Discussion on All-Girl events

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by Katie_UPS

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

(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)

Thank you for linking Steven's post... I hadn't read it all, and I definitely think there's a lot of good stuff there. That said, it doesn't convince me of the benefit of affirmative action... largely because of this aspect that Steven mentions:

Originally Posted by Steven Smith

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.

Is the goal of affirmative action to reward people who have had to overcome more adversity due to negative stereotypes or is the goal of affirmative action to balance demographics?

I think there is value in "affirmative action" for the former, but not for the latter. Really though, I don't see how it can realistically be done for the former... it seems like to start you'd need to create some "Adversity Index" to determine who has had to overcome the most adversity (which would probably vary by region and profession)... and even then you'd still be generalizing. I believe that determining the degree that someone has overcome prejudice by their resume or college application is not possible without a variety of stereotyping and would prefer to 1) seek to prepare people of every single background for your profession and 2) hire the most capable individuals that result.

No one seems to be criticizing the underrepresentation of men in K and Pre-K Education, Dance, Hairdressing and Cosmetology, and Library work (among others). Should these areas use Affirmative Action campaigns? Why or why not?

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

While I agree a large part of the battle is getting more female FRC students (specifically, more of them involved with build, as they seem to dominate some of the other areas of many, if not most, teams), and getting to them young is definitely helpful, it's way too easy to say "well, it's something FLL will solve for us". Teams can and should do a better job at recruiting females....

I don't mean to imply that FLL solves this for FRC...

Quite frankly, for a long time our team was just bad at all recruiting. Word of mouth was about it. When we had a strong representation of females, we tended to get more females... when we had a lower representation of females, we got an even higher proportion of males. We've been trying to get better at recruiting in general, and recruiting females in particular, but it's very much a work in progress for our team.

[PayneTrain]

47 people have posted in this thread.
4 of those people publicly identify themselves as not being males.

Edit, 48/4.

[Pauline Tasci]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

47 people have posted in this thread.
4 of those people publicly identify themselves as not being males.

preach.

A lot of the people commenting on this act like they know what women feel like in STEM.
You will NEVER understand what a woman has to go through to be respected in this community until you are in their shoes.
There is a reason why so little women comment on technical threads. We constantly need to prove ourselves, and our male counterparts do not.

So this is a call to women reading this thread, speak up, share your voice. Share your opinions, don't let others share it for you.

[kristinweiss]

Originally Posted by Pauline Tasci

You will NEVER understand what a woman has to go through to be respected in this community until you are in their shoes.

I could not agree more with this! Girls in FRC tend to have to prove themselves repeatedly to gain any respect in the community, and many girls don't have the confidence to show time and time again that they are just as capable as their male counterparts. While I normally am not a fan of "girls only" events, I think that this is a great event to show girls who may be struggling on teams that they are completely capable of everything that their male counterparts are, and I hope that it gives the girls in attendance the confidence they need to keep pushing and stay involved in engineering.

[Brian Maher]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

47 people have posted in this thread.
4 of those people publicly identify themselves as not being males.

In a similar vein, I think it may be beneficial to hear from a student or alumna who has competed at such an event.

[Ed Law]

Originally Posted by BMSOTM

In a similar vein, I think it may be beneficial to hear from a student or alumna who has competed at such an event.

That is a good idea. I am aware of 5 such events.
girlPOWER by FRC team 433 in PA
Girls Generation by FRC team 1540 in OR
Girls Generation by FRC team 2046 in WA
Bloomfield Girls Robotics Competition by FRC team 2834,33,469,68 in MI
IndyRAGE(Robotics All Girls Event) by FRC team 234 in IN

I think it is a good idea to hear from the teams and the girls who attended these events. What did you like or not like about it? Did you get to try something (drive team, pit crew etc) that you didn't get a chance to during the regular season? What was your experience? Should these events continue?

[smitikshah]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

No one seems to be criticizing the underrepresentation of men in K and Pre-K Education, Dance, Hairdressing and Cosmetology, and Library work (among others). Should these areas use Affirmative Action campaigns? Why or why not?

...

"Karthik, everyone seems to be up in arms about the lack of female representation in engineering. In my opinion, that ostracizes men more than anything else. The very graph you posted shows fields with almost no males, and nobody seems to be upset that there aren't more male kindergarent teachers. At the same time, I don't see anyone complaining that men almost completely fill the most grueling jobs on this list. This isn't a very good argument for "equality"."

"If you find that there is a problem with promoting Males in a certain field that you would like to see more males in, or if you think Males should also be pushed in FRC - then take your own initiatives to do so!"

"So get upset about this! Do something about it! People are missing out on the opportunity to gain fulfilling employment right now, time is of the essence! Start a program to encourage male Kindergarten teachers, and eradicate the perception that men working with young children are automatically sexual predators! Create initiatives to remove sexist barriers to entry and cultural normalization of dirty, hands on work as "a man's job." But that sounds like work, and it's easier to complain about people actually taking these initiatives in other fields. It'd take real passion and concern for these issues, rather than only caring about them for the purposes of an internet argument in favor of the status quo..."

"Choosing to focus a discussion on a subset of a problem does not mean we immediately accept every other problem as "solved". You give the example of kindergarden teachers, I'll add to the example nurses. Nursing is a huge need and a growing field, one that historically men have not been involved in as heavily. I have friends that went into nursing, and there is a degree of "lulz, a male nurse" that is no more acceptable. If a woman wants to be a cement worker, or another physically grueling job, she should be able to. Similarly, there are a lot of other "grueling jobs" on the female side of it, though some perhaps more mentally/emotionally grueling."

"Of course there are efforts tat support men, male issues, and male membership in underrepresented fields (total or male minorities). They may not have visibility to you [this is a general "you"], or you may wish more existed or that they were more active. If so, I'm sure they'd welcome any help. It's the membership that determines how controversial, active, and effective any organization is. But these groups certainly can and very much do exist whether or not they're regularly mentioned on a robotics forum. As a quick first Google, there's American Assembly of Men in Nursing, American Men's Studies Association, Young Men's Initiative, 100 Black Men of America, the Men Teach nonprofit, and the Mankind Project, before I satisfied myself about the depth. There are also a massive number of male fraternal, social, and religious (not to mention sporting) organizations that support male career and life goals, as well as organizations that focus on male-dominant issues, such as Just Detention International. If there's one you'd like to see and don't, go for it. Every organization ever made was made by a person who felt that."

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

No one seems to be criticizing the underrepresentation of men in K and Pre-K Education, Dance, Hairdressing and Cosmetology, and Library work (among others). Should these areas use Affirmative Action campaigns? Why or why not?

Not saying that that isn't a problem or that STEM diversity is not a problem, but the larger overarching problem is the gender pay gap. The reason people are pushing for more women (and more of everyone) in engineering is that engineering is one of the highest paid professions (Most of the other highest paid professions are also dominated by men). If salaries were swapped, then there probably would be a large push for men in hairdressing.

[Drake Vargas]

Originally Posted by ASD20

Not saying that that isn't a problem or that STEM diversity is not a problem, but the larger overarching problem is the gender pay gap. The reason people are pushing for more women (and more of everyone) in engineering is that engineering is one of the highest paid professions (Most of the other highest paid professions are also dominated by men). If salaries were swapped, then there probably would be a large push for men in hairdressing.

The gender pay gap is a statistical myth for the exact reason you mentioned. Women traditionally take on lower paying jobs (Psychology, pediatrician, art vs math, cardiac surgery, orthopedic surgery) as well as take more time off for child rearing.

Pay gap exists, but only when you total up all the money earned by women and all the money earned by men- which is a deceitful way of looking at it.

A man in field X and a woman in field X will make the same amount provided they work the same number of hours at the same level of rigor.

I do agree that the reason there is a bigger push for women in engineering is because it pays more, simple as that. Nobody wants to be a garbage collector, so nobody is going to push for a man or woman to become one. However, the women that do go to college and graduate tend to pick majors that lead into lower paying fields.

Whether this is a result of some sort of systemic sexism, that's up for you to decide.

[The Swaggy P]

Alright.
I'm going to stray from my original intention of simply pointing out the massive difference in lunch discussions at the IndyRAGE event, and move on to something I've noticed a lot in recent posts.

Most of the females talking about not getting into high-paying jobs because of male dominance, are mainly talking about jobs like Engineering, software design, business management, etc.

But none of the aforementioned females pointed out that more women should be involved in male-dominated jobs such as: Oil drilling, Mining, Sheetrock Layers, or any "Down & Dirty" Jobs that possess similar pay.

I find this to be unfair to the male population, for if you are pushing for equal rights, in order to get females into office-based jobs like the ones mentioned above, you should also be pushing for more in the physical labor.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by The Swaggy P

Alright.
I'm going to stray from my original intention of simply pointing out the massive difference in lunch discussions at the IndyRAGE event, and move on to something I've noticed a lot in recent posts.

Most of the females talking about not getting into high-paying jobs because of male dominance, are mainly talking about jobs like Engineering, software design, business management, etc.

But none of the aforementioned females pointed out that more women should be involved in male-dominated jobs such as: Oil drilling, Mining, Sheetrock Layers, or any "Down & Dirty" Jobs that possess similar pay.

I find this to be unfair to the male population, for if you are pushing for equal rights, in order to get females into office-based jobs like the ones mentioned above, you should also be pushing for more in the physical labor.

Go start a program that is designed to inspire people to become oil drillers, miners, sheetrock layers, etc., have a public internet forum organically spring up from the community it forms, and take that discussion there.

Or you can continue being a misogynistic troll here and people will continue to tell you to $@#$@#$@#$@# off, even though those efforts clearly are in vain.

Alternatively, delete your account.

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by The Swaggy P

Alright.
I'm going to stray from my original intention of simply pointing out the massive difference in lunch discussions at the IndyRAGE event, and move on to something I've noticed a lot in recent posts.

Most of the females talking about not getting into high-paying jobs because of male dominance, are mainly talking about jobs like Engineering, software design, business management, etc.

But none of the aforementioned females pointed out that more women should be involved in male-dominated jobs such as: Oil drilling, Mining, Sheetrock Layers, or any "Down & Dirty" Jobs that possess similar pay.

I find this to be unfair to the male population, for if you are pushing for equal rights, in order to get females into office-based jobs like the ones mentioned above, you should also be pushing for more in the physical labor.

No. The "aforementioned females" get to push for more female representation in any career field they're interested in because all individuals have a right to pursue a career they're passionate about and competent in.

Also, this whole thread began because of YOUR objection to a robotics event that featured women in STEM.
Changing your arguments after losing your first isn't clever or mature.

[Chief Hedgehog]

I understand the sentiments laid out by the OP. However, I do value the options of having events such as IndyRAGE to encourage females to take on roles that are not typically set aside for them.

FRC 4607 has a fairly large female segment (~40/60 this last season), and yet it is like pulling teeth to get some of the girls into the programming/fabrication side of things.

Part of this is our collective issues with societal/cultural differences or perceived 'gender appropriations'. Another aspect is the lack of female mentors in these areas. We (4607) do try to include/encourage females into these areas - but even then they are subjugated (unwittingly) to meaningful tasks that demean these girls; i.e "take notes on this because you have better hand-writing". This drives me nuts.

My concern this coming season is to get more females to transition from our Marketing/Business squads to the fabrication/design squads. In fact, one of our best fabricators this last season was a female. And she commanded respect from the males in the lab - because she was one of the best fabricators we have ever had.

But I will state this - even as good as she was, she took a lot of crap. Not from the fabrication squad (don't get me wrong, she took some ribbing from the guys, but it was in a situation where she was able to give it back - and she had fun with it), but from the other females on the team. In fact, it got to a point that she wanted to quit because of her excelling amongst the boys. Again, not from the boys, but from the other females. After a very long talk, she decided to continue with the team. How can we prevent this type of female vs female bullying?

Well, this is why we need these types of events - so that females can showcase their worth amongst their female peers. And so that other females can see that success in these fields are not only possible, but so that they can gain confidence. And that girls such as the aforementioned can gain POSITIVE notoriety amongst her peers.

Just my 2 cents.

[Joe G.]

Originally Posted by The Swaggy P

Alright.
I'm going to stray from my original intention of simply pointing out the massive difference in lunch discussions at the IndyRAGE event, and move on to something I've noticed a lot in recent posts.

Most of the females talking about not getting into high-paying jobs because of male dominance, are mainly talking about jobs like Engineering, software design, business management, etc.

But none of the aforementioned females pointed out that more women should be involved in male-dominated jobs such as: Oil drilling, Mining, Sheetrock Layers, or any "Down & Dirty" Jobs that possess similar pay.

I find this to be unfair to the male population, for if you are pushing for equal rights, in order to get females into office-based jobs like the ones mentioned above, you should also be pushing for more in the physical labor.

You are literally on a discussion board about a program aimed to get people into engineering and sofware development fields, in a thread about an event specifically aimed to achieve this. Of course that's what everyone is going to be discussing.

Already talked about this.

So get upset about this! Do something about it! People are missing out on the opportunity to gain fulfilling employment right now, time is of the essence! Start a program to encourage male Kindergarten teachers, and eradicate the perception that men working with young children are automatically sexual predators! Create initiatives to remove sexist barriers to entry and cultural normalization of dirty, hands on work as "a man's job." But that sounds like work, and it's easier to complain about people actually taking these initiatives in other fields. It'd take real passion and concern for these issues, rather than only caring about them for the purposes of an internet argument in favor of the status quo...

The fact is, every heavily skewed datapoint on that graph, in both directions, are simply symptoms of the same, much larger problem: That people refuse to acknowledge that artificial societal pressures and factors generate these uneven distributions rather than some innate biological reality of gender, that in doing so, people reinforce those societal elements that created the disparities in the first place, and that no matter how you cherry-pick careers, these societal pressures are overwhelmingly sexist and present women as generally "less capable." STEM is an attractive field, with very obvious benefactors from gender equality movements, and so it gets a lot of focus. I mean, we're on a discussion board about a nationwide program to get more people inspired by this career -- I doubt you could find a similarly sized "For Inspiration and Recognition of Garbage Collectors," regardless of gender focus. But maybe victories here, and breaking down barriers and perceptions here, can help inpart change across the board. We don't only encourage women in STEM to get women in STEM, we do it because it's a part of the bigger picture in the fight against the patriarchy.

Sidenote, but when did this trend of replacing the word "women" with "females" happen? It might be just me, but it sounds incredibly demeaning and almost dehumanizing, especially since it never goes the other way.

[smitikshah]

Originally Posted by The Swaggy P

I find this to be unfair to the male population, for if you are pushing for equal rights, in order to get females into office-based jobs like the ones mentioned above, you should also be pushing for more in the physical labor.

I shouldn't have to push for anything. You have no right to tell me what I should or shouldn't be passionate about. Responses on here want to push for females in STEM because you are on a forum about robotics engineering.

At this point, I think you're just a troll, and not genuinely worried about this event or rights and equal opportunity in STEM.