Sign this petition to allow girls in robotics! (at Timmins Public library)!

[Ty Tremblay]

Originally Posted by gblake

If everyone who virtually signed the petition, additionally/instead sent $1 (US) to the library, the library would have plenty off money for starting a co-ed program to operate alongside their current program, and would be able to pay a nice stipend to whoever administers, and to whoever mentors, that new co-ed program.

I'm thinking that would be an excellent positive/helpful outcome; and repeating it would be a knee-jerk reaction worth cultivating.

Blake

The point is NOT that the library doesn't have enough money for women to attend the program. The point is that the library should be accepting women into the program regardless of how much money they have instead of making generic assumptions under the guise of maximizing effectiveness.

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay

The point is NOT that the library doesn't have enough money for women to attend the program. The point is that the library should be accepting women into the program regardless of how much money they have instead of making generic assumptions under the guise of maximizing effectiveness.

How much uproar would there be if this was a program targeted towards increasing girls in STEM and they refused a boy because there wasn't enough money?

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay

The point is NOT that the library doesn't have enough money for women to attend the program. The point is that the library should be accepting women into the program regardless of how much money they have instead of making generic assumptions under the guise of maximizing effectiveness.

And you got your in-depth understanding of the programs goals, the community's needs, and the program's financing from where exactly? I would like to learn about them too.

And, your assertion about correctness rests on what compromise among the various things a public intuition might try to accomplish? Absolutes are few and far between in these conversations. There is no such thing as "fairness" in an absolute sense, outside the realm of abstract mathematics.

[Ty Tremblay]

Originally Posted by gblake

And you got your in-depth understanding of the programs goals, the community's needs, and the program's financing from where exactly? I would like to learn about them too.

Mrs De Bonis explained to me that boys academic and literacy skills don't improve over the summer break therefore this program would only be offered to boys.

Nowhere in the change.org petition do they mention the library's finances. I was pointing out that throwing money at the library wouldn't solve the root problem raised specifically by this girl and her mother on the petition.

Originally Posted by MechEng83

How much uproar would there be if this was a program targeted towards increasing girls in STEM and they refused a boy because there wasn't enough money?

I guess it would depend on whether or not the boy's parent made a change.org petition and it went viral.

[cbale2000]

Not that I would encourage this, but I'm pretty sure if the parents were to sue the library they would win easily. Assuming this is a public library, this is a clear case of gender discrimination by a government entity. A good lawyer would have a field day with a case like this.

Just saying.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay

Mrs De Bonis explained to me that boys academic and literacy skills don't improve over the summer break therefore this program would only be offered to boys.

Nowhere in the change.org petition do they mention the library's finances. I was pointing out that throwing money at the library wouldn't solve the root problem raised specifically by this girl and her mother

Let me get this straight, you want me to take at face value, the accuracy and completeness of a virtual petition posted on the internet??? Please - I'm not that naive.

In addition to taking the Internet at face value being a low-payoff bet; nowhere in my post did I mention the library's finances either.

Please read again all of what I wrote. I didn't focus on finances. I raised the notion that telling someone they are wrong isn't the only way to react to an incompletely described situation like this; and I focused on ensuring interested young women's needs would be met.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by cbale2000

Not that I would encourage this, but I'm pretty sure if the parents were to sue the library they would win easily. Assuming this is a public library, this is a clear case of gender discrimination by a government entity. A good lawyer would have a field day with a case like this.

Just saying.

There's a big difference between hosting a targeted event and discrimination. Every year I play in a men's softball league during the summer. Is that gender discrimination, because the city hosting the league doesn't allow women into it? Is it somehow different if we look at their full offerings and see that, gosh, they also have co-ed and women's only legues?. What about all of those public schools that have separate girls/boys sports teams? Is it gender discrimination to not let a girl on the boys soccer team, or a boy on the girls swim team? Look at that libraries offerings - they offer a whole lot of stuff that isn't gendered. They have age ranges listed for many groups - is that age discrimination?

The key here, I think, is that the library isn't denying the girl the chance to visit, check out or read books, or join other groups. They just said no to joining this particular group. That doesn't make it discrimination.

All that said, this does appear, on the surface, as a case of fulfilling gender stereotypes, which is, unfortunately, something our society seems really good at doing all the time. We constantly push our stereotypical images, guiding different groups down different paths, which is something that we really should change, and something it would be great to see public places like the library try to tackle. This is an opportunity to educate the employees of that library, provide them with a shining example of non-stereotypical gender roles, and get them on our side. Not an opportunity to contemplate a lawsuit that really wouldn't have any winner.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

All that said, this does appear, on the surface, as a case of fulfilling gender stereotypes, which is, unfortunately, something our society seems really good at doing all the time. We constantly push our stereotypical images, guiding different groups down different paths, which is something that we really should change, and something it would be great to see public places like the library try to tackle. This is an opportunity to educate the employees of that library, provide them with a shining example of non-stereotypical gender roles, and get them on our side. Not an opportunity to contemplate a lawsuit that really wouldn't have any winner.

Not disagreeing, but, if valid measurements show that young mens' knowledge and abilities do erode significantly more than young womens' during school breaks; trying out a boys-only STEM program might be a useful experiment to run. After the results are in, the hypothetical program might adopt a more nuanced admission policy (and that policy might reject anyone who isn't at high risk of academic problems, including (my guess) the student who wants into the currently program).

I know a little about one large urban school system that use grant money to run a multi-million dollar STEM experiment that attempted to reduce students' post-summer-break test score declines. I believe the program was a glowing success.

That program enrolled students from "Title 1" schools (low-income communities). That was something of a broad brush approach to picking participants; but I'm *guessing* that it was a reasonable compromise to use in a large city in order to get usable result measurements without adding the expense and logistics of identifying and admitting candidate students one-by-one.

However, if you were the most-at-risk student in the least-affluent, non-Title-1 school district in that city, you might have wanted to start a virtual petition.

Was the program I described a good one, or an evil one? It didn't give every student a chance to participate.. It discriminated based on age, based on the student's neighbors' wealth, based on the total school system's boundaries, based on ...

Blake
PS: [TOTALLY TONGUE-IN-CHEEK]Extrapolating from the tiny bit of hopefully-accurate information we have about the program's reason for existing, the obvious way to change the program's goals in the future would be for the young women in the town to agree to purposefully do poorly on their back-to-school exams. If they do that, they will need summer programs more than the boys do.[/TOTALLY TONGUE-IN-CHEEK]

[Clem1640]

Likewise signed

[Madison]

Originally Posted by gblake

Not disagreeing, but, if valid measurements show that young mens' knowledge and abilities do erode significantly more than young womens' during school breaks; trying out a boys-only STEM program might be a useful experiment to run.

Is it the programming that prevents said erosion or that it is for boys only?

[Tytus Gerrish]

That's messed up

[AlexanderTheOK]

I have to agree that jumping on the "discrimination" bandwagon this early is a tad bit unreasonable considering how little we actually know about this program, however, the reasoning (that the petition claims was given, not a direct statement by the library available to us) is some that I have never seen before.

I'm not particularly invested in this issue, so I'm not quite willing to go looking, but has anyone found any kind of evidence supporting this kind of argument? In addition, depending on how they are gathering their data, it seems like allowing girls into the program would be a non issue, as they could simply separate the girls and boys data afterwards. Just seems a bit strange is all.

[cbale2000]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

There's a big difference between hosting a targeted event and discrimination. Every year I play in a men's softball league during the summer. Is that gender discrimination, because the city hosting the league doesn't allow women into it? Is it somehow different if we look at their full offerings and see that, gosh, they also have co-ed and women's only leagues? What about all of those public schools that have separate girls/boys sports teams? Is it gender discrimination to not let a girl on the boys soccer team, or a boy on the girls swim team? Look at that libraries offerings - they offer a whole lot of stuff that isn't gendered. They have age ranges listed for many groups - is that age discrimination?

In the cases you list though, women have their own groups for basically the same things. That does not seem to be the case in this instance with this library. If the library were offering a girls class and a boys class I doubt there would be a complaint, but because they are offering a class that excludes girls without any alternative, the case could be made that it's discriminatory.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this should go to court; I was merely making the observation that if the family wanted to pursue legal action they would probably have a good chance of winning based on examples I've seen of other cases somewhat similar to this. I also think that the library is being stupid for opening themselves up to the potential legal issues (and the costs associated with fighting it) that such litigation would impose, and that the very simple solution is to either hold two classes or not block girls from joining it if they're interested.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by gblake

Let me get this straight, you want me to take at face value, the accuracy and completeness of a virtual petition posted on the internet??? Please - I'm not that naive.

I've withheld my judgement (and my signature) from this completely until and unless there's a clearer explanation of circumstances from both sides. For instance, is it a finance issue, is it a research study, is it funded by a restricted grant, is there a counterpart group for girls*? I am all for not taking things at face value. At the same time, Blake, I do believe that you're the one who asked us to send money to the library--what would amount to $2,500 total--not only without knowing whether this is due to financial or other acceptable reasons, but without having any idea whatsoever what the library would do with that money. I'm all for giving both sides the opportunity to explain their case, but can we all please refrain from making up positive claims in order to deliberately use them against opposition supporters?

*To address myself and Jon Stratis, the petition explains "She [Assistant Library Director Elaine De Bonis] said I [the girl in question] could be added to a waiting list and if enough girls showed interest they could possibly look into offering it to girls in the future." I have no reason to disbelieve this and no evidence to the contrary, but at this point it's hearsay.

[Siri]

In other news, just hit this in my research:

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dail...184721564.html

Timmins Public Library reverses decision on boys-only robotics event after girl's petition