Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Perkins
Here is my completely unbiased opinion on the subject.
As a member in high school of team 151 we had spread of about 75%/25% of males to females on our team. As the year progressed, the natural course of society reared it's ugly head and the team became divided between technical and non-technical students. While most of the guys on our team found themselves accepted mechanically, the girls usually just filtered into the non-technical sub teams and no-one ever complained. Most girls found themselves doing spirit, media, and business for the good of 151.
Is this wrong? No, and only because there was no opposition of the females; instead of saying they wanted more "hands-on" duties that dealt with the robot, they just merely followed society. Do I agree with it? No, but I think the deeper question would be, is society causing our young women to be molded into this "stereotype"? Segregation of sex is just a gruesome display of what this country (and more-so the world) is unfortunately shaped after.
One hundred years ago women couldn't vote or hold the same duties of men. What did women do about this? Women ratified American politics so women had equal rights to vote, and to work. Women ratified this by uniting together to promote equality, and today it just seems that girls in FIRST just want to step back and instead of working towards what they want, they follow the roads of the Paris Hilton's and Lindsey Lohans' attitude of the "whatever" mentality that these "role models" so eloquently portray to our nations female youth.
/gets off soapbox
What would I do to make all sides happy in this situation?
Take everybody. Maybe your team is like my former team and the girls usually just cheer and make banners...reverse the roles. Invite the girls to man the pit crew, drive team, and scouting. To promote equality make the guys on the team cheer and lead the spirit for the regionals. This is a good way not to "discriminate" against one sex or the other when it comes to traveling, you bring both, just duties are switched at the regional. Compromise compromise compromise!
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*grabs the microphone*
hey my team is similar... we have joined forces with the future hispanic leaders club at our school that has a bunch of girls and one guy that have joined our team. The guy started doing mechanical work, and the girls all did spirit team, decorations, etc. This leaves me being the only "technical" girl on my team. I always hate being at robotics and one of our mentors is looking for somebody to make a poster and they go straight to me! Seriously.. girls: you need to go to robotics and be an equal. You can still make posters and decorations, do fundraising, etc, but you also need to do the robotics part, and dont do all the non-technical stuff for the guys. They need to pitch in too. And don't give me some jack about how you don't have enough time or you aren't smart enough, You have just as much free time as the guys do and you are certainly just as (if not MORE) able as they are.