Girls on FIRST teams. Girls in engineering. This is a very large conundrum that stems from the moment they're out of the womb.
Well, I'm going to assume most girls are brought up and raised by their parents as exactly that -- girls. When a girl is young she gets the girl toy in her mcdonalds happy meal, the barbie doll to dress and undress and style, the small makeup kits at Christmas for that "growing young girl" and other seemingly "girl" objects. Mothers will teach them the important parts of life in being a girl, which, being a mother, will include motherly things. For the girls that become girl scouts, they sell cookies door to door and earn patches for various things.
I'm also going to assume most boys are brought up and raised by their parents as exactly that -- boys. They get the boy toy in their mcdonalds happy meal, the hot wheels cars to race, crash, put on insane tracks and subtly learn physics, the soccer ball and baseball glove for Christmas for that "active young boy" that is growing up. Fathers will teach them the important parts of life for being a guy, and this will include how to pee standing up, leave the toilet seat up, play sports better and, being the father of the house, work on the car(s). For those boys that become cub/boy scouts, they will sell popcorn door to door like a business to rival mowing lawns, race pinewood derby cars (read: power tools and physics, with cars), and earn merit badges for all sorts of applicable skills (especially the multitudes of areas that are engineering in some way shape or fashion).
Yeah, you heard me right, I'm blaming YOUR parents. They brought you up well and how they thought they should -- as the typical girl. Why are there less females in engineering than males? Because since nearly the dawn of mankind, the seemingly "natural" structure has led to women having children, and men providing for them. The women nurse the babes while the men hunt with spears for a meaty dinner. And as technology advanced, and what "providing" implied, the roles of men have simply changed to fit technology. Women still needed to take care of the young the same, however, and if anything have gained responsibilities with technology advancing. Are there examples counter to this? Of course. I would simply ask you to ignore them however for the sake of general trends, because those are what drive differences into the bedrock of society.
Does this mean women in engineering, in FIRST, is wrong? No. Does it mean that many would consider it against the norm? Quite easily. And this has created peer pressure for people to not be weird, to know their place, common phrases in a way all throughout history. Peer pressure has been a social dynamic that has perpetuated the segregated responsibilities of men and women that you can date back to cavemen.
And with the advent of so MUCH technology in these latent decades and centuries, the social dynamics are softening and blurring the lines of segregated responsibilities. At some point along the way in the women's rights movement, it became a big issue that women were equal to men. They always were, and for some reason people decided without direct correlations equaling that women and men were not equal. Sure men have, on average, stronger and larger bodies. Men also can't bear children (except for Arnold, but he's different). Is it wrong for a girl to look towards engines or engineering and decide she likes them? No. But social trends throughout all of civilization have pointed women away from such tasks, creating a mode of the roles women should undertake. Who wouldn't think it wierd that someone take up activities not normally attributed to the stereotypes they fit? It's the very definition of weird. For the sake of not being weird, and living up to becoming their parents, and other such amazing values that we've always had as humans, we have developed separate structures for what is "normal" for a guy and what is "normal" for a girl.
Peer pressure is a dying fad however, and them gals are doing what their hearts want to do more and more these days. Is it wrong? Not at all. Is it out of the norm? Yes. To quite a few, this takes a certain courage that is worth congratulating, as much as a guy on the dance team would receive for taking up his own interests against easily present social values.
Of course, I always advocate girls entering engineering. I've got a better chance to not seem so weird by liking this stuff so much if more girls like it too
edit: I just realized how much of a tangent that was off of this thread. Sorry about that. I'll make a short extra paragraph to make up for it.
The trick is many girls I've known don't stick out their necks a bit, to ask for help and seem a fool, for the sake of learning. So instead of learning about drive trains and programming, they go back to organizing the toolboxes or creating the marketing display that allows them to be a part of the team without any possibility of guilt, shame, humiliation or mockery. It's a subtle peer pressure, as far as I'm concerned, and I've seen too much of it. Then again, guys were brought up making fun of each other to build each other up -- or at least I was, being the hyper competitive guy that I am.