Quote:
Originally Posted by Sperkowsky
Our team runs on about a 40:60 ratio.
Our of our female members there is only one who is seriously interested in engineering. The rest do jobs like marketing, music development, cleaning, and sometimes nothing. This is their choice though. I wish some of the female members did more egineering but honestly if they have no desire then why push them.
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Brother, I'll be blunt, this is exactly the sort of attitude that we must avoid. You can safely assume that someone pushed you / helped you to become interested in STEM. Why? Because you're a guy. Why can you not help out your fellow colleagues and spread some STEM interest around. Everyone deserves an opportunity. This is the vision statement of FIRST after all. We have to ask why are the women members not interested in engineering? Only a small reason is some students just want a place to hang out, and so don't have much interest in the team. But the big reason really is the subject of this thread and its poignant title. It's quite likely that simply being the wrong gender, they were never pushed into STEM starting at a young age.
The root cause of gender equality in STEM is a cultural problem, at least in the US. In all aspects of life, boys and men are way more likely to be welcomed into STEM. Can't find the article at the moment, but the ACM had an interesting article on gender equality by country and tried to analyze the findings. Good article though, it also echoed some of the stories being shared in this thread. But how do we fight a culture problem (I say "we" since gender equality is not a women-only problem): well we start with ourselves of course:
[Now's a good time to duck]
So men, hack your brains! Learn to be fully conscious of your words, actions, and behaviors! Ensure that you are always inclusive / encouraging / respectful to women with your words, actions, and behaviors. Remember to see the big picture. Remember STEM is not a boy's club, STEM truly is for everyone.
Everyone can participate in STEM, it is the vision of FIRST.
[OK, done flinging wisdom around, you can stop ducking now]
Pretty good rant, eh?