View Single Post
  #38   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 27-04-2014, 16:54
Morgan Garbett's Avatar
Morgan Garbett Morgan Garbett is offline
Registered User
FRC #3481 (Bronc Botz)
Team Role: Mechanical
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
Rookie Year: 2010
Location: San Antonio
Posts: 6
Morgan Garbett is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Jane Cosmetics at 2014 Championship

Let me start off by saying that as a girl in FTC and FRC robotics I am really excited that FIRST is trying to get more girls involved! Additionally, as an FLL mentor for a few years now (some of the teams I work with are all-girl teams), I think the sentiment that "girls can be beautiful and smart/involved in STEM" is a valid one to communicate. However, I think that there are more effective ways to go about getting more girls into FIRST.

From what I've read and seen from personal experience, the most effective time to get girls involved in STEM activities (and keep them involved) is around 4th-6th grade, or elementary and middle school. Perhaps I got into the makeup world a little late, but it is my thinking that by the time girls are old enough to be interested in/wearing makeup, it is already too late to be effectively targeting them for FIRST. I think you need to catch them before they've even begun to deal with the pressures and weird dynamics of societal ideas of beauty or insecurities about appearance. I hope that in the future FIRST can work with organizations like GoldieBlox, a company aiming to inspire more girls to become engineers by developing toys, to get more girls involved at younger ages.