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

[Jon Stratis]

For those who don't want to read 14 pages of a several year-old thread, the general consensus isn't that we should form all-girls teams by excluding boys... but rather that there is room for all-girls teams in appropriate situations. If the team comes from a girl scout troop, they aren't excluding boys to have it. If they come from an all-girls school, they aren't excluding boys to have it. If their school has two teams, one of which is all-girls, then they aren't excluding boys to have it.

So when you hear about an all-girls team or talk about it, please don't think it's about exclusion. I have yet to hear about a single instance where an all-girls FRC team was formed by excluding otherwise available boys.

A side note from my team... Yesterday we did a presentation at another local high school to help their team. At the end of it, we had recruited 2 new female students for them. That's just a small example of how an all-girls team can help other FIRST teams!

karomata - Your experience with scholarships is unfortunate, but it's not something FIRST can solve. Colleges try to create a balanced class, since including even numbers of males and females, and including minorities is perceived as a "good thing" (whether it is or not is a whole other topic for another thread). Unfortunately, that means that some under-represented portions of our society need extra encouragement to enter certain fields. Going to school, majoring in engineering, and looking around at your lecture hall of 100 students only to see 2 girls (true story!) is pretty discouraging, and something colleges are trying to change through targeted recruitment and, unfortunately, preferential scholarships. I'm sorry to say, but it's something everyone has to get used to, as our society has decided that diversity needs to be encouraged. If you look at the group I work in, out of 4 people (including me) on my current project, one is female, two are Indian, one is Chinese, and then there's me, a white male. If there wasn't a push in our society for diversity in the workplace (and in colleges), how diverse do you think this group really would be? (Please don't take this as dismissing any of my coworkers, they're all great at what they do and I wouldn't trade them for anyone)