Girls on Teams

[Amanda M]

I've been there... Cheerleading AND Choir.

This has them both beat into the ground.

[BandChick]

nothing wrong with that...i've maintained my "girly" side...hell, i'm a flute player, that's gotta say something.

but as it goes, robotics is a close second to marching band...although comfort wise there's no contest.

[Amanda M]

I actually quit Marching band for Robotics.

But I think that robotics teams need girls. If they don't have them, then how do you get that feminine touch on spirit stuff and pit decorations and design? I think that we are very useful!

[Alaina]

Originally posted by BandChick
nothing wrong with that...i've maintained my "girly" side...hell, i'm a flute player, that's gotta say something.

but as it goes, robotics is a close second to marching band...although comfort wise there's no contest.

I play violin.
And I wouldn't quit orchestra for anything...I'd die without my music. But that's super kool you're in marching band. I love my school's band.

[Pin Man]

There are not a lot of girls on our team but they play a huge role... We want more girls to get involved...

[Greg]

We only have one girl on our team, but our team is very small (about 15 people). She actually does a lot of work on the bot, including design, assembly, and even aluminum welding, as well as PR. Go Catherine!

[Alaina]

On the way home from SVR, we were talking about giving individual awards to individual team members. And Cooney was like "What should we give Alaina?" Then Benjie said "The Girl Award!" Then everyone laughed and thought it was a good idea...So I added, "No, how about Putting Up With Being The Only Girl Because It Can Really Be Crap Award?" Which is much more fitting...
It was very difficult coming on the second day, and totally being left out on dinner and hangning out with other teams in the hotel, and rooming 2 buildings away from everyone in the same hotel, and being the last to arrive in the pits the next morning because nobody told me when to be ready and they left without me...
Hopefully next year I can get another girl to join.

[codeoftherobot]

our team has no girls whatsoever. it's an all guy school. however we have a close partnership with a fellow all-girl school who introduced FIRST to us. so in a sense when combined, our teams have about 50-50 for guys and girls. what's funny is that the two regionals we were at, we were always in the pit area right next to each other.

[Linda Westrick]

I'm the only girl on my team this year, although we've had more girls in the past. I don't really think of myself as female any more than I think of my friends as male, as far as robotics is concerned. It's like being ridiculously tall or having curly hair or not liking pizza or being addicted to vitamin C: we're all unique. We identify ourselves with what we love - robotics - and not with physical differences. Our team size is 12. My role on the team is head of programming and electronics.

So aside from the classic electronics banter ("Hey you! Bring me a male!"), gender isn't a big issue on our team. I don't know if our female scarcity should be an issue. It'd be nice if there were more girls on our team. Then again, it'd be nice if there were more guys too, and more tall people, and more curly-haired people, and more C addicts, and everything else . . .

I have never experienced the "glass ceiling" from men. However, I have met prejudice from a surprising source: women. I was made rather angry at nationals last year when I, elbow deep in the electronics, was asked by a female judge if I had designed the team logo. Later that day another lady asked me if I had made the team hats. There is nothing wrong with making logos and hats, but none of the guys on my team were asked such questions. It was interesting because the people asking me these questions were all female. I have never had a male assume that I do non-technical stuff just because I'm a girl.

[yelly]

I'm the only girl on our team of 10. Let's see... what do I do? I design and maintain our website, strategy (the only one), scouting, and I did the chairman's award. When I'm not doing that, I try to help with the robot.

I do a lot for my team; however, I encountered a HUGE problem at regionals this past week. I debated about whether or not I should tell the story, because I didn't want to make my team look bad... but I sort of want everyone's opinion on what I can do about it, because I was extremely offended.

One of our two mentors (and we have no engineer) is an ex-marine who has a completely old-fashioned view of gender roles. He believes that women can not and should not do any sort of labor or manual work, basically. I didn't really know that he felt this way until regionals when we were in close proximity. Every time I attempted to do something in the pit (we had a very cranky, breaking robot), he'd take it away from me or yell at a guy to do it. Now I KNOW that's not in the spirit of FIRST, at all. I confronted him about it, and he still doesn't understand how incredibly insulting and belittling it is when he acts like this. He will continue to treat me like a frail little girl who can't even carry a 5 pound tool box. Short of throwing a temper tantrum in the pits so that every other team will see what a chauvinistic man he is (which I almost did, but then thought better of it), what can I do?

[Amanda M]

Wow! That's not very nice... I don't know what to do. What I would do is talk to him about it rationally. Wait for a while and calm down about it, and tell him HONESTLY and EARNESTLY how you feel. If he doesn't get the picture, then he's a lost cause. >.<

You could also get it on tape and then show him..
It'll be like, "Hey! You're on candid camera!"

I'll keep thinking about it...

-Amanda

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by yelly
One of our two mentors (and we have no engineer) is an ex-marine who has a completely old-fashioned view of gender roles.

Reminds me of something that happened years ago.

I was standing in line at the cash register, my purchases on the conveyor belt. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a guy put stuff down to buy, and I reached over and got a divider to put behind my stuff. He LOL and said, "What? You don't want to buy my stuff?" I looked and saw the case of beer.

*chuckle* I'm not always so quick on my feet, but I good naturedly responded quickly, "You want to buy mine?!?"

The older obviously big macho military type quickly checked out my purchases (tampons and pads), turned beet red and couldn't speak.

[HolyMasamune]

on our team the girls worked on the drivetrain and did pr stuff

[Gobiner]

On our team of about 14, we have 3 girls, and I'm 98% certain that those 3 girls are intimidated by their male counterparts. This is our second year, and we have 3 people returning from last year. We 3 guys are from the general 'smart kid' caste, so everyone on the team (I think) is intimidated to some degree. The problem is:
a. We have limited skill in social situations (I'll admit it)
b. We have previous experience in this application of engineering
c. Most of the other team members don't
So, we can't really empathize with the situation of the other team members, and we have difficulty including them (we're a pretty cohesive group). As someone mentioned earlier, the girls seem to lack initiative (in our case most of the team has that symptom) but I think it spawns from the intimidating nature of our team.
Anyway, just one guy's take on the issue during a period of late night rambling.

EDIT: We forced our girls to work on the robot. Our speedy box flipper was the work of two girls. Two are seniors, and they tend to do PR type stuff, and our sophomore worked on the robot more (she's the younger daughter of aforementioned 'smart kid' so she's probably less intimidated).
EDIT2: I'm less coherent than I had thought.

[Pin Man]

jeeze a lot of teams dont have like any girls on the team...