Quote:
Originally Posted by gblake
Well, in my opinion, they (and any similar attitudes) all deserve a seat at the table. However, until someone convinces me that they know where the magic bag of unlimited resources is, I believe that each choice to invest in one is a choice to reduce the investment in the others. If I'm in the right ballpark with this sort of outlook, then some posts in this thread are simultaneously 100% right, and 100% wrong.
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This is where my disconnect happens. How does one jump from "there aren't unlimited resources" to "the qualifier to access should be gender". No one is complaining that there wasn't specifically a counterpart girls
program, they're complaining that there wasn't
any alternative for girls access to resources. Not a single person on this forum would've batted an eye if this OP had been "Timmins Public Library caps enrollment in robotics club for financial/other resource reasons", or even "robotics club enrollment is capped". Please point me in the direction of a place where this cap isn't assumed for some N, it's probably where we'll find that bottomless resource bag. And we probably would've clapped if the OP were "Timmins opens robotics club to help students who struggle with retaining skills over the summer".
Instead, in a program that is in no way gendered itself, girls were excluded
simply for being girls. These resources weren't being used to help boys in uniquely boy ways (like access to Little Brother-Big Brother resources) or overcome uniquely male problems (like male gender stereotypes). Gender was being used as a proxy for a very real issue that's affects all genders, even if it's to different extents. That means discrimination should be based on the
effect, not based on the gender. Using gender instead is what
drives social inequality on both the male and female sides.