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

This is the part that I've been confused about for the last 5 years. It's like the FRC program creates a bubble of Gracious Professionalism that is touted, used, put into effect, and mentored while students are a part of the program. Then, as the students leave the program and move on to further their educational goals and establish careers, that bubble is burst. The part that has been confusing, disheartening, frustrating, and very uninspiring, is the role that mentors of teams may play in contributing to the bubble burst. It may be that in their careers, they are accustomed to and celebrate, the tough skinned mentality, projecting the 'deal with it, this is reality' attitude.

So what that does is limit the possibilities that FRC creates among students, mentors, and teams - by helping to maintain the status quo of the work environmental culture and mentality outside of it.

If men are accustomed to behaving a certain way and the women have to adapt to that behavior, that is sending a very clear signal that it's a man's world. If men are told that there are female employees present and to keep it clean - that is still sending a very clear signal. The expectation should be that employees maintain a professional behavior and attitude all the time. Period. That allows for opportunities like Gracious Professionalism, mutual respect, and courtesy to be a part of that expectation, fundamentally.

I'd love to see a button that says: Gracious Professionalism, it starts here. Even better: Gracious Professionalism begins with me - worn by bosses, engineers, VIPs, politicians, and celebrities. That would really rock the culture.

Jane

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

So I was on a co-ed team, but I'm not sure it influenced much of a gendered "thick skin" for me. Maybe I already had it, but most of what I learned was how to deal with people--lead them, work with them, inspire them--females and males alike. Did the guys bring something specifically guy-like to the team? Yeah, I think so, but I don't think it had an overwhelming effect on my ability to stand up as an honors ME major, lead in AFROTC, or work on rural engineering in developing countries. Pretty sure that was good mentors.


I'd be interested in hearing from the all-girls teams what benefits it's had and whether they feel they've been better inspired. It's an interesting consideration. Has anyone done both?

This I find a little odd. I've had a lot of men had me jig saws over the years and quite a few of them have a daughter. (One has 3, all of whom he's done the same to.) They seemed quite ok with it, to the point where it sometimes precedes "how do you use this?"
Is this issue more common than I think it is?


Jane: Unfortunately, I think one needs a thick skin to change a thick culture. ...But do I sense an IRI 2012 button project? ;)

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

I like the idea of building thicker skills rather than thicker skin. I think there is a difference. Determination is not for the weak or the weak-minded. Neither is being equipped to mentor in what Gracious Professionalism is and what its potential/impact can be to people outside of FIRST. Being capable of doing that in order to implement a change in attitude and mentality is a skill.

An IRI button project = awesome. :)

Jane

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

"Growing a thicker skin" gets tossed about all over the place when somebody really means, "I've been acting like a jerk, what'cha gonna do about it?"

My other refereeing passion is soccer. (Thank goodness FLL and FRC seasons usually don't overlap with soccer season.) There has been much speculation about this video on the soccer bb's lately: http://vgportal.thesun.co.uk/sol/hom...clattered.html

Sian Massey is the only female referee in the English Premier League. Earlier in the season a promenent TV commentator was fired over his sexist remarks about her. Now this incident - did the player mean it? Was she run over intentionally? Why didn't he at least check if she was OK?

As far as we have come, we have not gotten rid of sexism and racism in society. Hopefully graciously professional behavior can serve to further the process toward everyone eventually being equal, so no one has to be told to "grow a thicker skin."

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

I think the portion I bolded here says more than anything else.

FIRST isn't about preparing students for the "real world" (even though much of what we do does have direct parallels in the "real world") - Even school isn't about preparing students for the "real world". 99.9% of FIRST graduates aren't going to end up with jobs where they have only 6 weeks to develop a solution to a new problem. Heck, most of them won't even end up with jobs where they get large, unique problems even once a year. For the most part, they'll be taking work that's already been done and expand on it, fix the bugs, and push it to market.

FIRST is about inspiring. If coed teams have trouble inspiring girls, to the point where you feel its necessary to include an "if they can stick around" qualifier to your answer above, then it's not the best medium for inspiring girls in STEM fields. I've seen first hand with the Robettes - girls leave inspired and energized, and that carries them into engineering majors in college. Sure, they meet some of that sexism from their classmates in college, but their experiences on an all girls team provides them with confidence and determination, and they can build that thick skin if they really need to... or they can work to change the culture at their schools and work places by refusing to accept the "norm". Being the best at what you do will overcome sexism faster than anything else.

Finally, if you think all girls teams don't deal with sexism, you clearly haven't interacted with one before. My team's gone out there and proven themselves again and again at competitions, but still they have to deal with poor attitudes from other teams just because they're girls. Not all other teams, true, but enough that girls comment on it. When we talk about possible alliance members at competition, invariably the drive team tells us about teams that treated them badly, who they don't want to work with in the eliminations.

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

I keep reading this thread and each time I ponder giving a response, but I'm never sure where to begin. Today, I'll give it a go, spurred on by the "thick skin / thin skin" discussion.

Why does it matter what the demographic make-up of a team is in FIRST? All girl, all boy, coed... why is that even a discussion? Do we have the same discussion about teams formed with all honor students, or all gifted students, as opposed to all levels of ability students? Should we wonder about the efforts to start teams in inner cities where they will be more likely to be poor and minority instead of affluent and white? And there are schools that have the audacity to force students who want to be on FIRST teams to take a specific course curriculum to be eligible! The characterizations could go on.

Let's ask the same question about those groups. Is it counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST have a team of all gifted kids? Surely they don't need to be be given the opportunity to participate with other gifted students in a program like FIRST? They need to be able to get along with the normal kids to survive in the future, don't they? Aren't there average kids who are being denied participation on a FIRST team if it is exclusive like that?

Is it counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST have a team from an inner city or totally rural area? If they wanted to be on a FIRST team, surely they can move to a school which already has one? The amount of effort expended to have a successful team in those areas is much higher than a suburban school; won't we cause more inspiration if we get FIRST teams in all of those first?

I hope everyone realizes that these are indeed rhetorical questions and that the answer in each of these cases is NO! It is not counterproductive to the FIRST philosophy.

As a engineer who happens to be a female... and who has been an engineer for almost 30 years, I find it rather sad that we still need to have this discussion. I still cannot understand why in the 34 years since I started on my path to become an engineer, it has not become more transparent for young women to pursue engineering as their career choice, or why we have girls in our schools today who are still told that girls shouldn't like math, or why girls on FIRST teams are directed to non-engineering tasks.

Based on my experience with Team 1511 - which is coed, 1 in every 4 of the girls who start on our team has the personal fortitude to push through the circle of boys to become the mechanical, electrical, or programming star. If you get one, she will take at least one or two others with them. If you don't have one of "those" girls, you need something special on tap to push them through that barrier. All-girl teams prevent that barrier from forming in the first place. Should it be that way? No. But it is. I've watched brilliant girls circle around the outside of that barrier and not be able to break through. They don't stay on the team. Is that counter-productive to the philosophy of FIRST? I think it is.

FIRST needs us to use every tool in our arsenal to provide inspiration to as many students as possible. Forming All-girl teams are part of that tool-kit. They work.

A note on the "Thick Skin" discussion: We all need coping tools for learning to deal with jerks. But it doesn't require a thick skin, because jerkiness should not need to be tolerated. I've never mastered the thick skin, but I have mastered handling myself as a professional in those situations. I give credit to my husband as a true gentleman for teaching me those skills rather than lowering myself to take on traditional hardened reactionary response mechanisms.

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

From my experience everyone should have thick skin and nobody should need it. We all say stupid things sometimes. We are all jerks sometimes. That means we all need to learn to with each other's stupidity. We need to tolerate each other when people are jerks. This is no excuse for people being that way. As I said, nobody should need thick skin. At the same time, until everyone around you is perfect...you should have thick skin to make up for their faults. Yes, fixing those around you is better. Since that can't be done fully, thicker skin is to help make those moments of imperfection more tolerable.

Jason

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

for the past 2 (possible 3) years my former team had an all girl drive team despite not being a all girl team and i would be very interested to hear from them on weather they experienced this as well. i no longer believe that all girl teams should be discouraged by FIRST but I do believe that they shouldn't be encouraged. In my years in first the announcement of every all girl team has been preceded by "the all girl team from _______ it's ______" however the only other case i have heard an announcer do that is with a team from a deaf school comprised of all deaf students. if i remember correctly, in all ,my years with FIRST, i used my ears more than my penis and would only consider one of those things a handicap.

my point is; if FIRST treats being a woman as a handicap then its no wonder that products of that organization. will look at girls from all girl teams as being sheltered and less component.

this can also be seen in sports you cant probably build a list of objectively the best mens and womans basketball teams in order. but it would be quite hard to make a single objective list if the two leags never interact

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

It has been two and half years since I posted on this topic. Last year our drive team was half female including the lead driver. This year we have a female team captain, 25% female members. and one third of our mentor staff is female and she is the lead mentor. We have female students in all of our groups and they are some of our best lathe and mill operators. The Girl Scouts still take many from our school since they take fresmen and GRT does not. The new girls each year have to compete to get on the team the same way the boys do. I still feel that if a girl would feel better on a all girls team then she shoud be on one. What ever inspires the students to learn is where they belong.

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

thank you for coming back. For myself it was interesting reading though everything again i think we had a pretty good discussion. i cant say that it has compleatly changed my view but it has been molded by a few of the posters. I would now say that all girl teams (again not attached to all girl schools/all girl organizations) are undesirable but necessary in completing the end goal of giving students the fill experience and opportunity that First has to offer. but i do dissagree with how FIRST or at least many people within FIRST talk about all girl teams as if they were over coming a handicap. hopefully in the past two years that i have not been involved this has changed. i think it would be intresting to hear from people again and from new people on what they have observed recently in FIRST and in higher education

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

I am a Girl Scout Mentor and last year we were the first all Girls FTC team, this year we have 2 Girls Scouts team, and another all girls from an all girls school in St. Louis.

I am also a member of SWE, and yes I am the only male member.

and I have to say it is a different perspective.

Do we have other male mentors mentoring all girls team ?

Cheers,
Marcos.

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

I feel that the push to get women into STEM is a great cause, however the methodology being used is wrong.

By excluding males from teams or team activities, you are only creating a split within the entirety of the team. While it is great to get women involved in STEM, pushing out the guys is not fair nor gracious professional.

Another issue I personally have faced, being a high school senior this year and applying for WPI FIRST scholarships, I have found that they are female preferred. As a 9 year FIRST student who has put much time and effort into contributing to FIRST, learning about science and technology, and embodying the values of gracious professionalism, it really grinds my gears at times to know that I am disadvantaged because of who I am.

We as FIRST participants often speak of rising above the opponent instead of dragging them down, however in a competative setting for scholarships, isn't having a bias towards women dragging down the guys in FIRST? Is it gracious and professional to distribute these scholarships with a preferance?

I'm not saying I only got into FIRST for the scholarships, but for how often FIRST speakers talk about having 16+ million dollars in scholarships, I don't think it reflects well on FIRST that some of these scholarships are bias. FIRST preaches gracious professionalism, a belief in the FIRST culture that has allowed all of us to thrive, but I believe these preferences on the scholarships to not embody the FIRST spirit. Even if the colleges are determining the criteria, as FIRST students we are entering a world where not everyone is always gracious and professional, and at times having some influence from a higher power (FIRST) even the odds would be very helpful.

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

For those who don't want to read 14 pages of a several year-old thread, the general consensus isn't that we should form all-girls teams by excluding boys... but rather that there is room for all-girls teams in appropriate situations. If the team comes from a girl scout troop, they aren't excluding boys to have it. If they come from an all-girls school, they aren't excluding boys to have it. If their school has two teams, one of which is all-girls, then they aren't excluding boys to have it.

So when you hear about an all-girls team or talk about it, please don't think it's about exclusion. I have yet to hear about a single instance where an all-girls FRC team was formed by excluding otherwise available boys.

A side note from my team... Yesterday we did a presentation at another local high school to help their team. At the end of it, we had recruited 2 new female students for them. That's just a small example of how an all-girls team can help other FIRST teams!

karomata - Your experience with scholarships is unfortunate, but it's not something FIRST can solve. Colleges try to create a balanced class, since including even numbers of males and females, and including minorities is perceived as a "good thing" (whether it is or not is a whole other topic for another thread). Unfortunately, that means that some under-represented portions of our society need extra encouragement to enter certain fields. Going to school, majoring in engineering, and looking around at your lecture hall of 100 students only to see 2 girls (true story!) is pretty discouraging, and something colleges are trying to change through targeted recruitment and, unfortunately, preferential scholarships. I'm sorry to say, but it's something everyone has to get used to, as our society has decided that diversity needs to be encouraged. If you look at the group I work in, out of 4 people (including me) on my current project, one is female, two are Indian, one is Chinese, and then there's me, a white male. If there wasn't a push in our society for diversity in the workplace (and in colleges), how diverse do you think this group really would be? (Please don't take this as dismissing any of my coworkers, they're all great at what they do and I wouldn't trade them for anyone)

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

EVERY scholarship has some sort of bias... Are people whining that the ASME scholarship is only for mechanical engineers? Are people whining about the fact that WPI is only providing scholarships to kids that want to go to WPI? Are people whining that Penn State's scholarship only goes to those in Engineering, not business or nursing?? Or how about the Society of Women Engineers, are you upset that their scholarship only goes to women?

As an FRC High School senior, you have the option of over 158 scholarships conveniently located on a single page with details, information, and application links laid out for you. Other students at your school do NOT have that option... are they complaining that they can't get those 158 scholarships because they didn't join the FIRST team? I get that many of these things are things you can "choose" - you can "choose" your major, you can "choose" to join an FRC team or not, but you cannot choose your gender.

However, use your own "rise above" statement and rise above these challenges. Have you applied for every single one of those 158 scholarships that you are eligible for? Have you scoured the internet looking for other scholarship opportunities, read up on how to write a killer essay, used spell check 3x over, practiced college interviews with college graduates, reviewed your applications with your guidance counselors and teachers?

Only 6 of the 158 indicate a "preference for women", however only ONE is exclusive to women, and it is NOT the WPI scholarship. Make your resume and your essay and your interview far more attractive than any of the female candidates offered, and you still stand a shot at getting that scholarship. You are not excluded from it. When you have done absolutely everything you can to "rise above" your "disadvantage", then lets talk.

Welcome to the real world where you have to work for it, it won't be handed to you. Don't use the word "preference" to justify your lack of trying.

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

Right on !.

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

It must feel pretty unfair to be excluded from something based on your gender. It would certainly be really painful if that happened to you on a systemic and regular basis, throughout your attempted career in a STEM field. That's what happens to women in STEM all the time and continuously. A common term used to discuss this phenomena specifically in academia is the "leaky pipeline", where systemic discrimination against women gradually and continuously pushes them away from advancement.

This happens on FIRST teams as well, all the time. It's rarely the product of someone actively deciding that women shouldn't be doing STEM work. It's in the little decisions and actions of team members and leaders. Gradual and subtle (or not-so-subtle) nudges away from mechanical and software into communications are far too common. A mentor grabs a handful of freshmen that they pick at random to build a prototype; the coding team works together to recruit a few new programmers; the CAD team leads find "buddies" for teaching. All of these examples are simple opportunities for women to be subconsciously excluded or shunned by not being selected into a program.

On many teams, confident and headstrong women fight for their position as a mechanical leader, drive coach, or software captain. Yet, the women who join the team whom are curious about (but not totally sold on) a STEM career - the people FIRST teams should do everything to inspire - are going to have a harder time breaking into these groups. Lots of people on teams join and show up with neither the requisite skill set nor the understanding of where to go to learn. In these situations, it's harder for women to break into a new job or role, especially when they're surrounded by a dozen of their male peers with more understanding and experience. It's certainly intimidating.

A recent study that I will find and link to after my classes indicated that 97% of scholarships do not prohibit white male applicants (the study was also addressing similar objections to race based affirmative action scholarships, but the point stands as "white male" is a subset of "male). You're complaining about a tiny minority of scholarships that aim to help counteract the many barriers to entry that disadvantaged minority groups face in their attempts at STEM careers.

While few to no scholarships actively state that women are less likely to receive them, in practice that's what has happened, especially in STEM. Not to mention all of the accumulating discrimination and social pressure from before and after this point in their careers. Do those people not get to be upset for being disadvantaged because of who they are? In what ways can we counteract and mitigate this disadvantage without producing opportunities that apply to the disadvantaged groups?

Not at all, not even slightly. Listen to yourself. You're saying that not giving men eligibility for 100% of the available free college money is "dragging them down". Giving scholarships to women sounds exactly like bringing the bottom up / rising above circumstance to me.

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

After graduating, I started mentoring my old FRC team. I have always enjoyed teaching, and mentoring was no different. Around a year after I started mentoring, a friend of mine sent out an email asking first graduates to come mentor a girl scouts team. The team is very new (I think), and very in need of mentors.

What made me angry was that she specifically asked for girl mentors and said "If you are a guy and REALLY want to mentor the Girl Scout FRC team specifically it would probably be okay for you to come too...". Now I'm not throwing her under the bus, since she was probably relaying this info from the team, or her interpretation of the team's policies, but this makes me very angry.

Why are boy mentors not wanted? Especially when the team is so in need of mentors. I understand that girl scouts is specifically focused on girls, but that doesn't mean that they can't get help from guys! I was in boy scouts for years, and we had plenty of female leaders despite the fact that the children in the troop were male.

Maybe they want girls because they want the kids to have strong female role models? But I hate that idea. Why do they assume that a kids role model has to be the same gender as them? I have both male and female role models that I aspire to be more like. It seems sexist to show a girl a strong female role model for the purpose of saying "even girls can be good at this!" instead of showing them any strong role model to say "this is the type of person you can become if you work hard!".

In summary, boys can learn from girls, so why can't girls learn from boys?

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

Do you have any examples of this happening? As far as I know, all of the all-female teams in FIRST are sponsored by all-female organizations, like the Girl Scouts or all-female schools, that aren't open to boys in the first place.

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

role models that you can relate to are incredibly important and usually the first thing we know about somebody is their sex. put a adolescent male in a new school at lunch there is a table of boys and a table of girls. I don't know about you, but i would only put money on one option.

to look at it the other way. I don't know the actual figures but i would say based on public perception that fashion design is made up of primarily woman and camp gay men. now if a fashion design club were to start in a high school how many strait men do you think will join/ stay with it (that are not of the mind set of "$@#$@#$@#$@# stereotypes ill do what i want and prove i can be just as good" etc.) but instead think that maybe its kinda cool it cant hurt to try it out as a possible career option? if the club had strong male role models in the fashion industry do you think those numbers would be different?

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

i dont have the numbers but some teams were mentioned earlier in the thread as being started for the purpos of all girl teams. i believe there was one started by CMU. there were also cases mentioned of teams funded by SWE that would have to find all new funding if they chose to be co-ed. there were also cases mentioned more recently of public schools that have both a co-ed and a all girl team.

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

I'm not at all advocating turning male mentors away from female teams, but yes, in my experience, it is incredibly for women entering male-dominated fields to have female role models (as well as male). In fact, part of the reason is exactly what you said, to show that "even girls can be good at this". Why? Because many girls, including me at that age, really are asking that question ...because yes, the situation at large really is sexist. So it is a very big, very real, often painful and sometimes humiliating question. It needs answering, preferably from a mentor who can prove it. (In fact, many girls I've known aren't/weren't asking that question because they already knew the answer was no, we can't be. That's not going to be displaced in most cases without examples.)

It's the myth that's sexist. As for the solution, I don't see one that wouldn't include gender identity.


Not really. We're usually a co-ed drive team, though more often majority or all female than majority male, and the person leading the interaction is almost always female (usually me). We haven't faced gender discrimination between drive teams and years, but I do remember some as a student. There were a few 'wow, you're all girls' moments 2-3 years ago, but not detectable discrimination. Then again, most of our interactions are within districts now, which means we both know each other in the majority of coach-coach interactions in a given season+off-season.

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

Emery C.I. in Toronto. Of course, there was a boys' team too.

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

I agreed with you 100% (and I AM a female engineer), just going off my own experience. I was on a team in high school, with only male engineers, and I felt like I learned a ton... though I did push my way in... but they were always accepting and often even turned to me for a lot of things on the team. I originally thought I felt, like you, that it didn't matter the gender of a role model. As long as the role model was equally open to teaching males or females, I felt it was fine. One thing I did eventually realize is that from a young age, two of my biggest role models were my aunts - one of whom was a Geology professor, and the other was a programmer at financial company. From a very early age, I knew that women could do Science & Technology.

So, as I thought more about it, I decided to ask several of the females that I had mentored (and were now in college), and asked them if it had made a difference to them, since they had both male & female mentors... and while they were close to me, they were also close with several of the male mentors. The overwhelming response came back that it had made a huge difference to them (much more than I had realized). Many of them were a bit more "timid" than I was, and to see a Female in engineering running the team from an engineering perspective (not just administratively), it had given them a lot more confidence that they could succeed in engineering roles on the team. It did help that I had great support from male mentors - there was a male programmer on our team who did an amazing job mentoring 2 of them (and all of the students) when they were on the programming team (he is now a WFA winner). I never directly pushed to have these girls included any more than any other student on the team, but I guess just having me there, pushing for everyone to have a role, gave them a lot more confidence. One is off at NASA on an amazing internship, another is traveling the west coast for Toyota, and another is now pursuing Nursing!

So while I don't know that it is anyone's intention to exclude male mentors, I do think it may be more important than we realize to have female role models and females in leadership positions. And as others have mentioned, girls/women tend to take "whatever role is needed" and often on teams that is leading a chairman's group, or designing the spirit items, or whatever... Not that other roles aren't important, but there is a huge gender difference in our field, and its reflective of the pipeline... the pipeline needs to be fixed, and one way people are focusing on fixing this is to have more female role models in engineering mentorship roles.

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

You know Kim, your reply there seems to go along quite well with something my students said way back in the beginning... the specifically asked for male mentors, in order to allow female mentors to work with other teams. They felt that girls in mixed-gender teams could benefit more (ie get inspired more) by having strong female mentors, while our all-girls team wouldn't necessarily need that sort of example in front of them - the seniors on the team would always be there as the inspiration for the Freshmen, and just the nature of being an all-girls team meant that it was easier for girls to be involved with all aspects of the team than on a mixed-gender team.

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

My personal opinion is that this is just as bad as excluding the boys. It is draining resources from both teams. Plus, what if Team Boys has a crazy awesome mentor but Team Girls doesn't? Wouldn't it be better to have one team and let all the students learn from them? Why double the cost of this program, instead maybe build a great team instead of a pair of mediocre ones?

Course, as a male I CLEARLY can't understand this problem.

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. :)

---

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