The institutionalization of FRC teams, and the toxicity it creates

[NShep98]

Originally Posted by IKE

Inner groups and favoritism do often form and cause problems. Sometimes this is because the "favorites" spend the most time. Sometimes it is because they behave the best. Sometimes there are other forms of favoritism (nepotism, sexism, cronyism) at play. Most mentors try not to play favorites, but it happens similarly to HS sports teams. Unfortunately, this is a real occurrence.
I am not trying to "blame the victim", but it is often worthwhile to do a self assessment to ensure you are not doing a lot of off-putting behaviors. If you come up with some, work on those. Also, ask if you can have a discussion with mentors about taking a larger/more important role with the team. Ask what they are looking for in their leaders and how you could demonstrate. You could try to have a conversation about favoritism, but often this can lead to confrontational discussion that may not be beneficial.

I see your points about favoritism, but the fact that the girls seem to run the entire show, to the point where they are flat-out removing people from the team who disagree with them, leads me to believe that this team has taken the "inclusion of women in STEM" concept in the entire wrong direction. It certainly sounds like the boys are putting a considerable effort into contributing to the team only to be ignored, and such a significant split between "favorites" and "everyone else" is something I consider unacceptable. If it were me on this team, I would gather up the "everyone else"s to make a plan to confront the people who are apparently controlling the team. After all, you can only kick off so many people before it stops being a team. Just my speculation.