Making STEM a better place for women

[Katie_UPS]

Originally Posted by popnbrown

The few female mentors I've worked side-by-side with have been some of the best, but they are very hard to find. Not just technical mentors, but mentors in general. I also have a general problem recruiting mentors, but I'd be interested in hearing any advice for recruiting female mentors.

One quick tip for recruiting female mentors: Don't recruit female mentors, recruit mentors.

"We want you to mentor our team because we want a lady mentor/positive female role model" is way less inviting than "We want you to mentor our team because of your X, Y, and Z skills." The former makes me valuable only because of my gender (something I have no control over) and the latter makes me valuable for the set of skills and knowledge I have worked to acquire and improve upon.

I'm not saying you can't ask women to be mentors or recruit them more heavily. I am saying that you should find value in your female mentors beyond their gender.

[Jon Stratis]

The problem with recruiting female engineers really comes down to numbers. According to some statistics I've heard before, only 13% of engineers are female, and the percentage can be worse when you look at specific engineering fields.

My experience at companies I've worked for shows that very few people want to dedicate the time and energy to mentor a team. Maybe 1/1000 people. Now, that's fine when you look at trying to recruit someone (non gender specific) to mentor your team, as there are a lot of comeanies out there, and hundreds of thousands of engineers you could draw from. When you start applying filters to your recruitment criteria (must be female, or must be a specific type of engineer, etc), your pool of potential recruits rapidly decreases, and your left looking for a specific needle in a haystack full of needles that aren't quite right.

My team doesn't actively recruit female mentors, despite being an all girls team from an all girls school. We recruit mentors, and those mentors ensure there's a gender-neutral attitude in everything we do. the female mentors we have fall into three categories: parents, teachers, and returning former students. It just happened to work out that way.

For those female student here, I want to ask - which is more important to you, having a female mentor to look up to, or having your mentor (regardless of gender) show confidence, support, and respect for you? At the end of the day, that's all us poor males can really do to help you grow!

[ATannahill]

Originally Posted by MysterE

<snip>

A) Always stick together - This is not always possible but as much as they can I like students to have at least one person with them at all times. This is especially true if they are going to be outside of the arena and sometimes even if they are going to the restroom.

B) Trust your instincts - If someone is making you uncomfortable, distance yourself from them and tell one of your mentors. While a mentor may not be able to directly deal with someone who is making a student feel uncomfortable, they can be made more aware of the situation and help mitigate in whatever way possible.

C) Always Inform - If something happens, whether it be an altercation with a student or an adult, never be afraid to tell a mentor. We always have both male and female mentors or parent volunteers available at each competition. If someone does something that you feel is inappropriate, you should never feel embarrassed to let us know.

D) And lastly - Embarrassment can save your life. This is perhaps the most difficult yet the most effective form of safety. If someone will not leave you alone, get loud and do whatever you can to get out of the situation. It doesn't matter if you are wrong or right because trusting your instincts is always better than not. What I told the person who was dealing with the adult in the stands was that next time they needed to step aside and allow the person to go ahead of them. If that did not work they needed to look at the person and in a firm and loud voice they needed to say "You are making me uncomfortable, please leave me alone."

Generally this will deter anyone who is being overly creepy - especially as many people don't even recognize they are doing it. If not, or if they try to hold a conversation, repeat the phrase but louder. At some point, someone else will notice and should help. As a last result - you yell. Yes, it may be embarrassing to you, but it will also call attention to what is going on.

Public embarrassment can be very detrimental to teenagers, especially when it is in regards to socially awkward students interacting with the other gender. B and C should come before D if it is at all possible. As you stated, people who are being creepy are often not aware of it and should be told in a constructive way by someone that they trust. Mechvet has posted how to handle this conversation.

Originally Posted by Mechvet

<snip>

To refer to your specific case, pulling the (male) student aside, and having a talk about how his actions are perceived can do him a lot of good, as well as remove the negative situation for the female student. The exact phrasing here is something you've got to CAREFULLY consider. Crushing the student's expression of affection isn't the goal. The goal is to explain that another person isn't perceiving their affection the same way, as well as to put into context the professional manner in which the student SHOULD act.

In summary, sometimes telling someone they're not acting right is what needs to be done. It's not a natural feeling, but it gets easier over time.

[MechEng83]

As far as internal team dynamics, we do a few things to address these types of problems.

1st, we have a team handbook that outlines specific behaviors that are wholly not acceptable. This is emphasized throughout the year.

2nd, we have occasional girl and boy meetings, specifically to discuss issues and situations that have happened and may arise and how to handle them. My students know both what is expected of them and what to do if they are put into an uncomfortable situation both within and outside the team. For the boy meeting, I highlight that it's not just their own behavior they should be concerned about, but others too. Watch out for your teammates and help them out in whatever situations they are in. I have never been part of the girl meeting (no guys allowed), so I only know what I've been told about what gets discussed, but it's important to know that your team has your back.

3rd, I insert myself into situations at events where I notice guys creeping on my female students. I introduce myself in a friendly, yet forceful, manner as their mentor and ask if there's anything I can do to help them out. The creeps tend to get very uncomfortable and leave quickly when they've been caught. Hyper-vigilance is unfortunately necessary at times.

[techhelpbb]

To me this is a social interaction.
There are plenty of ways to creep people out in a social setting regardless of gender.

If it gets to the point that someone feels uncomfortable they should feel safe enough to come forward and to report the issue. The person that is causing the issue should feel safe enough to tell their side and have a learning moment.

People do awkward things and sometimes they do so mindlessly.
We can overreact or we can manage that.
If these situations fail to be managed - then you make sure they can't escalate.

[Sperkowsky]

Lets keep in mind that this is natural.

There are quite a few socially awkward male and females in robotics so these situations can get worse. And, the lack of females with the interest can extenuate the situation but regardless this is life.

I am not advocating for creepy behavior but normal flirting and tries at a relationship with other members or members from other teams are to be expected.

We all are high school students after all.

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Lets keep in mind that this is natural.

There are quite a few socially awkward male and females in robotics so these situations can get worse. And, the lack of females with the interest can extenuate the situation but regardless this is life.

I am not advocating for creepy behavior but normal flirting and tries at a relationship with other members or members from other teams are to be expected.

We all are high school students after all.

I think I get what you meant with this statement, but if that 'normal flirting' makes a student on my team uncomfortable, the offending student needs to be checked up on, not approached with the attitude of 'oh well, this is life'.

If it's an issue of alienating a teammate, male or female, with creepy behavior, then the issue has to be dealt with.

You're hovering right around a 'boys will be boys' (I guess in this case, 'nerds will be nerds') mentality with this post - I hope you can clarify what you're actually trying to say.

[Just Doug]

The thing that bugs me the most is when I notice sexism on the part of the student members of our team. We correct it as quickly as it happens, but we don't have a mentor there for every exchange that every student has. We try to handle it in the same way that the team handles bullying, because really it is the same thing. Outside of that maintaining an open line of communications helps with many issues.

Our student president started a high school club that interfaces with SWE a few years back. It has done wonders for recruiting girls onto the team. I don't want to make too many conjectures about why it works, but I am under the impression that it provides an environment where the students are more comfortable talking about problems that happen in the STEM arena.

-Doug

[Philip Arola]

Originally Posted by Libby K

I think I get what you meant with this statement, but if that 'normal flirting' makes a student on my team uncomfortable, the offending student needs to be checked up on, not approached with the attitude of 'oh well, this is life'.

If it's an issue of alienating a teammate, male or female, with creepy behavior, then the issue has to be dealt with.

You're hovering right around a 'boys will be boys' (I guess in this case, 'nerds will be nerds') mentality with this post - I hope you can clarify what you're actually trying to say.

I think you might be confusing pragmatism for fatalism. As far as I can tell, he was saying that hormonal boys will act stupidly, and that this is natural. It is the job of adults (parents, teachers, mentors) to help them overcome their impulsiveness; that an impulsive boy is not going to necessarily be bad.

Let's not forget that mentors themselves can be creepy, especially when they attempt to intervene in teenage hormone-politics. As a mentor, I am fully accepting that I am a fallible being who can misread a situation. I have seen multiple mentors completely misjudge the speech and intent of students, and thus (publically) embarrass students, therefore creating the alienation themselves. Mentors should try to talk to the victim and gauge the situation appropriately before proceeding.

If there is any doubt on how to proceed, I would defer to parental involvement. Not only is it legally safer, parents generally know their kids better than coaches (and have a captive audience, I suppose).

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

It is really really s****y that I have to go to female student members on my team and walk them through best practices for dealing with unsolicited actions and unacceptable behavior from other people at competitions... but what am I supposed to do? Telling them and their parents "kids will be kids" and "boys will be boys" is an unacceptable response.

Team members sign a code of conduct and are reminded repeatedly throughout the season pretty bluntly to not be a creep or a jerk lest they be disappeared from the team if remedial action proves fruitless. FIRST and STEM does need a culture change to fix this really serious problem.

(Truncated quote, tried to keep it fair)
Yes, life sucks. That's been plain to me for years. As a mentor, you acknowledge that you don't want the students' life to suck. Great. I don't know if this is an uncharacteristically blunt post of yours, but it seems that you're far too unrealistic with what you want life to be like. There are lots of things that are bad that girls, indeed, all teenagers, even all people have to deal with. Even if change is what you are working towards, it is shortsighted and irresponsible to not teach them how to deal with it in the meantime.

Culture change? This statement implies that FIRST (and even more unrealistically, STEM) is monolithic. Not only is this a fundamental untruth at a team level, but on a geographic level. This is a cop-out, a meaningless phrase.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Lets keep in mind that this is natural.

There are quite a few socially awkward male and females in robotics so these situations can get worse. And, the lack of females with the interest can extenuate the situation but regardless this is life.

I am not advocating for creepy behavior but normal flirting and tries at a relationship with other members or members from other teams are to be expected.

We all are high school students after all.

The number one reason I still do what I do is because I want to provide as many students as possible with an equal or preferably better experience in FIRST than my own. I assume and hope that is the case for a lot of other alumni mentors.

When students do not feel like they feel safe or comfortable in a given environment, I take that very seriously and try to use the available channels to rectify that situation.

It is really really s****y that I have to go to female student members on my team and walk them through best practices for dealing with unsolicited actions and unacceptable behavior from other people at competitions... but what am I supposed to do? Telling them and their parents "kids will be kids" and "boys will be boys" is an unacceptable response.

I try to be proactive as possible when considering these scenarios but there is no more painful failure as a coach than having students who have been negatively affected by outside people so much that they cannot perform their duties and experience the benefits of FRC's competitive environments.

Team members sign a code of conduct and are reminded repeatedly throughout the season pretty bluntly to not be a creep or a jerk lest they be disappeared from the team if remedial action proves fruitless. FIRST and STEM does need a culture change to fix this really serious problem.

When a student comes to me and expresses relief that some guy that creeped her out at events will be going to a different college than her, that forms a really weird bittersweet reactionary thought in my head--a thought quickly replaced by the unfortunate and well-supported fear in the back of my head that her desire to pursue a degree in engineering means this will not be the last time she has to deal with this.

[popnbrown]

So I thought about this for a while and

Originally Posted by Katie_UPS

One quick tip for recruiting female mentors: Don't recruit female mentors, recruit mentors.

I feel the need to be a little defensive, I apologize if I misunderstood.

I'm not saying you can't ask women to be mentors or recruit them more heavily. I am saying that you should find value in your female mentors beyond their gender.

I think I wasn't very thorough in my initial statement. I don't see that gender is the only value in female mentors, but I do think it is a value of female mentors. Perhaps we may have a disagreement as to the priority of that value, it's not currently high for me, but I could see it being high. So my question was really aimed at developing strategies when there's a time or for others where that value is high.

[GreyingJay]

I liked Mechvet's comment about mentoring so much that I've made it my signature.

There's absolutely no tolerance for being creepy, but I also get that students can be socially awkward and may not be doing it intentionally. As a mentor (and long time summer camp counsellor) when I see situations like this I try to have a talk with the instigator and let them know that their behaviour is unacceptable.

FRC teams should be a safe environment for all students. This includes making sure students feel safe from being harassed, but it should also be a safe place for corrective learning and encouragement without shaming or embarrassing people. What better place to teach our students how to treat other people right. They're certainly not getting that message from movies, TV shows, music, and social media.

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by Katie_UPS

One quick tip for recruiting female mentors: Don't recruit female mentors, recruit mentors.

"We want you to mentor our team because we want a lady mentor/positive female role model" is way less inviting than "We want you to mentor our team because of your X, Y, and Z skills." The former makes me valuable only because of my gender (something I have no control over) and the latter makes me valuable for the set of skills and knowledge I have worked to acquire and improve upon.

And to add to this, it's entirely possible for women to be awful mentors too. If you're recruiting female mentors just for the sake of having a female mentor, you're not going to gain anything unless they also have the skillset you're looking for in a mentor, and the skills a mentor needs to be a good mentor are independent of gender.

I've never had a strong female mentor*. Not in high school, not in college, not now as a full-time engineer. I have worked with and learned from many, many wonderful men and women (some in a technical situation, most not), but the only mentors* I have worked with in a consistent, daily/weekly capacity (like in FRC) or a 1-on-1 long-term capacity (like in college/careers) have been male. I greatly appreciate the support these men have given me and wouldn't trade them for the world.

Having only male mentors has worked for me. I might not work for every girl out there. Not all high school girls are comfortable approaching men (or they may be, but not for all topics), and for this reason, I think it's important to have a diverse set of mentors on an FRC team if possible. But, every mentor should be respectful and supportive, regardless of who they are and who they are mentoring.

*Everyone's definition of mentorship is different. I consider a mentor of mine to be someone I work extensively with and receive advice from regularly. As said above, I have worked with and learned from many fantastic people, but not always for a continued period of time. I consider them important influences in my life and greatly value they support, advice, and inspiration they have provided me, but would not necessarily define them as "mentors".

[Amanda Morrison]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Lets keep in mind that this is natural.

There are quite a few socially awkward male and females in robotics so these situations can get worse. And, the lack of females with the interest can extenuate the situation but regardless this is life.

I am not advocating for creepy behavior but normal flirting and tries at a relationship with other members or members from other teams are to be expected.

We all are high school students after all.

Originally Posted by Philip Arola

Yes, life sucks. That's been plain to me for years. As a mentor, you acknowledge that you don't want the students' life to suck. Great. I don't know if this is an uncharacteristically blunt post of yours, but it seems that you're far too unrealistic with what you want life to be like. There are lots of things that are bad that girls, indeed, all teenagers, even all people have to deal with.

I thought about it for a while, and yes, I think these are two of the most potentially harmful things I have ever read on this forum. In 15 years, that is quite a feat.

What you both are saying, to your mentors, your peers, and the whole of this community, is that your personal experience and gut feeling about an experience you haven't personally had trumps documented and researched societal bias, not to mention the experiences others HAVE had. To expect people of all genders to behave responsibly, and with respect toward other human beings, is not and will never be unrealistic. Because it does not happen 100% of the time does not mean the answer should be "deal with it".

You've made a few key mistakes here, such as:

- lumping in all females into one large group together without taking almost infinite factors into account (race, gender, height, weight, background, communication methods, invisible illnesses, etc.),

- trivializing seriously disturbing behavior toward women,

- speaking on behalf of women, all women! women everywhere! every single woman!, without discernable qualifications, and perhaps most important,

- deciding that the way women deal with situations is a woman's responsibility, but others' behavior is not their own responsibility


This kind of thinking creates a cyclical culture of alienating women from a community and then wondering why more women don't want to join that community. Trivializing anyone's experiences - of any gender - does nothing to help but does repeat that pattern, and in this way it is harmful. Thinking like this is why women are discouraged from STEM. Thinking like this is why women don't speak up. I say that because as a student way back when, hearing/seeing my mentors or peers speaking like this would have immediately shut me off from this program. Immediately.

OP, to get back to your original question, one option is to talk with your students so that they are aware how to handle harassment. It can happen to both genders in this setting (and yes, I have witnessed it), so I encourage this to be a team discussion. Knowledge is one thing you can do to empower your students to seek help when they feel uncomfortable.

The fact that you are pondering - and listening - about how to fix this real problem is already helping. I encourage you to seek out TED Talks and research that has already been done and posted online. There is a multitude of resources, especially that other wise CD members have posted in the past.

[JBotAlan]

I think we have two camps misunderstanding each other. I could be wrong, it's happened once or twice before, but...

I don't think anyone on this thread is taking the position that the behavior I've described (borderline stalking) is acceptable and nothing should be done about it, at least that isn't how I'm reading what's happening in this thread.

To put it into my own terms, I was a social outcast coming into FIRST, and really my peers, mentors, other students' parents and my teachers did a very good job of forming me, teaching me norms, dos and don'ts, and correcting misbehavior along the way. I made folks uncomfortable completely unintentionally. I said some nasty things that I had no clue were nasty until I saw the reactions on peoples' faces. And this was all in the process of learning the norms that my classmates had long picked up by this point in life. This social formation is singlehandedly the best element of what FIRST did for me along the way to graduation and college.

I think what the posters have tried to express is not "boys will be boys" but rather that this is an ugly, messy, painful, screwed up process in which mistakes are going to be made and people are going to need correction and help understanding and getting through.

I figured I would get called out on specifying that the female is on the receiving end of male misbehavior. I'm sure it does happen in the reverse, I'd never claim it doesn't, but the examples I've had at hand have all been male misconduct. I don't mean to make a statement of fact about either gender and I am genuinely sorry if my remarks came across to the contrary.

Jacob