Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?

[Phcullen]

why is having an exclusive team seen as a positive thing?.
i do not include teams that are hosted by all girl groups like girl scout troops or all girl schools or what ever. but teams that actively only allow girls in there community to join.
i feel if you made a team exclusive to boys then not only would people think it was nothing special but would think it was wrong. where a team that only allows girls to join is seen a positive. doesn't this just say that being female is a handicap?

[davidthefat]

I do not believe so. It is still inspiring. I believe that having a minority group be the prominent demographic of a team is more inspiring than having the usual distribution of genders or ethnic groups.

[mwtidd]

Originally Posted by Phcullen

why is having an exclusive team seen as a positive thing?.
i do not include teams that are hosted by all girl groups like girl scout troops or all girl schools or what ever. but teams that actively only allow girls in there community to join.
i feel if you made a team exclusive to boys then not only would people think it was nothing special but would think it was wrong. where a team that only allows girls to join is seen a positive. doesn't this just say that being female is a handicap?

There was an all girls team that regularly competes at BAE, and they had male mentors. That being said, being an all girls team actually gave them an interesting point of view. They were not just FIRST, but habitat for humanity too. They received chairmans because there was a human aspect to their team. Nerdy girls are typically more humanistic than nerdy guys.

I don't mean to be biased, but speaking as the older brother of 4 sisters, girls have a different way of looking at things. All girl teams increase the impact of this human influence, and allow the importance to be blatantly obvious to other teams. Girls have this impact on all teams, but where there's an all girls team the impact is much greater. Also the girl who spoke at BAE was awesome, and once again showing, nerdy girls are more human.

I don't think its counterproductive because of the influence all girls teams have on the teams around them.

I would rather be on an all girls team than an all guys team. Actually during my time at WPI, I worked mostly with girls. I honestly think girls are often much better and much less stubborn then men. Girls are also better at working together than guys. Our egos get in the way. It is no way a handicap.

[Bethie42]

I see your point.
I think exclusive teams are okay as long as there is a local, viable team nearby for others to participate in. For instance, in some areas with high densities of FRC teams, girls could easily feel a bit lost on a huge team. It is probably far more encouraging for them to form their own team in that case. In a lot of areas though, it wouldn't work at all [whatever team formed for the boys would be pretty much all-male for one thing...]

Personally, I doubt I would enjoy being on an all-girls team, for a number of reasons [I have always been respected and treated very well by the boys both on my team and at regionals], but I don't think you can just forbid them from having exclusive teams. Because of the unique male/female dynamics of FIRST [relatively few girls, and I think girls can easily feel intimidated by the thought that 'boys know more about mechanical stuff than I do'] all-girl teams may well be the only way some girls would join FIRST.

[JaneYoung]

Name some teams that are all girls teams that are formed solely to exclude boys. Do you know of any?

Also, does it hurt to use capitalization in your sentences? Just asking...

Jane

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

Name some teams that are all girls teams that are formed solely to exclude boys. Do you know of any?

Also, does it hurt to use capitalization in your sentences? Just asking...

Jane

I agree with your second point but question why you put it in this post as opposed to the hundreds of others that are just as bad that you have responded to without this question.


As for your first point, just because the OP doesn't know of a team doesn't mean they don't exist. Nor do they need to exist for his questions to valid. It is an important question to answer, should we encourage diversity?

I want to point to a thread a couple years ago in which a very similar question was raised and the lessons learned from an experiment attempted by 842.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=56504


I do have to wonder what the reaction would be if the roles were reversed, what would have happened if the OP had asked if all male teams should be allowed? Or if teams were allowed to discriminate against students who have learning disabilities or who don't speak English?

Rather than viewing this as saying that "all girl teams are evil!" or as "that is sexist!" view it as an opportunity to discuss the benefits of having a diverse team and why working with people who have different views than you is a good experience.

[GaryVoshol]

As long as equal opportunity exists, there is nothing wrong with forming a team solely for females. If it means that males cannot take part, or would have hardships in taking part, then it's wrong. For example, if an all-girls team was formed in an isolated city that could only support one team and the guys would have to travel 50 miles to find a team, that would not be right.

Single-gender schools have shown positive results for both males and females. The same could be true for FRC teams.

[Akash Rastogi]

Staying on topic regardless of grammar and punctuation....


What if the team also only had female mentors? What about a mix of female and male engineers?

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I agree with your second point but question why you put it in this post as opposed to the hundreds of others that are just as bad that you have responded to without this question.

In this case, the OP (original poster) created this thread. It takes time and effort to create a thread in ChiefDelphi. The topic that this OP is presenting also takes time and effort to think about and decide to create a thread about. (That's my opinion, of course - I realize that some people create threads without giving them much thought.) By using capitalization in the sentences and proper punctuation, the OP brings more credibility to the topic. It is a topic that I enjoy reading discussions about and I enjoy thoughtful posts regarding the topic of women in the fields of math, science, and engineering and girls on FRC/FTC/FLL/VEX/BEST teams that will help to increase the numbers of women in the fields of math, science, and engineering.

I hope this answered your question, Andrew. If not, let's take it to a private message.

Jane

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Staying on topic regardless of grammar and punctuation....


What if the team also only had female mentors? What about a mix of female and male engineers?

Team 2340 tried to have all female mentors to work along their all girls team but I don't think they were quite able to have it be exclusive to just females.
If a dad has skills in the shop and offers to help a team would be crazy to turn down assistance from someone who wants to help no matter what their gender is.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Team 2340 tried to have all female mentors to work along their all girls team but I don't think they were quite able to have it be exclusive to just females.
If a dad has skills in the shop and offers to help a team would be crazy to turn down assistance from someone who wants to help no matter what their gender is.

And if a student has passion and wants to learn it would be crazy to turn them down just because they are slightly different than the norm.

[davidthefat]

I think having a "gender" quota is more counter intuitive than having an all female or male team.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

And if a student has passion and wants to learn it would be crazy to turn them down just because they are slightly different than the norm.

2340 was started at an all girls school that closed last year and absorbed by another Catholic School that has both genders but I'm told the school is not to interfere with the team's makeup at the risk of losing a huge donation to the school if they do.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

2340 was started at an all girls school that closed last year and absorbed by another Catholic School that has both genders but I'm told the school is not to interfere with the team's makeup at the risk of losing a huge donation to the school if they do.

Wait...am I understanding this right? If the team doesn't stay exclusively female students...they lose a sponsor/grant/donation?

Sounds kind of...wrong?

Now I'm curious about how 433 is actually run.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

2340 was started at an all girls school that closed last year and absorbed by another Catholic School that has both genders but I'm told the school is not to interfere with the team's makeup at the risk of losing a huge donation to the school if they do.

So, if I am understanding this correctly, if the school asked the team to allow males on it the SCHOOL would lose donations?

Let me just tell you that being told, "I'm sorry but they have money" sucks. I was told that by a school principal once about 15 yrs ago. I was told I was wrong not because I was but because the other group donated money to the school. Do these people have any clue the effect this has on students?