Attention Mascots (and teams with one)

[wireties]

If mascots, or anyone else, are verbally or physically harassing anyone at a FIRST event it should be reported and dealt with in zero tolerance fashion. Do this to one of my students and the proverbial hammer is coming down!

But in 10 years this is the first I've heard of anything like this - no input from our students, no rumors from other teams, nothing. I'd like to believe these are isolated incidents. Making FIRST-wide rules about mascots seems premature and a little too PC at this juncture.

Our mascot is the actual school mascot, not a robotics student in a borrowed costume (not that there is anything wrong with that). And I think it is always a nice young lady. That is probably the best move, make the mascot female. Girls are smarter and generally more socially appropriate at high school ages.

My 2 cents...

[wireties]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

It probably also doesn't help that teams sometimes (overwhelmingly) put their strangest kids in the costume (or those kids volunteer).

This statement can't have any factual basis. Exactly how many teams have been canvassed? And what is the criteria for "strange" and "overwhelmingly". Perhaps the behavior of a few mascots is disturbing but casting wide nets in this manner is not helpful (or true).

I don't get the whole "spirit thing" (a personal fault) but we should not talk poorly of those who do enjoy cheering, mascots, dancing in the aisle etc.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by wireties

That is probably the best move, make the mascot female. Girls are smarter and generally more socially appropriate at high school ages.

My 2 cents...

You're two cents is horrifically sexist. This isn't a gender issue. It's a issue of mentors/parents not telling their students "don't be a [expletive] creep. I've had young ladies who were just as inappropriate as young men. I don't care about the gender, harassment is harassment. Nobody deserves to feel unsafe.

If there is a complaint it must be dealt with. Preferably by sitting down with the accused party, getting their side of the story, and having a chat about what they can do to avoid situations like it in the future. Because, rarely are these complaints 100% fabrications. But they can sometimes be simple misunderstandings. Maybe it's implement a hands off policy. Maybe require a mascot handler to protect them from he said/she said type situations (third party observer). Maybe it's remove them from the costume. Have a conversation about it.

Folks, if you feel unsafe, go to a volunteer. Volunteers, if a person comes up to you and says they feel unsafe, go to a key volunteer.

[wireties]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

You're two cents is horrifically sexist. This isn't a gender issue. It's a issue of mentors/parents not telling their students "don't be a [expletive] creep. I've had young ladies who were just as inappropriate as young men. I don't care about the gender, harassment is harassment. Nobody deserves to feel unsafe.

Let me get this straight - it is "horrifically sexist" to credit young women (of high school age) with being smarter and more socially appropriate than their male peers? This is not an opinion, this is science - sociology. I've raised an daughter (EE) and a son (EE and lawyer). I've worked for 20+ years with young people in various volunteer roles. My wife is a 30+ year educator and concurs, I know exactly what I'm talking about.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by wireties

Let me get this straight - it is "horrifically sexist" to credit young women (of high school age) with being smarter and more socially appropriate than their male peers? This is not an opinion, this is science - sociology. I've raised an daughter (EE) and a son (EE and lawyer). I've worked for 20+ years with young people in various volunteer roles. I know exactly what I'm talking about.

It is sexist because it's as much of a generalization as saying, "All male mascots are groping creeps".

[Link07]

Originally Posted by wireties

Let me get this straight - it is "horrifically sexist" to credit young women (of high school age) with being smarter and more socially appropriate than their male peers? This is not an opinion, this is science - sociology. I've raised an daughter (EE) and a son (EE and lawyer). I've worked for 20+ years with young people in various volunteer roles. My wife is a 30+ year educator and concurs, I know exactly what I'm talking about.

Ummmm...no. Just no

[wireties]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

It is sexist because it's as much of a generalization as saying, "All male mascots are groping creeps".

You miss the entire point. The issue here is superior judgement and decision-making, not that the harassment described here is male-female. In fact few of the complaints implied the sex of the mascot. None claimed the mascot was male.

[BBray_T1296]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

It is sexist because it's as much of a generalization as saying, "All male mascots are groping creeps".

Incorrect, the statement is "The vast (by far) majority of groping creeps are male." Which is not sexist, but an observable fact.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by wireties

Let me get this straight - it is "horrifically sexist" to credit young women (of high school age) with being smarter and more socially appropriate than their male peers? This is not an opinion, this is science - sociology. I've raised an daughter (EE) and a son (EE and lawyer). I've worked for 20+ years with young people in various volunteer roles. My wife is a 30+ year educator and concurs, I know exactly what I'm talking about.

So, I should trust you and your wife, neither of whom are experts in brains and their development over discussions with folks who have made their careers studying brains? Based on these discussions* – The male brain does not develop the connections required to make adult judgements until the age of 22. The female brain: 20. Thus my assertion that NEITHER are capable of it is, in fact, correct based on the development of the brain. While I may not have 20+ years of anecdotal experience I do OCCASIONALLY know what I'm talking about.


* I'm in the process of finding a study that supports these claims, unfortunately it's relatively tangential to my efforts at work and thus likely a low priority item for me.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by BBray_T1296

Incorrect, the statement is "The vast (by far) majority of groping creeps are male." Which is not sexist, but an observable fact.

Incorrect: The statement: "The vast majority of reported groping creeps are male". Which is the actual observable fact. You can't observe things that aren't seen or reported.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by wireties

This statement can't have any factual basis. Exactly how many teams have been canvassed? And what is the criteria for "strange" and "overwhelmingly". Perhaps the behavior of a few mascots is disturbing but casting wide nets in this manner is not helpful (or true).

I don't get the whole "spirit thing" (a personal fault) but we should not talk poorly of those who do enjoy cheering, mascots, dancing in the aisle etc.

Based on my own anecdotal evidence from being a student in FIRST, and closer to the age of kids in FIRST than you, I can state it as an observation. Notice how I never called something a fact.

If you want to discuss semantics via PM, feel free; otherwise, keep the thread on topic.

Also, I find it ironic you call me out for casting a wide net.

[jee7s]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

So, I should trust you and your wife, neither of whom are experts in brains and their development over discussions with folks who have made their careers studying brains?

Who better to know the practical development of the brain than an teacher? You don't need to be a neuroscientist to understand how males and females, particularly at the high school age, approach interaction differently. While the statements may have been generalizations, they aren't "horrifically sexist."

Un-hijacking this thread, I'd like to point out that the harassment we are talking about here isn't purely physical, it can be verbal as well. My team has dealt at least a few times with other students, mentors, and once an entire team and the way they were interacting with our largely female student population. The important thing is to bring event staff attention to it, because if they don't know then the occurrence doesn't get tracked and everyone thinks everything is just fine.

[MARS_James]

Unless this gets back on topic it is heading to a very bad place so if this continues I am certain that this thread will be closed or deleted and this thread deserves to to be seen and discussed civilly.

So if we could get back on track and continue the arguments by private message I am sure we all would appreciate it.

I think what every post wants and every team should do is educate the mascots on appropriate behavior and rules and when those rules are broken respond swiftly and decisively

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

There were two reasons for me including who was making the complaint:

1. To state that it was a group of individuals from outside of FIRST
2. In relation to 1 why we went back to the team because they were a group of guests who may not have known that they could go to event staff or even who to go to.

As an aside I never stated they were female infact 3 of them were Male cheerleaders you were the one who assumed they were girls.

^^ Apologies - I wasn't specifically assigning my use of 'girls' to your story, and I could have been clearer about that. I'm more generally talking about the tendency to assign a girl as the victim in this story and a guy as the creepy mascot.

I think we just need to all remember the point here: that any human touching another human without their consent needs to straight-up stop, and we need to work on our internal FIRST community culture to end it. Maybe we could all continue the discussion without so much personal calling-out?

[coalhot]

Originally Posted by Libby K

I think we just need to all remember the point here: that any human touching another human without their consent needs to straight-up stop, and we need to work on our internal FIRST community culture to end it. Maybe we could all continue the discussion without so much personal calling-out?

Would it be possible for kickoff venues to run workshops on stuff like this, or for FIRST to put out a video guideline? I know most universities would be ok with sending the student that's their mascot by to talk to kids, and if FIRST put out a real guideline, it's more clear-cut as to "follow the guideline, or no mascot for you".