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

[N7UJJ]

“I know some schools have Varsity and Junior Varsity robotics teams for exactly this purpose, and that's great.” If this is a proposal for an all boys/ all girls team it will result with the girls in the JV team, which is a “lesser” team. Guess which team gets the greater resources and opportunities.

Girls in the U.S. are bombarded daily on what is feminine, attractive, desirable. Watch TV programming and commercials with a critical eye. Look through a “girls” magazine and check out the ads and articles. Girls today are pressured to be skinny, wear makeup, be fashionable, be popular, take care of everyone and attract guys. Don’t really see much on using tools, being mechanically clever, increasing math skills, etc. I think we all would object to overt sexism, but it is the constant, insistent, cultural push that is inflicted on girls that is the hardest to counteract. It will take a real “change the culture” movement to modify advertising and programming in the media.

Has anyone seen a coed team that had 4females on a drive team? Have you ever seen 4 male drivers on a coed team? We may strongly object to a proposal to have a “all girls” team because it seems sexist, but don’t we, in fact, had de facto sexism which greatly favors males?

Generally, girls in the U.S. are raised differently than boys and the FIRST robotics competition inadvertently favors those brought up in the boy culture. Boys wind up on the construction and driving teams while girls are more likely involved in fund raising publicity. It is not necessarily because boys push them away, but because girls are more socially aware and are more willing to do what is best for the team. If a girl believes that a boy’s skills with tools are superior to hers, she is more likely to back off from the pit crew for the good of the team. Our culture reinforces the stereotype of boys being mechanically superior and as a result, girls usually have less experience with tools.

An all girls team is one approach to rectifying the de facto segregation of women. The best electrician is a girl, the best designer is a woman, the best pilot is a female. Also the person who breaks the most things is a female. The team clown is a girl. The girls can choose any role(s) they desire without the subtle sexist pressure that exists in a coed team.

BTW, it does not mean a school has to field a female team. Team 842 was going to go to 3 regionals and the championship but was faced with the problem with having students miss too much class time. That was the year when we decided to have only the girls go to one of the regional competitions. (read here) It was far cheaper than forming a separate team and had very positive results for the girls and the boys and the mentors. That one competition had a very positive effect. Just about all the girls wound up in engineering and are graduating with their degrees.

Anyway, we need more females in FIRST and engineering. To do so, we have to counter our national culture that persistently, subtly dissuades girls from the "manly experiences" in robotics, engineering, physical sciences, etc. An all-girls team allows girls to experience FIRST with out a lot of the inadvertent sexist baggage that can inhibit their exploring engineering.