Discussion on All-Girl events

[Mike Schreiber]

I won't comment on all the debate that's happening with regard to bias etc. Just wanted to make a point I hadn't seen yet.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't this mean Cheesy Poofs cannot come to IndyRAGE? They're from an all boys high school.

[frcguy]

Originally Posted by Mike Schreiber

I won't comment on all the debate that's happening with regard to bias etc. Just wanted to make a point I hadn't seen yet.



Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't this mean Cheesy Poofs cannot come to IndyRAGE? They're from an all boys high school.

That would seem to be the case, along with any other teams from male-only high schools.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by ThaddeusMaximus

*slow clap* (Bolding is mine.)

Spout all theory y'all want, but we're engineers, and we know that theory doesn't hold up in the real world and we must deal with it. The best way is to practice. The worst thing to do to a budding engineer is to give them a false sense of what reality is. I have never coddled, and will never coddle my students- whether it's about discrimination, workload, etc.

(This is about the direction I feel FIRST is going in in general. I feel there's too much hype and superficiality and quite frankly, disconnect from industry in general...)

Someone mentioned that so many females leave STEM fields after joining. Even if bucking up female involvement is a goal, is false advertising somehow NOT hampering retention?

Personally, I just want more freaking great engineers. I don't care what they look like.

This sounds very...weird to me. As a woman and former girl, I can assure you that we do not attend all-girls events in any field and think, "oh wow, the whole field must be guy-free like this!" Trust me, no girl old enough for FRC is ignorant about gender situation in society or slow enough to miss it. You cannot fool me with an off-season. Having an single-gender event, regardless of topic, is the substantive equivalent of hanging up a flashing neon sign that says "we have difficult a gender equality problem in this area, and it won't be easy for you. But we're really trying!" Regardless of whether you think this is trying correctly, there is no universe in which an all-girls event or a thousand of them is false advertising. We understand the way the world works; we've lived here for years regardless of where we go on some weekends.


You are free not to coddle your students, just as others are free to coddle them. Personally I call it incubating, which is also what we do with startup businesses. The goal is not to deceive anyone; it's to build up strengths. It's the same reason you scrimmage with your own sports team in addition to playing others. No, you can't simulate everything you face in a real game (in this case handling professional coed interactions), but you have to work on the fundamentals too. This may seem silly when it comes to coed professionalism, and maybe it is for some people. Maybe your students and potential students are all as naturally talented in this as they are in varsity basketball.

But I am not one of those people. My female students (and some of my male students), by and large, were not those people at the onset. You quoted a fellow mentor of mine from a rather successful MAR team that has a bit of a reputation for good coed work. What Gary says about how we encourage integration is absolutely true, and we're pretty good at it. I should know; I got it as a student! But it's not nearly the whole story of what we provide. In fact as a female former student and mentor, I can assure you that much of the strength of our female recruitment and retention is informal friendships and mentorships within the gender. Our integration work is absolutely critical for making successful teammates and future professionals, but it doesn't cut it alone in terms of retention or recruitment.

My own interactions with male students and mentors would have driven off me the team as a rookie in 2006, had it not been for the other girls and young woman to support me. As a student and later mentor, I have relived that situation over and over and over again. In fact virtually all of the best female students we've ever had came to me at some point(s) (usually as rookies when they were least integrated and most likely to leave) to express discomfit, difficulty interacting, or to quote, "I give up, the guys just won't listen to me." And by that they meant both male students and mentors. Fortunately, I, with my previous years of awesome 1640 'how to work work with guys' experience, would walk over each time and build bridges. But you have to recruit and retain long enough to teach students those skills. You have to practice in the safe zone. If I hadn't built that understanding with the girls--that sort of incubation, coddling, girlfriendship, special treatment, whatever you want to call it--many of them wouldn't've felt comfortable coming to me or even known not to just accept it. I know, because I vividly remember not feeling comfortable and not understanding what I was experiencing--and having an older girl/woman there to help.

1640 does all this without attending all-girls events. Lots of teams do so, and lots of others attend. Our system works for the girls on the team, at least without a comparison. And that's okay. But I have known girls I've tried to recruit or girls that've left quickly because even that first hurdle into the proverbial 'incubator' is too distressing. And sometimes you're inside, but things get to be too much and you want to give up. (This can also involve extra gendered pressures above the standard datum.) If an all-girl event lowers that hurdle or lessens that burden for someone, somewhere, well then I hope they're very a lucky future engineer.

You (general "you") can say this shouldn't be necessary, and I agree. (I fault societal pressures, not the individual girls receiving them.) But even if it shouldn't be needed, what do we say to the girls that would benefit from this event? 'Sorry kid, you should've been stronger?' 'Come back if you don't want to be coddled?' 'No, I'm not going to incubate you enough.' Some people need more help than others. I got what I needed, and instead of walking away ten years ago, and I now have an honors BSME and have coached Einstein twice. You can never know who you're not helping.

For the record, if someone cares to articulate an analogous case of why an all-boys event would be of similar benefit, I say go for it. I'll ref. As I've mentioned previously, this case does indeed exist in some other fields, including nursing.

[Tom Ore]

I was a judge at an FLL event a couple of years ago and I asked a team how they were organized. One young man answered that the boys designed the robot and the girls designed the t-shirts. I was so surprised by the answer that I had no follow up question.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by frcguy

That would seem to be the case, along with any other teams from male-only high schools.

FRC 3173 is an all male school but has had female team members including a young woman who was their human player in 2013. Teams kind of get around who can be on the team at times.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by smitikshah

While browsing the internet I found this: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2016...ugh-emoji.html

This made me really happy.

This is just one example of "unintentional bias", and a great proposed solution to it!

While I doubt anybody would go "we shouldn't make female emojis representing a construction worker or detective", the end result did end up playing a bit on traditional gender roles. If some of these suggestions are used, we can all take a great step forward towards promoting females in STEM that might not have otherwise joined thinking it's not their place.

Are those emoji's really male/female, or just long loose hair/short or pulled back hair? What specifically is it about showing a cartoon face with a hat/helmet on and very little hair showing on the sides that makes it a "male" representation? Why, in the new emoji's, are the "male" representations wearing green while the "female" ones are wearing purple?

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against expanding the standard emoji set, but it's important when we look at stuff like this to recognize that, even in efforts to promote gender equality we can still unintentionally put forward gender stereotypes. When we embark on these efforts ourselves, it's important to ask these types of questions.

[FrankJ]

Originally Posted by Siri

... For the record, if someone cares to articulate an analogous case of why an all-boys event would be of similar benefit, I say go for it. I'll ref. As I've mentioned previously, this case does indeed exist in some other fields, including nursing.

This idea has come up a couple of times in this thread. It is not a realistic option for a robotics event. For a likely CD response, see this thread This was about a one day library reading event in a small town in northern Ontario.

Please don't read my opinion this subject into this post. I just believe in truth in advertising.

[Ryan Dognaux]

There's nothing wrong at all with this event. There is still a huge social stigma in this country when it comes to involving women in STEM related activities. Many of you, especially mentors, need only to look around your office and see mostly men working there. Actively targeting women to give them an additional opportunity to be inspired to pursue a STEM career is a fantastic idea.

Boys already have plenty of opportunities for inspiration the other 364 days of the year and there are other off-season competitions in Indiana that they can attend.

Giving girls one day to have an event to call their own is something we should be applauding, not trying to tear down. Well done 234!

[jajabinx124]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

Many of you, especially mentors, need only to look around your office and see mostly men working there.

Students should especially realize this as well. When I got a sneak admitted students preview of University of Wisconsin- Madison's engineering program this spring along with around a thousand other students, I literally looked around this big auditorium and barely saw females in the college of engineering. It's a major problem still.

Thankfully we have teams like 234, 2177 in MN, etc. and organizations like the Women in Science and Engineering groups in colleges working hard to improve this ongoing social stigma in this country about the lack of Women in STEM. It is still a problem today and events like Indy-Rage will hopefully inspire more Females to go into STEM. Bravo to all the teams and organizations working on making a difference.

[Whatever]

Six pages and no one has pointed out that salt mining in Russia is done more in the mid-Russia area near the Ural mountains.

My mom took my daughter on a tour of a salt mine in Hutchinson Kansas a few years ago. They both recommend the tour and it looks like they have upgraded the experience over the past few years.

[FrankJ]

Originally Posted by Whatever

Six pages and no one has pointed out that salt mining in Russia is done more in the mid-Russia area near the Ural mountains.

My mom took my daughter on a tour of a salt mine in Hutchinson Kansas a few years ago. They both recommend the tour and it looks like they have upgraded the experience over the past few years.

But what is the gender ratio of the Ural salt mines compared to the Kansas salt mines. If you are going to squirrel, you should at least use some relevant data.

[Whatever]

Well, Russia has significantly more women than men in general (86.8 men to 100 women) and a higher percentage of Russian women work than American women. So I am guessing the Russian ratio is better than the 98.2% men in "other mining occupations" that Karthik posted but I couldn't find hard numbers. Sorry.


I really do recommend the salt mine tour in Hutchinson Kansas though.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Whatever

Well, Russia has significantly more women than men in general (86.8 men to 100 women) and a higher percentage of Russian women work than American women. So I am guessing the Russian ratio is better than the 98.2% men in "other mining occupations" that Karthik posted but I couldn't find hard numbers. Sorry.


I really do recommend the salt mine tour in Hutchinson Kansas though.

Im fairly certain KK's numbers are just for the US.

From the FiveThirtyEight github repo for that data...

All data is from American Community Survey 2010-2012 Public Use Microdata Series. Download data here: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/data_d...ion/pums_data/ Documentation here: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/data_d...documentation/

https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/d...college-majors

[Nathan Streeter]

I approve of 234 having a female-focused event to try to ensure that girls and women are getting fair chances to step into various roles... I hope all teams are putting talent first though for role selection during most of the season... and ensuring EVERYONE has an opportunity to gain the skills for the roles they want.

Girls/women should be encouraged to pursue whatever field they want... just as boys/men should be encouraged. Since FIRST deals with STEM most, we should be encouraging girls/women and boys/men. Being cognizant of the fact that STEM fields are largely male-dominated, this may at times involve particularly encouraging girls/women... under the assumption that they're more likely to be discouraged by the male-dominated atmosphere. Really though, I think the bigger battle is probably in getting more female FRC students... by the time kids are in high school, they often already have a positive or negative impression of robotics, science, and math. This is where the academic system, toys targeted for boys vs girls, parenting, and younger programs like FLL really come in.

That said, I would like to make another point... There's nothing inherently wrong with having more of a particular gender in a profession. Every profession should be made welcoming to both genders (and all races and all socioeconomic backgrounds), but just getting to a 50/50 ratio in the nifty infographic that Karthik shared won't make society any better inherently. Making every profession more welcoming will make society a better place though... and hopefully as a result we'll have happier and more capable people in every profession and a lot of those ratios will be a little less split. If they're not less split though, I won't lose any sleep.

What I do have a problem with - and what does concern me - is when people are subconsciously OR intentionally selected based on their race/gender/religion/socioeconomic background. Maybe this is a girl or a boy being passed over by a sexist employer (instead hiring a less-qualified applicant of a different gender) or maybe it's an admissions counselor trying to meet a quota/ratio and so selecting someone of a particular gender or background. College admissions and the job market are not the times to be trying to push demographics one way or the other... I want the best doctors, engineers, business leaders, scientists, teachers, politicians, etc. If we want to push demographics in one direction or another, organizations should be working to motivate and equip people of all types prior to those critical junctures (as FIRST does, and tries to continue doing better).

[Katie_UPS]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

What I do have a problem with - and what does concern me - is when people are subconsciously OR intentionally selected based on their race/gender/religion/socioeconomic background. Maybe this is a girl or a boy being passed over by a sexist employer (instead hiring a less-qualified applicant of a different gender) or maybe it's an admissions counselor trying to meet a quota/ratio and so selecting someone of a particular gender or background. College admissions and the job market are not the times to be trying to push demographics one way or the other... I want the best doctors, engineers, business leaders, scientists, teachers, politicians, etc. If we want to push demographics in one direction or another, organizations should be working to motivate and equip people of all types prior to those critical junctures (as FIRST does, and tries to continue doing better).

The problem with the "I want the best person for the job argument" is explained by Steven Smith:

Originally Posted by Steven Smith

Regarding Reverse Discrimination
...
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.

(by the way, the whole post that I pulled from is really good and is worth a re-read especially for anyone who doesn't understand why affirmative action is a thing)