[Madison]

Unfortunately -- and I'll try to find the things I've read that back this up -- emphasizing traditional gender expectations (like makeup, femininity, being pretty, etc.) as part of efforts to boost interest in STEM among girls often has a negative impact. Girls already feel a tremendous amount of pressure to conform to traditional standards of beauty, largely due to marketing efforts of companies like Jane Cosmetics, and asking them to cope with those pressures while dealing with the pressures incumbent in pursuing STEM as a girl serves to drive them away.

While there's nothing wrong with makeup or femininity inherently, it's when they become an expectation rather than an option that we get into trouble. Since those things are still very much part of the expectations our society places upon girls today, their presence at a FIRST event is misguided. FIRST should be presenting itself as an alternative; a place where girls can become competent, contributing members of society and nobody is going to care what they look like or act like while doing it. If, later, they want to put on the trappings of femininity, they should be able to do so all the while knowing that none of it will have any bearing on their value in making the world a better place.

Broadening support for FIRST is laudable, but doing so at the expense of its core goals is a bad trade.