Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

This conversation is going on for too long! It is very simple, if you don't like the idea, just don't compete. No one is forced to have "ALL GIRLS" in their team denying opportunity to "BOYS"!

Last year we had no girls in our team, we initiated a scholarship program to recruit young ladies, and now we have two. They bring their own ideas, perspective and dynamics to the team. If we had two more and if were not preoccupied with other activities, our team would be competing.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

What's that they say about "don't tell other people how to run [their] teams"?

Ah, got it. :)

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It would be better, if mentoring effectiveness was equal to the sum of the intelligence of all of the team's mentors. But that isn't always the case. What if this team discovered that women work best with women mentors? What if this team decided the most effective way to inspire women was to give them a space where they *can't* be co-opted by the men? If studens have the option to do one or the other, all the better.

You're inserting your value judgement here. The single team might have been a great program for those students that get to fully engage in it. Perhaps those students are disproportionately male even relative to the gender ratio of the team as a whole. Maybe the team will have more on-field success, and one could argue that such success equates to inspiration, but I'd be willing to bet that teams splitting off into co-ed and all-girls believe they are inspiring a net greater number of people, especially those who may need that inspiration the most.

The concept of privilege is such that those in a majority class are inherently less able to perceive social difficulties that oppressed groups face. It requires active effort to observe as well as listening to the concerns and actions of those groups (in this case, women).

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

Perhaps I didn't make it clear enough... allow me to restate in a clearer manner

My personal opinion...

Yes, I inserted a value judgement, I'm an engineer. I don't see the value of increasing costs for what, in my estimation, is no performance increase in the system. In my experience teams don't exist in vacuums, given X resources if you have 2 teams sharing those resources you are not inspiring MORE people you are inspiring the same number of people (likely less due to the fact that there's a minimum level of competency required and it's easier to reach that with more resources). I just don't see why splitting already scarce resources (mentors) is a good idea for something that a watchful mentor can prevent.

So let's talk resources - Community has a fixed amount of money, what do you think is a better use of it? Running a second team OR attending a second regional? They also have a limited number of mentors each of whom have different teaching styles and skill sets, wouldn't it be better to let students gravitate towards mentors who can inspire them rather than limit them by gender?

Idk, I just don't see the value added by limiting inspiration on a gender divide.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

You're making the assumption that the same total number of students that exist between two teams at the same school would join a single team. From my experience, that's simply not true. If you have a single, mixed-gender team, generally speaking fewer girls join, and less of those that join get involved on the technical side of the team.

How else can you explain the vast difference between two relatively competitive schools: A school with 500 students per grade, 40 members on the team and 3 girls, only one of whom works on the robot, versus a school with 80 students per grade, 25 students on the team, all of them girls (real-life example), and over half working on the robot? What is the mixed-gender team doing wrong that they can't recruit girls?

Being guys, it's extremely difficult for us to understand the huge perceived barrier girls face when joining a team. Most of them come in with less related experience (like working with power tools) than guys their age. They're all inundated from birth with societal expectations pushing them towards female stereotypes and away from technical fields. It can be very difficult for some of them to even admit an interest in robotics, for fear of not fitting in with their peer group. Having a local all-girls team, especially one that's established and respected, can go a very long way towards convincing prospective girls that it's really OK to come and play with robots. That's what happened just earlier this week when my team demo'd at another school and recruited two new girls for that school's team! Those two new girls saw that it really was OK to do admit their interest and join the team, despite not having shown any interest to the team's earlier recruiting efforts.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

*puts on women's studies hat

Outside of cases where the team comes from an all girls school, girl scout troop. or another all girls organization, I actually disagree with having all girls teams. It was discussed in this thread about having two teams at the same school: one for girls and one for boys. I think this sends the message to young women that they can only succeed so long as they are segregated from the men.

It may seem like a good idea in that it would guarantee that the young women on the team would be able to fully participate. Though, as others pointed out when this thread was first started, it's almost like viewing being female as a handicap.

I think it's far more valuable to teach boys (and male mentors) on FIRST teams to value girls' input and to see them as equals than it is to remove girls from the equation entirely by putting them on a separate team. Girls should be in leadership positions based on meritt Segregating the genders just leads to further reinforcement of the that women cannot succeed in a male-dominated field.

Unfortunately, this is not FIRST's problem; it's a societal issue.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

What if you have an all-boys and an all-girls team at a school, and the all-girls team consistently does better at the regionals (places higher, goes further in elims, or wins more trophies) than the all-boys teams? Would you worry that the boys might start thinking they can only succeed through segregation? Would you start to see having an all-boys team as a handicap?

It's not about "removing girls from the equation" (that's looking at it from a male-centric point of view). It's about attempting to provide the best environment possible for every student to both participate and succeed. If a team gets so large they want to split into two teams, how do you determine how to split it? In this case, splitting by gender may actually help to encourage even more female recruitment and participation.

I'll leave you with one parting thought... It's pretty much accepted as a given that schools will have all-girls and all-boys programs. Soccer, volleyball, and baseball/softball all come to mind almost instantly. Are we accepting that there is a gender-based difference in performance in these sports? Are we saying that the only way a female athlete can succeed is by only playing with and against other girls?

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

It's not about the robot. Let's say the team has 30 roboteers. At the end of the season, because they were not fully engaged in the season, 10 are not really inspired. With two teams, it's possible that those 10 roboteers will become fully engaged (not as many people, less chance of being overlooked.) and now you've upped your inspire ratio.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

The problem is a lot more complex than quantifying what % of the team gets to be involved. Sometimes it takes more than just participation to get inspired. If those two 15 student teams both failed to make it into elims at the only competition the could attend because they didn't have the resources, do you think they would be inspired than the 30 person team that made it to the semifinals in both of their regionals (even if 10 of the students weren't as involved as much as they would have liked to been). I would argue that the 30 person team is better off.

And then there is looking beyond the team. In general, the higher the level of competition FRC has, the more inspirational it will be. And which robot do you think will attract more attention during demos: the defense robot or the robot with a floor-pickup? I guess my point is that just because it's not "about" the robot, doesn't mean that we should just not care about the robot. The robot is one of the primary vehicles by which achieve our end goal: The Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

Your point of having an all-boys team disregards the status quo. Currently there are very very few all-girls teams, and even co-ed teams have a huge disparity in the number of boys and number of girls. Having an all-girls team does not imply that girls are inferior, but rather suggests that being a female in a STEM field is difficult because of the discrimination that females fact. This does not say anything about girls but a lot about males and their attitudes towards women in STEM.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

In and of itself, there's nothing wrong with an all girl team. There are many things girls do better than guys, and vice versa. I think in the long run, these teams do a good thing for the program.

That being said, a team really looses something when it starts turning people down. Working based off of the idea that everybody should be in robotics, saying no to someone is a bit of an issue. Especially when the reason is based off of gender. It's not a matter of majority or minority, it's a matter of a neurological melting pot. By eleminating anyone, you loose that person's unique perspective. I don't think that's good for anybody. But again, the teams that end up being all girls don't share the same problem at all.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

I think it shouldn't matter. If you're a girl and interested you should have the opportunity to do so. Same goes for boys. There should not be any differences between the two. I think that it is important to move past gender stereotypes and associations. No all girl teams, no all boy teams, no stigma towards other genders.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

There's something to be said for simply ignoring gender and treating it like it does not matter, but the problem is, we do not live or work in a vacuum. People come (or more importantly, don't come) to FIRST with gender awareness already and the field of engineering in particular has a gender imbalance issue.

Re: Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?
 

Boys and girls are different from each other. Those differences are good, it's what helps make each one of us unique. However, that does not make one gender inferior to the other.

I guess what I am saying is that gender-exclusive teams can lack something present in co-ed teams.

I think its good for an all girls school to have a team wgich would obviously be an all girls team, and same for all guy schools. I do feel like though, as a guy, mixed teams are a very good thing. When it came to crunch time this past season and only a handful of us kept showing up, it was myself, another team member (who's a girl), and a freshman. On our team all members whether be girls freshman or seniors are given equal opportunity