Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST

[Jasmine Zhou]

I've hesitated to post here because I'm pretty sure I'm an edge case, or at least, not representative of any sort of majority of girls.
I wish my experience with STEM as a young girl were typical. When I was seven, I asked my dad to teach me how to talk to computers- and he tried. I wanted to be a fairy princess, then found out that engineering and science were essentially magic. I had a big sister in STEM. I had a close friend (also female) who I moved ahead in math with. And I was always, always encouraged.

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

From my team's experience, sometimes you just need a critical mass of girls. It can be extremely intimidating to be a female walking into a male-dominated team.

Yes. This is where I had an advantage my first year- I've always been somewhat socially oblivious, so I didn't quite notice. For another girl on our team, she saw it as a challenge and loved breaking expectations. But we were probably outliers, and there were others who left. Out team's better about it now, with about 30-40% of our members being female, a few female mentors, and about half of our student leadership being female.
(If you're curious, for 2014-15: captain- female; co-captain- female. Subteam leads: mechanical design- female, machining/fabrication- female, electrical- male, robot programming- female, app (scouting) programming- male, business/media- male. I'll pull out the gender ratios by subteams from 13-14 later.)
We're going into our third year with a female captain. The first year with a female captain was about the same time we reached that critical mass. I don't know which one caused the other, but I'm happy about both.

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Girls and boys grow up in very different worlds. I got experience with machines and tools early as part of just being a boy - I build birdhouses and toolboxes in cub scouts, I helped my dad replace light fixtures and run cable around the house, and had all sorts of opportunities to do such "manly stuff". The girls we get in our program don't have those opportunities.

At some point, I realized that I had already been exposed to many important lessons of FRC, though in a different medium. I'd learned to sew, knit, crochet, and spin at a young age, and had already been unconsciously using what I'd learned there: iteration, problem-solving, meticulousness, necessity of simplicity, deadlines, need to understand the lower level, design requirements, practicing, consequences, putting things back where they came from, importance of mentors, healthy respect for but not fear of power tools.
I really wish I had noticed the similarities earlier. As soon as I did, I gained a level of confidence that helped me.
It would be a good idea to reach out to the yarn/fiber/fabric communities. There are a lot of good potential students there, many of them female.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I think the issue might be that teenage boys generally don't have a problem asserting themselves in a situation and grabbing all of the time and resources. (The cover story for the latest Atlantic Monthly discusses this type of issue.) We noticed this and tried to control how the boys jumped in without waiting for others to participate. This was a particular issue among our programmers. Teen girls tend to be more concerned about the social situation and to be more deferential to others. Shy boys are more willing to tolerate overly assertive boys (remember that often they are friends) while shy girls may find it too intimidating.

(Note: Mr. McCann is one of my team's mentors.)
My first year I managed to pretend my way out of being shy, and I stayed, but I've never been quite as assertive as I needed to be. As the team captain in 2013-14, even with all the support I needed, this was a bit of a problem. I don't know if that personality quirk is because I'm a girl, but...
If I hadn't been a girl, would I have learned to always be accommodating and be a good hostess? Learned to walk a half step behind anyone who I thought of as in a position of authority, usually including anyone older or taller than me? To wait for the invitation, then for a fairy to fix my problems? To not draw attention to myself to avoid being labelled a girl?
Some of those would have happened no matter what gender I was or am. Others I'm not so sure about. The culture that little girls (including me) grow up in often doesn't help us in historically male fields.

Originally Posted by Littleswimmer14

I'm wondering if hands-on STEM focused camps could help attract females to STEM?

I don't have much experience here, but for me the answer was yes, sort of. Some made me super excited about STEM, including COSMOS (coed, one month) and Expanding Your Horizons (all female, one day) and some from our local science center. Others... well, let me just say that one reason why I'm in FRC is because I did a summer program with lego robots and I absolutely hated them.

One last thought.
If you offer me an opportunity because I'm a woman, I'll still take it. I'm going to take every opportunity that comes my way, because I know I'll need to take advantage of all of them in order to get where I want to go. If I find out that it's because of my gender... well, I'll still take it, but don't expect me to be happy about it.