Quote:
Originally Posted by JosephC
All female teams miss out on the egocentric guys who really push that robot to the max.
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Haha... you've never been in a design debate with me... I don't back down until you prove me wrong, and I have some very very strong (and well founded) design opinions.
Trust me, there are girls with "egos" as well. There are girls with very strong opinions. And jeez... try putting a whole ton of girls in a room together... you DEFINITELY get some opinions then! I don't think having an all girls team will stop this dynamic. In fact I would argue its one of the few places you will see girls push the limits, when they don't have to "worry" about what guys think of their ideas, or of a "guy" coming up with a better idea.
I will admit that through this discussion, I have realized that it is very true that in general (not always), women/girls will decide to do what is "needed" on the team... not necessarily what they really "want" to do. If there is a job that needs doing, even if its not as exciting, the women/girls will make sure it gets done. The men in general (again not always) tend to gravitate towards what they WANT to do... the tech-e type stuff... the design/build. These are of course very general statements, not true for every person in each gender, but I think it does explain why we often hear people assume that girls are "better at buttons, PR, etc..." and the boys "are better at design & build".
But I'm back to the point of "to each their own". I don't advocate that every girl in FIRST should be on an all girls team. Nor do I advocate that we deny these "exclusive" teams access to the competition. There is a place for all of them, and good reasons for all of them. As long as we are working on getting girls more involved in the technical side of things, I think we are on the right path.