Gender Equality: A Work in Progress

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace

So you have a freshman girl who prefers to clean than participate in robot build?

Have you ever thought that maybe that's what she is comfortable doing. Perhaps her tendency to be a perfectionist is what is keeping her back from asking to help with the robot. She may be afraid to mess it up.

When I first started on my team as a student, I had the opportunity to drive the robot. That act promptly broke something on it. I immediately felt awful, thinking I had done something wrong. What helped to shape the rest of my FRC career was one mentor telling me, non sarcastically, "Nice job. Better to break something here than on the field at competition. Now we know what to fix..." and then inviting me over to see what we could do about it.

I, too, was a student who liked a clean shop and would clean around the robot. It was my way of seeing, from a safe distance, what others were doing, learning about tools, and becoming comfortable in the shop.

Now I still prefer to write (heck, I'm an English teacher), but I'm just as capable and comfortable with tools as many of my male counterpart mentors, and I am more capable at strategy than most of them. Thanks 33, for pushing me outside the box of "Girls like writing and cleanliness."

She has helped with the robot but she says cleaning and organizing is relaxing to her. Do you have any tips to see if she actually wants to clean or is just in her shell.