What happened to the "Patriarchy, misogyny, and sexism in robotics." thread?

[ehochstein]

I have struggled with the female and male issues on both of my teams for a few years now. CLandrum3081 already stated what happens on 3081 and I could add more to it but that is a story for another day.

My experiences mainly concentrate on 2470, the Blitz Team. I have found that female students are much more productive then male students on our team, I'm not sure why but that is the way it works for us.

I was originally a student on the team from 2008-2010; after graduation I became a mentor for the team and this year I was given the official name of "Senior mentor" for 2470. We have always struggled recruiting the female gender like most teams out there. Each year I have tried to figure out why and how we can do better at recruiting more females, and we are finally seeing some results.

I have found the first thing that really helps in recruiting more females to the program is to remove as much sexism from the robotics room as possible. That means all of the mentors and coaches need to be on the same page. No sexist comments allowed whatsoever from the adults, that will set an example for the male students basically don't give them an opportunity to say these comments. That being said I still hear the comments from students occasionally in the build room. We solve this pretty easily by hosting Female Engineering Sessions.

Female Engineering Sessions are used to promote STEM programs for females in our school. The engineering classes offered at Jefferson High School are highly male oriented (recently I found a folder in a retired teacher's file cabinet labelled "Automobiles for girls" needless to say it was very sexist), usually you will have 2 or 3 females in the class at the beginning of the semester and they all drop out for study hall by the end of the first week. The Female Engineering Sessions were designed by a female student on my team and she started leading them last year. The first meeting is a powerpoint presentation on robotics with a concentration in FIRST to recruit females to our team. During the first meeting no males are allowed in the room, not even mentors. The second meeting I will go in and give a basic overview of the team, I take some time to explain how stupid the guys are on our team and I tell them positions on the team. So far I have usually had the entire group go for one activity, this year for example it was programming.

I find that if you encourage females to meet together as a group to accomplish a task it works much better then asking them to meet by themselves or with a few others in a large group of boys. Hopefully that observation is pretty obvious. I also do my best to have weekly meetings during the build season with the females on our team just to talk to them on how things are going and thanking them for what they do.

All of the above being said there are still some things we are working on. One of the big things currently is decorations in our room. We are basically in the metal shop at our school, which means cement walls and flooring with drab colors. In fact I am often told by the female students on my team it looks like a "rape dungeon" so this summer one of our projects is to change that. I haven't been told by next year's leadership what we are doing but I assume it has to do with painting everything.

This year we also partnered with Science Olympiad, most of the Science Olympiad team is female so we offered classes lead by female robotics members on basic shop skills. We helped them build many of their projects and really taught most of them how to build things for the first time. Next year we are going to expand our partnership to include more joint activities, we are going to have female robotics representatives at every Science Olympiad meeting to encourage them to join the robotics team. We are also going to allow them space to build and store what they are working on in the robotics room.

Next year our entire leadership team is going to be female, for some reason I have found females are very good motivators for the male gender. I wonder why?

Thank you for sticking with my jumbled thoughts, hopefully it is somewhat coherent.
Evan

[Alexa Stott]

I think it's really sad that this thread needs to exist. What I'm going to say is based both on my experiences, experiences of others that have been related to me, and just general knowledge I've gained in my various women's studies courses.

Obviously, there is a huge societal issue when it comes to women's involvement in STEM in general. Part of this is the historical attitude that women are better suited for jobs that make use of more expressive traits (what some people think of as being "feminine"). Another significant part is the lack of female role models for women in STEM. Yes, there are some very powerful women in STEM, both from the past and present. But look at the speakers that FIRST has at its events. They are largely men. Of the 17 people on the FIRST Board of Directors, there are 2 women. This trend follows for the other organizing and leading bodies of FIRST. I don't, in any way, think this is intentional, but I certainly think it is something that has been overlooked.

As previously mentioned, it's easier to attract underrepresented minorities (in this case, women) to participate if you already have women involved. This goes into group/social psychology. Being a solo minority can be isolating and isolation triggers stereotypes and leads to performance deficits. Furthermore, the minority may act more cautiously because they stick out within the group and are often viewed as representative of their entire social group. One of the biggest hurdles is always going to be getting some initial involvement from female students. This could also contribute why many women flock to the same subcommittee.

In addition to having a lack of role models, popular culture also teaches that nerdy/smart/geeky/technologically savvy women are undesirable and must change to a more "typical" woman. Playing dumb is what makes you attractive. The movies and tv shows that we are presented with reinforce this idea. One of the most popular movies of the past decade, Mean Girls, plays right into this. Cady must hide her proficiency in math in order to fit in with the popular girls and get the guy. This is just one example out of many. Movies that try to challenge this idea are few and far between. The powerful people (in general, affluent white men) do not like to see their power challenged.

Even for men who do not hold these values, there is still pressure on them to conform to these ideas. I can easily imagine a situation where a male and a female both try out for the drive team. If the female wins, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was teased (whether "jokingly" or not) about "being beat by a girl."

Others in this thread have already brought up how many female students are treated at the events. Though their own teams might treat them with dignity and respect, there are young men who relentlessly flirt with them, even when they are implicitly or explicitly told to stop. This, again, goes back to a gender roles/scripts issue that we have in our society. Men are the hunters and women are the hunted. When a woman denies a man, they are just playing hard to get and the man should just try harder. These are the types of things we learn and see in our everyday lives. It's no wonder they spill over into FIRST, as FIRST is just a subset of society. Honestly, I don't blame the women who choose not to participate in FIRST because they have better things to do than get treated inappropriately by students on other teams.

My last thought on this is that we also must be careful about engaging in benevolent sexism (seriously, read this article). When young women join robotics, they are treated differently, even if this different treatment is positive. This just reinforces the idea that women need men to help them along on the path to success. This is one of the reasons I'm on the fence about all-girls teams (except, of course, for teams that are all girls because they go to an all girls school). Is this an example of separate but equal? Part of me views this as an example of benevolent sexism. It's not reflective of the real world and it could potentially be harmful to both men and women in that women are set apart as being "different." This could potentially teach women that they can only succeed in all-female spaces. It could also teach men that women cannot keep up with them and never gives them the opportunity to experience working in a diverse group including different genders.

Edit: If you need further evidence that some of the young men in FIRST need some education on how to properly treat and talk to women, look no further than this thread.

[moogboy]

Originally Posted by Alexa Stott

In addition to having a lack of role models, popular culture also teaches that nerdy/smart/geeky/technologically savvy women are undesirable and must change to a more "typical" woman. Playing dumb is what makes you attractive. The movies and tv shows that we are presented with reinforce this idea. One of the most popular movies of the past decade, Mean Girls, plays right into this. Cady must hide her proficiency in math in order to fit in with the popular girls and get the guy. This is just one example out of many. Movies that try to challenge this idea are few and far between. The powerful people (in general, affluent white men) do not like to see their power challenged.

I always feel weird when I meet a girl who is cool enough to be nerdy/smart/geeky/technologically savvy, because I feel like it should be celebrated on so many levels, gender being one of the less important if not the least important one. To me, any person brave enough to stand up before the prevailing culture of anti-intellectualism is a hero. To add generations upon generations of sexism into that mix is an even greater accomplishment. And yet, it's difficult for me to celebrate that with that person. I can't tell if this is clear or not, but it bothers me that I have to stop and consider whether I'm being sexist or otherwise degrading in appreciating a girl's geekiness.

Originally Posted by Alexa Stott

My last thought on this is that we also must be careful about engaging in benevolent sexism (seriously, read this article). When young women join robotics, they are treated differently, even if this different treatment is positive. This just reinforces the idea that women need men to help them along on the path to success. This is one of the reasons I'm on the fence about all-girls teams (except, of course, for teams that are all girls because they go to an all girls school). Is this an example of separate but equal? Part of me views this as an example of benevolent sexism. It's not reflective of the real world and it could potentially be harmful to both men and women in that women are set apart as being "different." This could potentially teach women that they can only succeed in all-female spaces. It could also teach men that women cannot keep up with them and never gives them the opportunity to experience working in a diverse group including different genders.

I am by no means an expert in this field, but I have heard of some studies that show girls being more successful in at least science classes in single sex environments. I do agree that that sort of environment is only so useful, however. It's a stepping stone at best. Having been in single sex classes for all of high school, I am beyond ready to be in an environment where unbridled displays of testosterone fueled dude-age are frowned upon or at least checked by the presence of the opposite sex. FIRST is not an end in and of itself, but a stepping stone, like all of education, so if it's helpful for girls to work on a single sex team, I'd gladly support it.

[MamaSpoldi]

Originally Posted by Alexa Stott

My last thought on this is that we also must be careful about engaging in benevolent sexism (seriously, read this article). When young women join robotics, they are treated differently, even if this different treatment is positive. This just reinforces the idea that women need men to help them along on the path to success. This is one of the reasons I'm on the fence about all-girls teams (except, of course, for teams that are all girls because they go to an all girls school). Is this an example of separate but equal? Part of me views this as an example of benevolent sexism. It's not reflective of the real world and it could potentially be harmful to both men and women in that women are set apart as being "different." This could potentially teach women that they can only succeed in all-female spaces. It could also teach men that women cannot keep up with them and never gives them the opportunity to experience working in a diverse group including different genders.

-- Thanks for sharing that article, it is very interesting. I think that mutual respect is the only way that this will eventually work better. And working together toward a common goal (like building a robot) can go a long way toward building that kind of respect. Often it is when we see what each of us brings to the table that we can see the value of that ability. I don't think that men need to be trained to be more sensitive and I don't think that women should need to change to fit into the existing male mold either. And let's not forget that there are men who are more expressive and women who are more ambitious... and they too are valuable assets. We all need to learn to accept and value our differences and what that diversity brings to the task at hand... and not to pre-judge anyone's aptitudes and skills based on their gender.

[Alexa Stott]

Originally Posted by moogboy

I am by no means an expert in this field, but I have heard of some studies that show girls being more successful in at least science classes in single sex environments. I do agree that that sort of environment is only so useful, however. It's a stepping stone at best. Having been in single sex classes for all of high school, I am beyond ready to be in an environment where unbridled displays of testosterone fueled dude-age are frowned upon or at least checked by the presence of the opposite sex. FIRST is not an end in and of itself, but a stepping stone, like all of education, so if it's helpful for girls to work on a single sex team, I'd gladly support it.

I've taken the time to look up a few studies on sexism in education, with a particular focus on STEM.

One study found that instances of sexism were actually greater within single-sex schools. In all girls schools, female teachers had a tendency to encourage their students to be dependent and sometimes lowered their standards, while male teachers treated the students like little girls. In the all boys schools, there was certainly reinforcement of men as powerful aggressors who objectify women. I'm wondering if this extends to single-sex FIRST teams, as well. (Source)

Overall, the consensus seems to be that teachers (or in the case of FIRST, mentors/coaches) need to use gender-inclusive strategies.* This means paying equal attention to males and females, evaluating all genders based on their abilities, and be aware of the different experiences of men and women. A lot of this sort of sexism probably isn't intentional, but it is a trend that can be reversed. It's important to remind women that being good at or interested in STEM isn't "abnormal" and doesn't make them any less of a girl. The boys on the team also need to be careful not to reinforce gender roles or scripts, as well.

From this, it seems like a lot of the problems start in the classroom and spill over into FIRST. If a science teacher is reinforcing the idea that men are best suited for engaging in hands-on activities, then it's no surprise when a male student on a FIRST team reacts with surprise when a young woman wants to get involved in the more technical areas of the robot.

I'm wondering if it's possible for FIRST mentors and coaches to try to implement strategies that normalize female involvement. For example, there are plenty of women represented in the photo slideshow FIRST's FRC page, but the one picture of people actually working on a robot has two male students being led by a male adult mentor. So girls can be on the team (and some maybe even drive the robot!) but there's no indication of their involvement with the technical parts of FIRST. This trend is seen throughout the FIRST website. They probably thought they did a decent job of including girls in their photos, but only one of them shows a girl working on the robot (it's on the FTC landing page).

*Source