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Unread 16-04-2013, 11:40
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Alexa Stott Alexa Stott is offline
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Re: What happened to the "Patriarchy, misogyny, and sexism in robotics." thread?

I think it's really sad that this thread needs to exist. What I'm going to say is based both on my experiences, experiences of others that have been related to me, and just general knowledge I've gained in my various women's studies courses.

Obviously, there is a huge societal issue when it comes to women's involvement in STEM in general. Part of this is the historical attitude that women are better suited for jobs that make use of more expressive traits (what some people think of as being "feminine"). Another significant part is the lack of female role models for women in STEM. Yes, there are some very powerful women in STEM, both from the past and present. But look at the speakers that FIRST has at its events. They are largely men. Of the 17 people on the FIRST Board of Directors, there are 2 women. This trend follows for the other organizing and leading bodies of FIRST. I don't, in any way, think this is intentional, but I certainly think it is something that has been overlooked.

As previously mentioned, it's easier to attract underrepresented minorities (in this case, women) to participate if you already have women involved. This goes into group/social psychology. Being a solo minority can be isolating and isolation triggers stereotypes and leads to performance deficits. Furthermore, the minority may act more cautiously because they stick out within the group and are often viewed as representative of their entire social group. One of the biggest hurdles is always going to be getting some initial involvement from female students. This could also contribute why many women flock to the same subcommittee.

In addition to having a lack of role models, popular culture also teaches that nerdy/smart/geeky/technologically savvy women are undesirable and must change to a more "typical" woman. Playing dumb is what makes you attractive. The movies and tv shows that we are presented with reinforce this idea. One of the most popular movies of the past decade, Mean Girls, plays right into this. Cady must hide her proficiency in math in order to fit in with the popular girls and get the guy. This is just one example out of many. Movies that try to challenge this idea are few and far between. The powerful people (in general, affluent white men) do not like to see their power challenged.

Even for men who do not hold these values, there is still pressure on them to conform to these ideas. I can easily imagine a situation where a male and a female both try out for the drive team. If the female wins, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was teased (whether "jokingly" or not) about "being beat by a girl."

Others in this thread have already brought up how many female students are treated at the events. Though their own teams might treat them with dignity and respect, there are young men who relentlessly flirt with them, even when they are implicitly or explicitly told to stop. This, again, goes back to a gender roles/scripts issue that we have in our society. Men are the hunters and women are the hunted. When a woman denies a man, they are just playing hard to get and the man should just try harder. These are the types of things we learn and see in our everyday lives. It's no wonder they spill over into FIRST, as FIRST is just a subset of society. Honestly, I don't blame the women who choose not to participate in FIRST because they have better things to do than get treated inappropriately by students on other teams.

My last thought on this is that we also must be careful about engaging in benevolent sexism (seriously, read this article). When young women join robotics, they are treated differently, even if this different treatment is positive. This just reinforces the idea that women need men to help them along on the path to success. This is one of the reasons I'm on the fence about all-girls teams (except, of course, for teams that are all girls because they go to an all girls school). Is this an example of separate but equal? Part of me views this as an example of benevolent sexism. It's not reflective of the real world and it could potentially be harmful to both men and women in that women are set apart as being "different." This could potentially teach women that they can only succeed in all-female spaces. It could also teach men that women cannot keep up with them and never gives them the opportunity to experience working in a diverse group including different genders.

Edit: If you need further evidence that some of the young men in FIRST need some education on how to properly treat and talk to women, look no further than this thread.
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Last edited by Alexa Stott : 16-04-2013 at 11:50.
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