Discussion on All-Girl events

[Steven Smith]

Against my better judgement, and probably to little avail… I've written a lengthy reply to this post.

Regarding Reverse Discrimination

I would like to think I'm open minded enough to understand arguments on both sides of the coin.

For supporters of affirmative action to “move the needle”, whether by hiring, educating, or supporting historically underrepresented minorities in a given profession, the belief is that our current society still lacks fairness. While it might be technically correct to use the term “discrimination” to refer to any group/event that excludes a another group based on gender, such as males not being invited to an all-girls event, let’s zoom out a few hundred years to get a little context of what systemic, societal discrimination really is. In the US, we have been a country for nearly 250 years. For ~150 of those years, women were not allowed to even vote. For ~200 of those years, people of color were not allowed to vote, or there were unofficial policies inhibiting them from voting. In the 1800s, there were laws that said it was ILLEGAL to teach people of color to read or write. There still countries now where people are KILLED, fighting for the rights for women to just go to school. There are countries where people are KILLED for being gay. In recent history, there were policies that encouraged mass abortions/murder of female babies in preference of male children. Discrimination exists, and while thankfully it is far less damaging in the US today than it was 50-100 years ago, it does exist, and past echos are still felt.

This is not white guilt speaking, and I am not trying to blame today’s white males (of which I am one), for being discriminatory. However, I would hope that we can agree that one of the biggest contributors to a child’s success rate are their parents’ education level and income. Yes, there are plenty of examples of poor students from uneducated parents that buck statistics and become wildly successful, but on average, the system is in your favor if you are born to college educated parents, who by extension are more likely to have a higher income level. So if I had active discriminatory policies that forbid the education of a subset of people, and then tomorrow I allow it, while I am no longer actively discriminating against them, I have dropped them into a society that is stacked against them. If they are not educated, they are less likely to have the means to educate their children, and you get a trickle-down effect of that discrimination that will go away with time, but it does persist. Fifty years or one hundred years feels like SO MUCH TIME, so it is hard to fathom for some today that the effects remain, but you are really only talking about 2 to 4 generations.

Affirmative action policies are based around the idea that unless you truly believe that a woman, a racial/ethnic minority, and/or an LBGT+ person is born incapable of learning math, being an engineer, being active in politics, making as much money, etc when compared to a white/straight/male person… then there is no reason why the distribution of income/professions/etc should not reflect the racial/gender makeups of our country. Because it doesn’t, we should push some groups up (knowing full well that mathematically, we have to lower the % of the majority), to close that artificial gap.

I get why that feels so wrong, and I can appreciate the feeling of “reverse discrimination”. If you are up for a job, and are 5% more qualified on paper than another applicant, and hypothetically that applicant gets an edge “to meet a quota”... for the individuals in question it doesn’t matter… it just feels wrong. However, what if that 5% the slightly more qualified applicant had was because more opportunities afforded them, or they didn’t have to work through college and could study more because their parents could afford to pay for it, or any other number of reasons that have less to do with how “good” that individual is, and more to do with their parents and their society. Maybe their parents had two kids, and as the boy, they got all the attention, worked in their father’s shop, and was trained from a young age that “engineering was right for them”, while the girl got Barbie dolls and didn’t realize until later in life that she too really liked engineering and was perfectly capable of doing it as well, but had to play catch-up. Maybe the person that is 5% less qualified on paper has had to work harder to get there, and would make a better employee. Or maybe it’s all backwards and the (hypothetically white male) applicant was the poor one that worked their butt off, and the minority applicant actually had well off parents and got all the benefits plus an extra boost. All that said, it is a fact that these subtle (or less subtle) negative biases exist, and the purpose of affirmative action really just to match them with a positive bias.

The final thing I’ll say on reverse discrimination before a personal story is I also acknowledge that poor white males get the short end of this stick. I could fathom a poor white male feeling reverse discrimination because they feel like they are not receiving these “magic benefits” that people claim they get as a white male, while other groups are being lifted up around them through targeted attention. When I am out there as a mentor, trying to swing the needle in my own community, that extends to poorer students of all races/ethnicities/genders/etc.

I can remember a time in my life when I recoiled at the thought of affirmative action, but beliefs imprinted on me at a younger age keep shedding off as I grow up and see more of the world. I work a large, multinational company in the facilities engineering group. Our company as a whole is consistently ranked in all the lists as being supportive and inclusive of people of all backgrounds, but our particular group is still overwhelmingly white and male. I have heard first-hand people say things about women/minorities like “they were just promoted/hired to meet a quota”, as well as other disrespectful things. This sort of behavior is absolutely hostile, and I think keeps people out of the door, and chases out others that came in. I mention this in no way to try to criticize my company or the leaders' attempts to make a better workplace, but hopefully because others have seen similar issues and can relate.

As a hypothetical situation, as I’m not involved in recruiting and have no directly knowledge of the process, if my company said… hey Steven, go recruit new engineers… where am I going to go? Probably back to my alma mater’s engineering school, which is mostly white/male, because it is the comfortable choice. I know where I’m going, I know the people there to talk to, and it’s just easier. I’m also likely have a slight internal bias towards people “like me”, and probably be slightly more likely to hire a white man. I’d like to think in an individual situation, I’d have no bias, but I know it exists at some level. If all of our recruiters are white males because our group is all white males… guess who we are probably going to hire… more white males. If HR says we really need to consider hiring more women or minorities, at least we have a reason to fight that natural bias. Additionally, we could (and do) send more women/minorities as recruiters, to help neutralize the bias. If there were no affirmative action policies and we just let nature take its course, I truly believe the needle wouldn’t move. This isn’t an issue just because of a mismatch in statistics, it’s an issue because our group would be missing out on a diversity of people and opinions that make us stronger. If you only hire people that think like you and have the same background as you, you get an echo chamber effect.

Regarding Specific Events Targeting Women/Minorities/Etc

Here, I’ll apologize for a little more direct tone, because it really gets under my skin. I see the same argument drummed up every time a group of female/black/Hispanic/LBGT+/etc wants to form a group to talk about shared issues. “Well if they can have a group, why can’t I”. Why is it acceptable to have a Society of Women Engineers (as one example of many), but I can’t start a group called the Society of Male Engineers? The argument is just ridiculous to me. The reason why not, is because there is literally no other point other than spiteful retaliation against the idea of being excluded from something, or perhaps wanting to maintain the current lopsided gender statistics in engineering. SWE provides opportunities for young women to meet working professionals that are also female, to discuss shared experiences of women entering the engineering profession, and to promote diversity. Flipping this on its head to say we should have the same for men, simply so they don’t get their feelings hurt from being excluded is silly. We don’t need a special group to make it easier for men to be engineers, or to recognize the special hurdles than men suffer trying to be an engineer, or trying to find a male role model as an engineer. THIS DOESN’T MEAN, we shouldn’t support men who want to be engineers, groups like FIRST are already doing this, it just doesn’t mean we need a SME because we have a SWE, or an IndyRAGE for Men to "balance" IndyRAGE for Women.

That also doesn't mean because someone is a male, they don't struggle and don't need support. Maybe they come from a family of limited resources. Maybe they were abused as a child, had a parent that abused substances, or had no parents at all. Maybe they have a learning or physical disability. There are a million factors that generate a need for "extra support" and thankfully, a substantial number of great organizations that provide that support to all people, including males.

No one likes to feel excluded though, and I get it. The whole idea of not being “targeted” for generic support as a white male, and not being a part of the discussion, or invited to participate in the event could very well potentially hurt a boy’s feelings. To be blunt though, that is life, and you will be ok. You are no less likely to have a successful career in engineering because you were only invited to 99.5% of the FIRST events. This is not a slippery slope where some day only 25% of the events will allow men. If we were ever to reach the magical number of 50/50 split between men/women in engineering, the women are not going to take over and try to push it to 10/90 out of spite. Please just let it go and quit creating strawman/slippery slope arguments.

The other group is the parents, and the same thing applies. The encouragement of female engineers is not at the expense of boys. Your child is no less likely to be supported in their pursuit of engineering because they were not invited at an all-girls event. You don’t need to claim that mentors are uplifting girls at the expense of boys. This is all a knee-jerk reaction and a slippery slope argument towards a future that simply doesn’t exist. In fact, if you and/or your student would embrace it, you would probably find that future companies would very much rather hire a male student that embraces diversity and supports events like IndyRAGE, than a student that sulks because they weren’t invited to the party. Teaching your students to be graceful, civil, and supportive in a situation where they don’t necessarily agree is probably more important than forcing your way into the event out of some principle.

The comments about gender dynamics on teams are real in my limited experience as a mentor. I’m not an expert, but I can absolutely support the idea some students are more prone to take charge and lead and others are perhaps equally capable, but less confident to try their abilities. I think as a mentor, it is important to put all of my students in a situation where they feel more comfortable stretching their wings. It could be confirmation bias, but I would say I see this problem more-so with the girls in the club, as well as with younger members. Events like IndyRAGE in my mind are no different than having an FTC starter team that “excludes” 11th/12th grade members so the 9th/10th grade students can take a greater leadership role. It is simply carving out extra space for more people to grow, and sometimes to carve out that space you have to remove the existing natural leaders to find new hidden leaders. This doesn’t have to be to the detriment of the existing leaders, they can continue to stretch their wings in the regular FRC season, it just creates a little separate growing space for other people to reach their potential. Once again, I think any attitudes of “well I should be allowed to compete in IndyRAGE”… or “I don’t care it is a 9th/10th grade FTC team, I should be allowed to be on it”… are just knee-jerk reactions to feeling excluded.

At any rate, I apologize for the essay. I sometimes like to write for the benefit of myself, reminding myself what I believe… as much as sharing it with others. For anyone who happened to make it through it all, hopefully it was worth your time.