwhelming subject of career recruitment here is STEM fields. This is because we are a robotics forum, not because some of us are women. If you're interested in recruitment of women into other fields, I suggest you follow up with places like National Association for Women in Construction, several for women in mining, Women in Petroleum, Women in Manufacturing, Automotive jobs, as I mentioned in a previous post.

There is no grand monolith of "women" in society that limit the priorities of our gender. Rather, there are just millions of women that have individual priorities and passions. The same is true of all people, and I would not expect a male engineer on this forum to be pushing male students toward any career they are not personally interested in avocating. If you would like to work with that Women in Construction organization, please send me a donation letter next tax refund season.

That said, while I am on this forum as an engineer, you have lucked into locating a woman who is indeed passionate about some very difficult and dangerous manual labor jobs. In fact I was injured training for just such a job and am still striving to recover and rejoin. So with that, I invite you to read my previous monologue. While its existence is not critical here, I'm afraid you must have missed based on your claim that no women have discussed this issue.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

You're right, it was one dimensional. What additional data do you think would help make your point? I'll put my money where my mouth is and say that if you can provide me some information that would make your case (either an actual data set or simply the type of info you want) I'll go, hunt it down, and combine it with Karthik's image to see help you make your case in strokes that are less broad than "it's biology".

You tell me what more you want to see and I'll do my best to hunt it down, maybe we can have a discussion here . And maybe we can all learn something about the relative value of opinions and feelings in a discussion compared to that of data and evidence.

Addendum - Do not mistake this post for support of any ideas or positions.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I'm not going to read through all the comments on here but here's the process and feedback from my team's experience from last year:

One of my female students saw the post for Indy-Rage last year and after telling other girls on the team who became interested they practically begged me to go.

Girls who attended the event overwhelmingly had a blast being able to drive/operate/participate in a lead role and mentored first year female students attending to get them comfortable in the environment. The response from the seminars was "meh" but they said they absolutely want to go back next year.

This year we had our first female driver/operator in our teams history and had a very close bid for another female. Previous years our driver try-outs has never been close to a female student earning their spot. We also had a much higher percentage of our female students in lead roles including both of our student leads being female and a higher percentage of females in the pits. Is this 100% due to Indy-Rage? Of course not but I do believe that this sparked some motivation for my female students to take it upon themselves to step up and strive to assert themselves as equals in our program.

Make whatever opinions and observations you want from my post All that I care about is that my female students benefited from the experience and want to go back. Because of this I would like to thank Indy-Rage for providing this opportunity.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Absolutely. In fact, I may even suggest to my team that we field an all female drive team for the off-season we plan to attend. It will be difficult to find a female driver because of the exact problem that's addressed by these types of events. We had our secondary driver leave after the 2015 season for a variety of reasons, and while I am not pretending to know all of her reasons behind leaving, I know for a fact that the team environment was far less inviting for her than it was for her male counterparts. So in my opinion, this mess of a thread has had some positive effect and has led to *some* good discussion amidst the chaos.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

What's so interesting to me is that a community who are all about spreading STEM, a category which strives for innovation, is pushing out inclusion.
You cannot innovate without more people involved, especially people who have different things to offer.

I cannot believe that FRC students will find this thread, read it, and have to feel to way I feel reading this thread.

Disgusted.

I cannot put into words how hurt I am that so many of you are telling women how we feel about being a woman in STEM. Theres a difference between understanding a situation and being in a situation. Please learn the difference.

With that said, thank you to the men and women who are fighting for the women in stem in this thread.

Now lets continue the conversation respectfully. In my opinion, the best person should get the job (whether that be in work or a lead in an FRC team), the goal of getting more women into STEM isn't to give them those positions more easily, it's to get them to the same level as their male counterparts. I am one who does not agree with special treatment of female members and would rather teach them to strive for being the best, interested what other people think.

Please keep your replies respectful. :)

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Tyler, this is really great feedback from someone who is looking to improve the experience of the students on their team.

One challenge of FRC is the limited number of slots for any given aspect of a typical FRC team, especially when it comes to drive team/pit team/scouts, etc. At a given competition, a typical FRC team will have between 6-8 students in the pit and drive teams combined. Given FRC teams can be much larger in size, many students simply do not get the chance to participate in some areas of the team during the regular season. This isn't a bad thing, just one challenge of FRC specifically.

This is why I really value off-season events like Indy-Rage. I place a high value on giving more students more chances to play with robots. This is also why I love events like Madtown Throwdown, where we can bring three robots to play with. We get to circulate more than three times as many students through a lot of these roles that they won't experience during the regular season.

More opportunities, if structured wisely, means more opportunities to inspire more students. I think the direction we are headed in FIRST and competitive robotics is a great one. Every year, the net gets bigger and we bring in more students from all backgrounds. From my perspective, casting a bigger net has and will continue to naturally close the gender gap, but I also think events like Indy-Rage play a much needed role in accelerating our growth as a community.

Thanks all,

-Mike

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

It's hard to draw a line on special treatment for female members when, from my experience, female members typically come to a team with less experience than their male counterparts due to general societal differences in how we raise each gender and what toys we buy for them. Those differences are changing, but it seems to be slow going.

So, to some degree you do have to treat people differently based on their experiences, when they first come to a team - you need to have increased training opportunities for those who need it, you need to promote an atmosphere of acceptance and learning that supports individual growth and achievement within the team regardless of what experiences someone shows up with. And, unfortunately, I think you'll see that separate largely across gender lines even when it's not promoted as such.

All of that brings up an interesting question... where is the line between treating genders differently, and the appearance of treating genders differently within a team, and how important is that distinction? Opening the question a little broader, how do we provide appropriate support for any subgroup (for example, hotel assignments for individuals who identify as other than their biological gender), without treating them differently (or giving the appearance of such)?

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I would like to also point out here, specifically to the people who are flaming & bashing me, rather than trying to talk reasonably about my posts, that I, as a boy/man/male (whichever you prefer), have been discriminated against multiple times in High School.

When my club got an opportunity to host the concessions stand for a football game, I was treated by the women running this event as if I was nothing but a "dumb shop kid". Only the girls were allowed to handle money, or take orders. I was only allowed to pour cheese on tacos.

When my father applied for jobs as a grade school music teacher, when he was not chosen for two of the positions he applied for, he was told, and I'm not making this up, that they "Wanted a woman". When he went to a lawyer to ask about filing a discrimination lawsuit, the lawyer told him that there was no point in filing a lawsuit, because a white man had no chance of winning.

In my own Robotics club, the teacher recruited cheerleaders from our school to join, because it was apparent that our four-man team would never be chosen for Playoffs without girls. The girls could only come to about half of our robotics meetings, and couldn't make the first competition, because of a basketball game. For the second competition, our drive team was told they had to give up half of their scheduled matches to the girls, even though the girls were first-year members, and the current drive team was made up of 3-4 years.

I am not a troll, and I am not against women's events in FIRST. I was originally ONLY against the gender labeling of lectures at a lunchtime meeting. It seems that I cannot express this intention enough, as I still see users accusing me of trying to bring down these events.

I have received private hate messages, both directly & indirectly insulting me. I've been called names, I've received veiled threats. And after looking into my sudden reputation drop to 5 negative reputation bars, I found out that between 12:00 AM & 9:00 AM this morning, 400 negative reputation was added to my profile without any additional rep comments. For these reasons I choose to remain anonymous, since I don't want to be yet another victim of discriminatory violence in a country that supposedly allows freedom of speech.

I am only a high school student, and you have shown me the worst of what the future has to offer here. I will no longer be posting or responding to users in this thread, as I will clearly only receive hate in return.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Lady Cans FRC #2881 Austin Texas can't make it during the school year...too far to travel by car/bus and airlines don't have good connecting flights during the school year. We are a girl scout team and we'd love to be here, but we have to deal with unexcused absences from school. Every FIRST event that we attend during the school year comes with a consequence. Fortunately the girl's passion for building FIRST robots far exceeds the pain of making up school on Saturday and having to take all the final exams.

Maybe next year Lady Cans FRC 2881.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I'm sorry to hear that you've been turned off by the community.

While I do think your initial post was very poorly worded (if the intention was to promote civil discussion), I think this latest post clearly shows how you've developed in your posting during the course of this discussion.

An increasingly evident (to me) development in our internet culture is the polarization of discussion. It is OK to be in the minority, it is OK to be in the majority, and it is OK for both sides to disagree and throw facts/figures/opinions out to prove/disprove their respective points.

We cross lines in productive discussions when we insult, demean, and slander others. Anyone and everyone can be tempted to cross those lines. Personally, I have crossed those lines many times.

I hope we all take some time to consider the person sitting at the keyboard on the other side of the internet. And I hope we can especially consider the words we say in PM/Rep that the rest of the community wont see.

Thanks everyone,

-Mike

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

People have a bad habit of forgetting that sometimes it is kids that are posting questions or comments on here and tend to go "rabid". Private messages to a student insulting them, by either student or mentor should not happen.

He might have worded it poorly, but his point wasn't lost on a lot of people. Personally, I can see both sides of it. As a mentor I look at it and think "My girls don't need their own event, they'll make all the events theirs if they want." Our team had a leadership that was mostly female. Had nothing to do with anything other than they were the best we had. President, Vice President, Safety, Spirit, Finance, Marketing, Programming all female led on our team.

That said I also know not all teams, schools, organizations work that way and we need to try and remember, even if your team has good about it doesn't mean all teams are.

I do know that, if you had an all boys event last year we would have been hard pressed to put together a complete team. :)

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Well said.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Discrimination is rough, and I am sorry that you have had to experience it. It sounds like your father got an even more impactful dose. It might be good to think how those experiences have shaped your viewpoint of discrimination. Have they made you more empathetic to others experiencing discrimination in other areas, or have they hardened you and in turn make you feel like others should "toughen up"? Experiences like you have had can really make a person go either direction. Not that either direction is necessarily wrong, but it is important to be mindful of how they will influence your personal perception and in turn expressed viewpoints.

I used to PM a lot of students on posts like your previous few posts to be very mindful of "tone" or "wording" when getting into controversial subjects. In most case I would have hoped it would be considered as coaching, but giving someone a warning that they are headed into trouble may sometimes be taken the wrong way. After reading through YPP documentation, I now usually refrain from PMs unless I know they are a mentor or the discussion is purely technical in nature.

I am saddened that you feel threatened. Reading through this post, I see several folks that I have a ton of respect for being pretty harsh in their return commentary. I suspect that if some of them re-read their wording, they may realize why you are feeling threatened.

Because of the aforementioned concern regarding PMs, I would like to give this advice more openly:
If/when taking a position that you feel will likely be met with controversy be very careful of your wording. A good rule of thumb is, if I need an anonymous or relatively anonymous account to make your message, think very hard about what you are hoping to foster. Example: If you have health concerns because someone's baby looks ill, you wouldn't approach them with: Hey that's an ugly baby, is something wrong with it, or does it just look that way.

With controversy, try to avoid humor which does not translate well in text based communication and can often be misconstrued. Humor often works well in a personal conversation, but it is troublesome in written communication that is not story telling. This is especially true of sarcasm.
"Tone" via email or message boards can be very difficult to read. Folks may read into things incorrectly (from your perspective) as they read your post with a different tone than you intended. I personally had an issue with this a few months back with a work related email where I was frustrated, and my frustration came across as insulting and condescending. That was not my intent, and because I was expressing frustration, I actually had management review the note before sending it (and they approved it), but it still resulted in someone being offended and me writing a written apology*.

I would suggest sticking to some technical discussions. It looks as though you have some good posts in those areas. Keep working on your writing style. Not that I don't think your viewpoints or opinions merit discussion, but I as you can see, controversial viewpoints can get you lit up pretty quickly.

*An important thing to understand is that a persons perception is their reality. You may not intend to offend, but if they are offended, they are offended. An apology can be very beneficial as a starting point to have further discussion.
I would also hope that folks that may have threatened you might do the same.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Check out this FIRST Strategic Pillards posted today:
http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...is-first-going

Increase Diversity is one of the pillards which coincides with our topic of All-Girl events very well.

From the blog:
"We also know that the demographics of FIRST participants do not fully look like the communities we serve. With approximately 30 percent female participants in our Programs overall, we are underrepresented in young women, as well as people of color and kids from lower-income families. I am proud to say that FIRST demographics are quite a bit better than the tech workforce overall, but we still have a ways to go to mirror our communities.

Why is this important? If you believe, like I do, that FIRST programs are real game changers for kids, opening them to a world of opportunity and enabling them to become the critical innovators and problem solvers of tomorrow, then shouldn’t every kid have access to these Programs? ..."

- John

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Reminder that this user did not start this thread. Moderators split off a post from a separate thread into a new one.

Mods, please don't do this without adding a disclaimer at the beginning of the thread. It's ridiculous.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I'm sorry for the hate you received in this thread, but I can understand how users may have perceived your post as being directed more at women's events in general versus just the lunch lectures. I'm also sorry that you have faced discrimination, but I wish that it had given you a glimpse into what women face in other areas rather than hardened your heart to this subject.

However, I disagree with you about the lunch lectures because to create a welcome environment for everyone, focus needs to be put on how men act with women in their "zone". I have had a number of events in my life where I have been bullied, mocked, and sexually harassed in the engineering field and every event had one thing in common: men were the perpetrators. Some didn't have bad intentions, but just didn't know how to act with me around. After explaining to them why I was hurt by what they said or did, it was easy for them to pick up the subtle language changes and get along splendidly. The potential for this event and the lunch to teach those skills to students before they enter the workforce is invaluable.

Finally, if you really will no longer respond to this thread, PM me if you feel comfortable continuing to discuss this. I think there's a lot we all can learn from each other if we take a breath first.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I wanted to share another anecdote... This past year, my team hosted a luncheon at the Minneapolis regionals for girls and women on teams, volunteers, judges, and the local university SWE chapter. It was a wildly successful event, with a much larger turnout than we expected. We had gotten e-mails to all the team leads about it, informing them of the event and asking them/their team to RSVP with the number of women that would be attending. At the event, one of our mentors went around to talk with some of the teams that did not RSVP, and here are some of the responses she got from male team leaders:

"Well, I'm not a girl so I didn't reply" - a female team member was standing right next to him at the time.

"Man, that's a lot of estrogen in there!"

And to top it off, after the luncheon there were some leftover pizza/cookies that the team took down to our pit and tweeted out that they were available for anyone that wanted them. One guy came by and asked "How many ovens do you have back there?"

So, whether we want to admit it or not, FIRST is not always as open and welcoming to women as we would like. Comments and attitudes like this are one very good reason why women might hang back instead of taking charge.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Maybe treating us like we are special makes people devalue us even more, makes people believe we had a million opportunities in FIRST. Which we frankly do, as there are SO MANY programs targeted to get women into STEM.
When you treat someone as different people think of you differently. When you treat someone as superior for a different anatomy people stop looking at what you know and start looking at what gender you are.

This is one of the biggest issues with getting more women into STEM that people seem to miss a lot.
To truly have women be EQUAL to men in STEM fields in a percentage and in a respect sense, we need to teach them the same skills when they are younger. We need to show girls they can do anything.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Your other examples I understand as supporting your argument, but I fail to see how this specific comment is relevant. I'm not going to deny the existence of gender bias, but sometimes I think people look for examples where there aren't any.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

In an attempt to contribute something to this thread that is both productive and informative, I’d like to share my thoughts as a female in FRC. I’ve been involved in FIRST since the tail-end of the 2009 season as a student, and the last four years as a mentor in CAD and manufacturing.

I was fortunate that the team I was on in high school was very welcoming and was not overly biased, but that didn’t make it perfect. Many of the issues I felt I faced were subtle and now many years later, I believe were possibly unintentional by my teammates. At the time, I would not have labeled as any kind of sexism, but also felt as if there was a “boy’s club” mentality that I was not a part of.

This is why these panel discussions are so important. No one intended to cause me harm, but now that I’m older (and hopefully wiser), I realize that those kind of actions are the most harmful. When neither side knows what has transpired, neither side can open a dialogue to fix the issue.

I always felt that I had to speak with great conviction to be listened to on my team, especially in the beginning. Over time, I did gain more respect of my peers, but sticking it out in the beginning was difficult. Naturally, I am a very patient and stubborn person and that enabled me to see it through. I also found support in one of the college mentors of our team. He was the first person on the team I felt took me seriously, and I will always be grateful.

Now as a mentor myself, I often stop and wonder if I’m doing enough for my students. (I’m sure we all do). But in context of this discussion, I worry about the girls whose skin might not be as thick or don’t know why they perceive this odd “feeling” about being on the team, as I had. As was stated earlier in this thread:
As a mentor, I’ve seen many girls come onto our team, and I’ve seen many disappear. I always am asking myself am I doing enough? Sure I can get girls interested in the team, but getting them to stick it out is hard.

1646’s two student drivers this year were female and I was drive coach. Midway through the season I belatedly realized our team had created a drive team that was 75% female. Did this inspire any of the other girls on the team? Do they want to be drivers too? How can I inspire more students on the team (all students) to be this involved?

Events like the IndyRAGE are a crucial step in this process, but we can’t let it end there. Letting the girls know they can be heavily involved in a FRC team is only part of the process. Empowering them to continue to do so once they leave the event is something we need to focus on.

Parting thoughts: How can we give girls the resources to succeed on FRC teams and in STEM? What can we do to aid them when faced with actions and behaviors of others that are unintentional but harmful? How should we approach any individual who exhibits behaviors that are potentially harmful to others on the basis of gender?

What can we do to make events like IndyRAGE even better for everyone?

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Hi all,
I've gone back and forth whether to post again in this thread, but I've gotten a lot of requests from people in community asking me to post a speech I gave that I shared on my personal Facebook. This speech is about my personal views on the growth and acceptance of women in STEM.

I have removed my opening and closing remarks so that anyone reading this can just focus on the content.

I do not want to start more debate, but would rather have other individuals see my side of being an unrepresented person in STEM who is not respected the same as her male colleagues.

Here is the link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing


Thanks.
Please keep respectful.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_di...n_intelligence (and the references at the bottom). There is a fairly overwhelming scientific consensus that there are "differences in the capacity of males and females in performing certain tasks, such as rotation of object in space, often categorized as spatial ability," in which a male advantage exists (https://www.researchgate.net/publica...tial_a bility, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1130467?...tab_conten ts are just a couple examples). I doubt many would disagree that spatial ability plays an important role in building a robot.

Note that I am certainly not suggesting that women can't excel in FRC as men can, nor am I suggesting that biology is the sole cause of the gender gap. But to those who dismiss so quickly and confidently the notion that some of the disparities in gender composition could be attributed to physiological differences, I feel that further research would be worthwhile.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Please, someone just close this thread.

The more important thing to notice is that everyone is different in their own special way. Males and females both bring different skills to the table to help the team succeed. Even two people of the same gender have different strengths. For example, one male may be a fabulous machinist while another may be great at writing grants. It is the combination of all of these different people, male and female, who make a great team.

IMHO, the reason for All-girls events is that typically, females are better at certain roles on the team. These roles can sometimes mean that they don't get to participate on the drive team or pit crew at regular season competitions because they are busy contributing to the team by doing what they do best, whatever that may be. Also, it is always interesting to watch an all girls event because of these differences. Females do generally attack a problem a bit differently than males (not saying that either way is better) so some strategy is different.

I love to compete at all girls events because it gives me the chance to be on the drive team. During the season, my skills are better used talking to judges and leading the team as team president. That doesn't leave a lot of time for drive team. I really enjoyed IndyRAGE last year and I hope that I get to attend again this year.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Well said -- I couldn't agree more with this.

Aren't there boys -- maybe those whose strengths involve writing grants -- who would also love a chance to be on the drive team who never had the opportunity? I just think that a "try out new role" type of event would achieve the same goal, but be far less exclusive.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

+1

Please can we just end this thread. I feel like we've squeezed all the productivity we possibly can out of it already.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Yeah, you see, there's a world of difference between "there is literally no difference between people who, all other things equal, have different sexes" and the thing I actually said that you were responding to. But I mean, you've created a brand new Chief Delphi account to argue about gender, snipped a single line of a post made two weeks ago out of context, and then dropped a link to a Wikipedia article as some kind of justification for institutional sexism, so I don't really think productive dialogue is going to result from this conversation no matter how I respond to it.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I have to strongly question any study along those lines - With our current culture, it has to be practically impossible to control for upbringing differences between males and females. How can you test two people for spatial reasoning skills on equal footing, when one grew up building things with Legos and another grew up with dolls and toy ovens? We give our boys toys that encourage development of spatial reasoning skills, and girls toys that encourage domestic tasks (cooking, child rearing), it only makes sense that, later in life, those same children would exhibit different abilities. Equalize the training kids receive from toys at a young age, and you'd probably see some very different results by the time they got into high school.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2680714/ supports that "the sexual dimorphism in the structure of the parietal lobe is a neurobiological substrate for the sex difference in performance on the Mental Rotations Test." In other words, neurobiological differences in the brain are likely causing the performance discrepancies.

My point is that the disproportionate gender gap in itself isn't enough to show that institutional sexism exists. There are certainly cases of sexism in FRC, and the community should work together to address those cases and avoid future ones. I just don't think an all girls event, where the only male focused item on the agenda is a lecture on "Unintentional Bias" is going to help boys or girls.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

+2

Also, if there was any question I am in no way related to this "anfrcguy" nor do I endorse or support what he is saying.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I think the implied conclusions you are drawing from this study are a bit broader than the actual result shows. The implicit assumption is that the differences in neurobiology are the result purely, or predominantly, of biological sex's effect on brain development. But we already know that brain development is heavily influenced by a wide variety of outside factors, and it is impossible to isolate differently sexed people from social and environmental factors influenced by others' perception of their genders.

An oversimplified example: Say a boy and a girl go to the same preschool, which assigns the boys blocks to play with and the girls doll houses. These kind of external factors impact which parts of the brains are exercised during play and thus what part would foster growth. We can't isolate the variables enough to say what portion of the development is caused by something inherent to the human's sex and what portion is caused by differing life experiences based on being treated as a member of that sex's associated gender.

Even so, this point is kind of tangential - you can't use generalized trends to justify treating specific people differently. There are many women with better spatial reasoning with many men, but if sexist attitudes in society work from the generalization that women are weaker in that area than men, those women may not even get the chance to try and exercise the skills they have due to this perception. Social factors are everywhere. Events like all-girls events just try to eliminate those social factors for one day and let young women try whatever they want to try on a robotics team. For one day.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Yeah, that is completely a possibility but not really part of the grand narrative that a girls event is addressing. I don't think I've ever seen anyone assume that the boy in the pit is only there to talk to judges because obviously they do chairman's, whereas I know it happens with girls. When you think about that, you might see how a girl is more likely to be pushed into the paper-writing role on her team and pushed out of the driver/robot repair crew. The idea behind a girl's event is to negate a lot of the societal pressure/influence that girls experienced throughout their life... the pressure that comes from not getting legos and lincoln logs as a kid but instead a play kitchen and princess dresses.

Are there boys who would benefit from a push to try new things too? Yes. I'm not saying that those situations don't exist. But boys -by and large- are not actively discouraged from STEM the way girls are, and girls events are about addressing big, system wide problems.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Since when are anonymous trolling accounts allowed? Is there some rule change we haven't been made aware of?

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I wanted to add one last insight - maybe something that could help.

I myself am part of an all-boys team (we're from an all-boys school), and that forces our students to develop interests in all parts of the team. We have both a large build/programming department, as well as large, well-developed business/outreach departments. Though I have little experience with all-girls teams, I would assume the same would hold true. I think IndyRAGE is basically just a taste of what all-girls teams do all the time - have girls involved in all parts of the team. In this sense, I think it is a very positive experience to have, if only for 1 event, to empower girls to take charge in parts of the team where they are historically less involved (largely due to social pressures).

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Im assuming you meant the OP (if not please forgive me)



Reading the thread helps you answer questions you may have.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

While I've been reading this thread since it started, I've been avoiding posting for a while because I don't want to simply rehash the same old arguments. Plus I've been busy (perhaps ironically) teaching at the Women's Technology Program, a summer camp introducing rising high school senior women to EECS and having lots of conversations with my colleagues on this subject. But I've been talking with a friend who reminded me that there seems to be a trend that females are more likely to allow themselves to be marginalized in conversations, are more likely to use qualifying language to express uncertainty, and are more likely to keep quiet/doubt that they can contribute to the conversation, so I'm attempting to refute that :) I found Pauline's post extremely insightful, and I want to expand on it.

This is beautifully put, even though I've had it incredible easy. My parents gave me Tinker Toys and my favorite toy as a kid was a wooden tool set. I've been extremely lucky to have been supported my whole life in my dream to pursue engineering, but even so I have faced harassment and people's assumptions that the "cute little girl" must not really know what she's doing with the complicated tool. I've had some truly spectacular men help me along the way -- and I think that's the main crux of my complaint, that practically all of my technical/engineering mentors so far have been male (before this summer it would have been "all"). None of them have ever condescended me or tried to turn me away from engineering; in fact, I've received nothing but "good for you!"s and praise, which I'll always be grateful for.

But there's a frightening lack of representation of women in the most technical pursuits, and I think it's difficult to realize just how bad it is until you walk into a room and realize how alone you are. I was often the only girl at builds. I sat in on a Turing Computer Science Honors class at UT Austin: my presence brought the number of women in that room up to 20% (from 7/39 to 8/40). HackMIT runs a puzzle of programming challenges with automatic admission to the hackathon as the prize: out of the first 250 to attempt the puzzle, only 8% were female. I have no doubt that the number of women pursuing computer science outside of Turing is more balanced, as is the actual number of women attending HackMIT, but it's almost uniformly men who have more exposure to CS from a younger age, allowing them to dominate the higher levels of the field, at least at first, which only gives them more and more legs up: they get to take the honors classes, participate in hackathons, practice their skills, have access to fantastic resources... Most of the male programmers I know have been programming since they could type. Most of the female programmers I know learned their first year of college (or later).

A pair of MIT 2016s published a fantastic Report on the Status of Undergraduate Women at MIT http://news.mit.edu/2016/report-on-s...en-at-mit-0225 which essentially says that women come in with less experience and confidence in their abilities, but by the end of their time at MIT women had caught up or surpassed men in several metrics of success. FRC teams have the same ability to level the playing field, as long as we're careful not to accidentally steer girls away from technical parts (although it's also critical that no one be forced into something they don't enjoy). Just because she's happy doing marketing/outreach doesn't mean she wouldn't also be happy CADing or soldering if you give her a proper chance.

When I was in high school, I did some of mechanical/electrical stuff, and started out doing drive team, but I did a ton of outreach and paperwork because no one else wanted to do it. And as a result, by the end of the season I had been pushed off drive team. Which was fine because the guys really wanted to do it, and it made them happy, and they probably did a better job than I could have, and anyway outreach stuff is fun and important. For similar reasons, I never learned how to solder in high school: by the time it came up we were in the middle of build, and from a utilitarian standpoint, it made them happier to solder than it would have made me, and anyway, what if I messed up? My friends and I have speculated about girls being conditioned to be polite and considerate and please others and so on, but it's not speculation that these definitely aren't isolated incidents, despite the best efforts of my mentors.

And like most of the women in STEM I know, I find myself moving more and more towards more managerial/logistic extracurriculars, which I almost feel guilty about, as if I'm letting down future generations of women, but it's what I truly enjoy more. But I think that's because I know I'm good at it, because it was easy to get involved in those sorts of activities, whereas the activation energy required to start technical projects was much higher. I wonder if my choices would have been different if the shop where the technical teams work wasn't a pretty long walk in the dark from my dorm. I welcome anything that attempts to negate the many factors nudging girls away from technical fields.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I am assuming you are referring to anfrcguy who created an account today and only posted on this thread.
If the moderators are not going to enforce the rules of anonymous (second) accounts, I am going to ask the community to stop engaging in discussions with trolls. Let them say whatever they want. If nobody responds to them, they will go away. I even put some of them on ignore list so I don't have to see their posts.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Ed, just so you're aware, anonymous accounts are not prohibited by CD rules. Duplicate accounts are*. There is a difference. Just to give one example of why anonymous accounts aren't prohibited: are you sure that I'm actually who I say I am? After all, I'm just another random person on the internet. (:p Just so we're clear, none of the information on my profile is fake.)


*As a general rule--there are several known duplicate and/or group accounts, which I assume have permission from the webmaster to exist.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

But bullying is prohibited on CD. And this account is bullying a lot of people on this thread about our views.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Even if they don't outright admit it, I would be shocked if ANY of those troll accounts aren't second accounts.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

+1. I highly doubt students that haven't used CD or even random people on the Internet decide to troll a relatively obscure high school robotics forum at random.

And I just want to reiterate one more time that I am NOT associated with this "anfrcguy", and I personally believe his posts are complete nonsense and are just looking for a reaction and I completely disagree with everything he has written.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

It's been a decade since someone last tried that, I think, but it has happened.

Back story is that back around '06, some folks from another forum decided to spam/troll CD. (CD users do use other forums as well; I think that's where said trolls heard about CD.) Long story short, they were spotted pretty quickly, posts deleted, called out by users who spotted them from the other forum(s) to go back to said forums, and accounts banned by mods. Took about a day (I wasn't online at the time, so I only saw the aftermath).



I see four separate offenses. I only addressed ONE. Anonymity is not against CD rules; however, anonymous users should at least do everybody the favor of complying with the CD rules. The other three are duplicate accounts (against CD rules), bullying (against CD rules), and being a troll (it depends--it is possible to be a troll without breaking any rules, believe it or not).

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I can't wait for this thread to go away. People now (aside from Pauline's speech and ensuing debate about anons), are mainly looking for a response. Most everything these anons/second accounts whatever you will are bringing up points already previously mentioned in the thread.

If you genuinely think you can add something to this discussion please read the past 11 pages and see if it was mentioned - it likely has been already. It saves people from starting a new CD debate.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

If I was someone who lurked on this message board and only decided to create an account when I saw a topic that I had a heavy opinion on, being immediately labeled as a troll would surely turn me away from the community. Maybe I hang around different parts of the internet than the rest of you, but that user doesn't seem like a troll to me.

On the subject of bullying, please keep in mind the reaction to the user who's post was used to start this thread:


It's probably a waste of words, but I encourage y'all to try and view things from other peoples perspectives before you post. Being inflammatory and insisting your view is the only correct one just makes this forum look silly. This is the kind of atmosphere that completely turned me off of posting here when I was in high school.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Why do people keep saying that these anon accounts are trolling? All I see is people with different views then yourself. I am not saying I agree with either side. But by calling someone disagreeing with a troll you are invalidating your argument. There are 2 sides to every debate. In order to get anywhere both sides have to mutually respect each other.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I agree with these posts. I'm not taking a side either, but I agree that being inflammatory and insisting one view is the correct one makes this thread and parts of CD look silly as heck. The only way we are going to progress on issues such as this, and other societal issues, is being open of others perspectives and respectfully disagreeing with what was mentioned. I understand the inflammatory responses because it's obvious many people have direct personal feelings attached to this issue and that causes the disagreeing to come out with an ego which I understand, but it's an issue because this thread largely fell apart because of that. The only way we are going to make a change is by opening up people to speak their opinions and have a mutual debate. This thread discourages many members from participating/expressing their views on crucial societal issues. And honestly if they don't voice that then the issues get prolonged further.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Because people who use anonymous accounts typically have unpopular opinions and others are weary of calling them what they really are (asses), so they use the word troll to make it okay.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

So because they have an unpopular opinion they are automatically asses?

The reason they need to make anonymous accounts is because people are so toxic towards the unpopular opinion. If we all atleast mutually respected each other these anonymous accounts would more or less disappear.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Bullying is only prohibited in name only. The original poster, who is a student btw and not a mentor was bullied mercilessly for having a different opinion and actually stating it. Sure the bullying was through downgrade of reputation (-400... seriously) and through rude and bullying private messages, but the student was still bullied.

The interesting thing is that I know I will get negative reputation for this. To say bullying is prohibited is to ignore the fact that it is built into the rep system. Heck it is almost encouraged.

As mentors, would any of you have treated this kid the same way in person if he had voiced a difference of opinion?

And we wonder why people create anonymous accounts.

Rich.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Anon Number 2- If you could choose any thread on Chief Delphi to abrasively troll, which one would it be?

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I've been trying really hard to let this thread die down bit couldn't resist from adding this

One anon account used their power and pmed me how my story was a lie and discredot what I said, saying it was false. They also said parts of my post were looking for attention. Thankfully I couldn't care less about anons opinion and handled the ssituation. But what if I couldn't? What if it really hurt?

The person was able to use an anon account to attack me about my views on the subject. This is not just simply an "unpopular opinion".

Wow we went from debating girls events, to biological differences, to debating the validity of burner accounts. What in the world?

off season cd, you forever amaze me

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I'm not sure I disagree with this post, but could you link to the specific examples you consider bullying? Obviously, there is a line between passionately disagreeing with someone and "bullying" them, and it would be educational for everybody to discuss where that line is.

One thing I'm sure I disagree with is the idea that giving negative reputation is bullying. If negative reputation is considered "bullying", then I'm sure lots of people on both sides of this debate have been "bullied", perhaps by each other. Negative reputation is given by different people for different reasons, but at least for me, it requires more from me than to disagree with the post in question - the post has to be rude, condescending, toxic toward other parties in the debate, smug, arrogant, etc. to elicit a red dot. I'm sure other people have more hair triggers than I do.

I have never, ever understood this criticism from anyone. Literally all communication by all humans is desiring the attention of the reader. That is why words are said, to get the attention of another person to communicate an idea to them. Additionally, attention is not a finite resource and is a legitimate human need. What exactly is someone's point when they say a statement is "looking for attention"?

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Good point. It's fair to say that further research is needed in order to conclude that this spatial ability disparity is nature and not nurture.

There are other performance differences between sexes that I feel would be more difficult to attribute solely to nurture. It's pretty known that the variance of male IQ is greater than the variance of female IQ. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf found that amongst the top 2% of IQ scores, there were almost twice as many males as females. Given that FRC is such an intellectual challenge, it wouldn't surprise me if the majority of students who choose to participate are pretty high on the IQ spectrum, which could perhaps explain why there are more male students than female students in the program.

Exactly. I've thought about this more, and now the all-girl event in itself doesn't really bother me (although I disagree with the implications that all males need to be educated on unintentional bias). I just feel that sometimes males are actually at a steep disadvantage due to this "movement" to do whatever we can to get more females involved. There are less scholarships for males, and additionally, I've actually witnessed discrimination against males for Dean's list. Also, at one point when I was on a small team that happened to be all-male, judges had consistently asked "what have you done to try to recruit women," and even "why don't you have any women on your team?" Our team had limited member spots, so in recruiting members, our priority was to find people who would be capable (or willing to spend time learning), dedicated, and have plenty of time. After repeatedly receiving such comments, we talked about going out of our way to find females (who weren't interested in the first place) over more otherwise-deserving males (who were asking to be on the team) to avoid subjecting ourselves to such criticism in the future.

I guess my point is that we should just treat everyone equally, and that going out of our way to try to compensate is neither fair nor productive. If there is in fact an unequal nurturing epidemic (and at least some of the gender gap in FRC could be attributed to environmental factors), perhaps it would be best to address this at a younger age. I don't think treating women specially is good for anyone.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Reading through this thread, it struck me how much of the discussion regarding female-centric events was taking place between males. Wil Payne made the same observation a few pages ago.


Figured I'd give an update on where this lies now, based on my quick and imprecise tabulation.


56 (78.8%) of the individual posters in this thread have expressed themselves as males
140 (76.9%) of the posts in this thread were posted by male users

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

To quote the description of CD found by googling 'Chief Delphi', "This is a discussion forum used to discuss the FIRST Robotics Competition." If after weeks or months of lurking on Chief Delphi, the first thing you feel compelled to post on this ROBOTICS forum is some highly questionable research about the biological differences between genders, maybe you should find a different forum. The internet is a large place. I am sure there are dozens of forums that you may find more interesting.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

In my case, I had spent months lurking on CD, but I didn't really feel the need to post anything. However, after reading this thread, I felt I had a heavy opinion on this topic and created an account. The thread is clearly robotics related (it's a discussion on robotics events), and so was my post. Also, you say there are dozens of forums that I may find more interesting, as if that's a reason not to participate on CD. I'm sure there are many CD users who find other forums more interesting; would you recommend to them not to use CD?

Also, I find it interesting that you qualify the research as "highly questionable"... I'm curious as to what exactly is highly questionable about it.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Wikipedia is not a reputable source of information.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Yeah, neither are any of the sources that page cites:

American Psychologist
Personality and Individual Differences
British Journal of Psychology
Nature
Journal of Experimental Pedagogy
Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal
Science
The Spanish Journal of Psychology
Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment
Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology
Human Brain Mapping
Journal of Dental and Medical Sciences
Behavioural Brain Research
European Journal of Cognitive Psychology
Neuropsychology
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Journal of Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad
Biological Psychiatry
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
Psychological Science in the Public Interest
Psychological Bulletin
Psychological Science
American Sociological Review
Journal of Personality & Social Psychology
American Journal of Sociology

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I'll speak for myself on this; I don't find the studies themselves particularly questionable. They're peer-reviewed, and their authors are well enough regarded. The Colom paper is very narrow in scope, however. The Linn paper is broader, well-cited and in a high impact factor major journal. It does a good job of reviewing the current debate on gender-based child spatial development research. Note however, that when I say "current", I mean from 1985. I'm not a cognitive development expert, but a cursory inspection of its recent citations indicates the field has moved on in the intervening 30+ years. (I won't claim to know in what direction.)

Moreover, neither of these papers have anything to do with what you're talking about.

All that Colom, Escorial, and Rebollo suggest is that contradictory findings from certain testing methods are attributable to the tests' specific visuo-spatial format. Their study is not designed to address the origins of the differences in spatial performance, nor indeed the veracity of any differences in reality. They are only saying that with regard to this specific test format, the differences in performance disappear when one controls for spatial ability as it is required in that test. They make no claim that this format for testing dynamic spatial performance is a reasonable or accurate reflection of reality, much less whether that reality is biologically (rather than experientially) based. (They do point to a general view of some kind of gap as a reason to check the possibility, but they make no assertions about it.) It's a very narrowly-defined study that only attempts to resolve inconsistencies in previous experimental results, which explains its length and minor reference status.

The Linn and Peterson paper is broader and more interesting. It's also very clear in its conclusions (in 1985) that the origin of any sex differences in spatial ability have not been determined or even fully characterized, and in fact are not decidedly genetic by any assessment. I'll quote for those of you who don't have access to the full version:

So in fact, Linn and Peterson 30 years ago said what several posts on this thread have said about them now: namely that such studies cannot possibly be controlling for environmental and experiential factors separately from biology. It's true, and they were sure to point out as much back then. Efforts like the type this thread is discussing are aimed at addressing experiential and environmental factors that might be contributing to any gender performance differences that do exist. So while neither of these studies do anything to reason away the gender gap via biology as you've alluded, they can be read as a positive for interest in correcting potential performance differences caused by gendered life experiences.


EDIT: Since we've pulled back to the Wikipedia page, the two articles I'm addressing were the ones directly citing in this post:
(emphasis mine) My point in particular is that this post drastically misrepresents the studies it actually cites, inserting the word "physiological" where none is intended or implied, and saying that those who disagree with the assertion should do more research. In fact, the research investigated at the links provided in no way support or even address the idea that "disparities in gender composition could be attributed to physiological differences". (This is not to say it's impossible, just that it's unsupported. I could easily insert any number of words in for "physiological" in this context and have a similar strength of argument.)

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Sorry to double, but I just want to say that I don't intend to assume anfrcguy is deliberately misrepresenting these studies or the consensus quote. I don't know their age or STEM background, and I'm willing to suspect this poster simply made a legitimate error in conflating findings of gender differences with theories of physiology. It's an understandable mistake, particularly as a layperson when reading a site like Wikipedia. The measure of one's scientific integrity is not who is correct first, but who is most willing to address to new findings.

To everyone interested in engaging on the scholastic research here, that is certainly your right and can be a very valuable experience. But do remember, as I think we sometimes forget, that most of the adults in this discussion are STEM professionals in our own right who don't blink at titles like "Sex differences on the Progressive Matrices are influenced by sex differences on spatial ability" and "Emergence and Characterization of Sex Differences in Spatial Ability: A Meta-Analysis". We can understandably digest these articles relatively easily versus students or laypeople. Heck, I have undergraduate students that might mistakenly interpret the former's abstract as a physiological assertion, though I'd hope they then ask how the authors could've isolated physiology/genetics from environmental/experiential factors.

Anyway, no maliciousness meant. I hope this discussion is a learning experience for everyone, both on handling professional digital relationships and on scholarly discourse--regardless of your incoming or outgoing views.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Siri again.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

It may be good to confine this to those who commented in relation to the thread (e.g. any of my comments in this thread) as this thread is a mess when it comes to staying on topic.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Citing a source doesn't prevent conclusions drawn from those citations from being false, nor does it mean the authors of the article citing these sources are without bias. For one example, see the anfrcguy post earlier in this thread - it cites two papers, but then draws a conclusion that cannot necessarily be supported by those papers. The post isn't automatically accurate (or inaccurate) because of those citations, and neither is the Wikipedia article.

Wikipedia is a generally pretty good first pass source for knowledge, but if you are interested in scientific claims you should base those not on the Wikipedia article but on the studies directly that the article points to.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Does anyone know approximately what percentage of FRC students are male?

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

The latest study I see that stat in is 2011,
where the population of FRC team members is described as 30% female. However, if you're looking for the reference population for this thread, you'll likely want a stat for mentors as well. A stat for off-season active CD users would also be relevant.

Thread readers will likely want to review the various FIRST impact studies if you haven't; I'm surprised we haven't linked these yet.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

Thank you.

If anyone had a reasonable stat for mentors or off-season active CD users I would also love to see it.

I would also like to see a unicorn someday, but since I think that is rather unlikely, I am comfortable looking at horses and letting my imagination fill in the rest. :)

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I've been avoiding posting in this thread because I didn't want to be the one to revive it after a week of inactivity, but for the sake of offering another female's perspective, here we go.

On the original topic (the panel discussions): I think that the post announcing the panel discussions could have been phrased differently, and I think it was taken the wrong way. I don't think the team/poster intended to insinuate that unintentional bias is something that only males are guilty of, but that is clearly how it was interpreted by several people. Unintentional bias is something that affects all groups, regardless of gender, age, skin color, sexuality, etc, but given that this is specifically an all-girls event, I assume that the main focus of this panel would be unintentional bias as it relates to gender, but it could also touch on other aspects of diversity. I could be wrong. But with that assumption, I think that the post would have been better as:
"Career, Opportunity, Education, and Challenges for Females in STEM"
"Unintentional Bias and Actions and the Impact on Diversity (focused on gender)"


On my experiences in HS/all-girl events: In high school, I had a very good experience on my FRC team. Not a lot of comments, actions, or other discrimination towards me based on my gender, and on the rare occasion that those things happened, the perpetrators were swiftly told in no uncertain terms that their comments were not appropriate. I was never told "you can't be in the shop/you can't be on the driveteam/you can't be on the pit crew/etc because you're a girl". I actually always wanted to be on the driveteam, but I proved very quickly that I was not very qualified in that department by driving our robot into a Christmas tree during practice time. There weren't any all-girls events in Michigan when I was in HS, but if there had been, I'm not sure my team would have attended them just because we probably wouldn't have been able to drum up enough commitment from the girls on our team - we were a small team (~25-35 active), and we'd need commitment from nearly all of the girls, and that would have been difficult for us to get with several of us doing fall sports.

I think that all-girls events are great, for the reasons others have highlighted in this thread - giving girls a chance to build confidence in an environment that turns many away because of both preconceived and perpetuated discrimination.

Here's a related post I made on here during my senior year of high school - funny how these topics repeat themselves.


On being a female engineer in the real world:
I graduated with a degree in Materials Science & Engineering, and now work as a metallurgist in a steel plant. While many other "typically male" fields have made great strides in diversity and inclusivity of women, steel is still very stuck in the past and is still very much a "boys club", which is off-putting and intimidating to a lot of women. It's a dirty, dangerous, rough and tumble environment that takes a lot of strength and dedication to stay in, for all genders.

I love the graphic that Karthik posted early in this thread, but as there's no breakout specifically for "steelworker", let me provide some insight. My plant, when operating at a good capacity, employs ~300 people. ~50 are salaried (managers, HR/office staff, and engineers), and the remainder are hourly (machine operators, millwrights, electricians, etc - this number can vary from 100-250). We have one female manager (in HR), and another non-manager woman who works in HR. There are no women in our maintenance department (in either salaried or hourly positions). I am the only female engineer in my plant. There are four female hourly workers, as far as I know. We're a very small plant, but it's not much better at larger facilities either, especially when you only look at employees who work "on the floor" (as opposed to solely in offices - accounting, HR, sales, supply chain, etc).

Basically, as a female, I stick out like a sore thumb.

(As an added bonus, I also have a college degree and am the youngest employee in my plant, so I stick out even more.)

And because of all of that, I know I'm treated differently. Some real-life examples from the past few weeks alone:

• Coworkers outright refusing to let me hold open a door for them (chivalry ain't dead, but it sure can be annoying sometimes)
• I was with two male coworkers one day, and we had to carry ~20lbs of samples across the plant. I was the one carrying most of the samples (I volunteered), and we were stopped THREE TIMES in a 1/4 of a mile by people commenting "why are you making the poor girl carry all those samples!?" (actual quote).
• Someone repeatedly handing me papers with my (male) manager's name written on them, knowing FULL WELL that I was the one responsible for handling the information that was on them, not my manager.
• Men apologizing after swearing or making off-color jokes in front of me (It's an industrial workplace. It happens.), or making comments like "I'd say something else, but there's a lady in the room", even though I established on day 1 that I don't mind the language. I know it's habit for many of the men to do it, but it's still a bias and still draws attention to how I'm different than them.

That's the tip of the iceberg, but you get the idea. Some of this is intentional, some is not, some is just habit on my coworkers' parts - many are in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, have worked in this industry for 20, 30, 40 years, were raised to be chivalrous and overly respectful of women (compared to today), and/or are not used to women in positions of authority in their workplace. It's a generational thing. It takes time and thick skin to change minds when you're often a one-(wo)man band, and not everyone has patience and thick skin. I imagine these behaviors would be less prevalent if there were more women in my workplace, but this behavior is probably why a lot of women leave this industry. Chicken and egg.

I love my job. I love my coworkers. We joke about the gender disparity a lot. I'm not looking for sympathy or special treatment - I want to be viewed as an equal, not a unicorn. It gets better every day. But I have to actively work to be thought of as just "Kara" instead of "that girl". I hope that someday, this industry will be at the point where women don't have to do this, which IMO is why discussions and education on bias and inclusion are important (in moderation). It's a culture change thing. These discussions are important for everyone, no matter who you are and what field you're going into. This topic applies just as much to men in early childhood education (the most female-dominated field in the graphic Karthik posted) as it does to women in engineering.


On a different note, I think that someone earlier in this thread asked "why do people keep saying 'females' instead of 'women' or 'girls'?" and didn't get much of a response, so I'll offer one: personally, I don't feel comfortable referring to myself as either a woman or a girl. To me, a woman is still someone much older than me, old enough to be my mom, and a girl is someone still in high school or younger. As a young professional, I don't feel like I fit into either category, so I always refer to myself as just "a female". "Females" and "Males" also unquestionably encompass all ages, which is commonly the intent of using those words in these kinds of discussions.

Re: Discussion on All-Girl events
 

I agree with everything you said, how you said it, and the sentiment behind it. Thank you so much for this, I can't express how much I relate to this.

I notice people treat me differently because of my gender (been explained stuff more in depth and had teachers have to carry my hand through learning experiences, but thrown guys right in to fend for themselves, been treated nicer to in the same setting as guys, etc.) and the best advice I've been given is "just deal with it - they are just guys afterall, it's stupid, but you have to put up with it."

Bringing it back full circle to the OP, I think that all-girls events can give the oppertunity to talk to other girls, share experiences, and everything, in an environment where we aren't treated differently, for one day.

Again Kara, thanks for putting this out there. :D