Discussion on All-Girl events

[Drake Vargas]

Originally Posted by Joe G.

"Because of your gender, you are likely to be less capable at math and science."

Your words, not mine. You're making up your own narrative, I never said anything of the sort.

[Drake Vargas]

Originally Posted by ASD20

Taking a discussion about women and immediately trying to change the focus of the conversation to the men. This may be interpreted as you not caring about the issues women face and only caring about your own gender.

You're looking at it too broadly. That was a specific reply to Karthik's image. A very useful image with a lot of information, that was unfortunately being viewed in a very one-dimensional way. I pointed that out.

Originally Posted by ASD20

I shouldn't have to explain how this is insulting.

I don't find that insulting.

Originally Posted by ASD20

Any elementary schooler would be able to tell you that excluding someone is in fact, quite rude.

Any elementary schooler would be able to tell you people have freedom of choice in association.

Originally Posted by ASD20

Textbook definition of predjudice and sexism and just because you use the word typically, it doesn't change anything.

Prejudice definition: preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

Using biology as an explanation for gender differences isn't based on reason? Well I'll be.

[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.

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by ASD20

what I find much more alarming than the handful of anonymous trolls, is the fact that somehow this guy has 4 rep bars!!! There are clearly some fairly high-rep CD accounts that support his garbage for him to have 4 rep bars after 8 posts, all of which are offensive comments on this thread.

"They're just dots"

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Drake Vargas

Using biology as an explanation for gender differences isn't based on reason? Well I'll be.

Are you actually going to cite something that claims your stereotypical ideas of differences in the behavior of people of certain genders are actually rooted in biology? You're just spouting prejudiced ideas and saying "it's biology!", but haven't vetted any of your claims at all. If you're going to use the idea that your prejudices are rooted in scientifically verifiable truth, you'll have to at least cite some sources so that your claims can be critically analyzed.

I'm betting the best you'll be able to come up with are either speculative evo-psych papers, which are rarely if ever evidence based, or outdated studies. It's difficult if not impossible to control for cultural and societal influence when analyzing gendered behavior. I don't believe this will stop you though - you've decided your opinions are objective truth.

[ASD20]

I know I shouldn't post on CD while angry, but I'm going to do it anyway.

You're looking at it too broadly. That was a specific reply to Karthik's image. A very useful image with a lot of information, that was unfortunately being viewed in a very one-dimensional way. I pointed that out.

One of the classic techniques of the anti-feminist and women's rights groups is to always turn every conversation towards the men. Focusing on just the men in every conversation and ignoring the women is misogyny because you are saying that men and their issues are more important than women and their issues. An English teacher would be able to explain this much better than me.

I don't find that insulting.

You said there is nothing wrong with excluding your coworker, presumably on the basis of gender. How is that not insulting? However, that is not nearly as bad as you saying "Do you honestly think you have the same definition of fun as them?." HOW DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND HOW SEXIST THAT IS? First of all, you don't know the OP or her coworkers, how do you know what any of their definitions of fun are? YOU DON'T!! You are assuming that she does not like the same things as them SOLELY ON THE BASIS OF HER GENDER. Furthermore, you are not making a general statement about men and women, you are saying it about a real person.

Any elementary schooler would be able to tell you people have freedom of choice in association.

Rude: offensively impolite or ill-mannered.
Legal: permitted by law.

HOW DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE TWO WORDS. Yes, you have the freedom of association to not hang out with someone, just like I have the freedom of speech to call it rude. No one is going to arrest those kids for excluding someone, but it doesn't mean they aren't horrible people for doing it.

Prejudice definition: preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

Okay give me your reason or actual experience, not just that men and women are biologically different, but that it is the largest influence on who they are as a person.

Using biology as an explanation for gender differences isn't based on reason? Well I'll be.

You are defining women by their sex and saying that they have limitations because of their gender. Research the women's suffrage movement, you will see a lot of the same arguments being used. Once again someone else can explain this much better than me, but it shouldn't be that hard for you to understand.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Are you actually going to cite something that claims your stereotypical ideas of differences in the behavior of people of certain genders are actually rooted in biology? You're just spouting prejudiced ideas and saying "it's biology!", but haven't vetted any of your claims at all. If you're going to use the idea that your prejudices are rooted in scientifically verifiable truth, you'll have to at least cite some sources so that your claims can be critically analyzed.

I'm betting the best you'll be able to come up with are either speculative evo-psych papers, which are rarely if ever evidence based, or outdated studies. It's difficult if not impossible to control for cultural and societal influence when analyzing gendered behavior. I don't believe this will stop you though - you've decided your opinions are objective truth.

Not going to get involved as much as possible, but here's the links he posted:
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...40#post1596940
Rather sketchy links to support his opinion IMO (very little in there that's directly related to this topic), but you can't argue with a sexist anymore than you can argue with a racist.

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by MechEng83

"They're just dots"

I know they are just dots, but behind those dots are respected CD members agreeing with him. It's not like one person gave him all that rep because his rep has fluctuated like crazy over the past few days which means a not insignificant group of people KEEP giving him rep.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by The Swaggy P

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.

First of all, welcome to ChiefDelphi. You'll notice as you look around that the overwhelming subject of career recruitment here is STEM fields. This is because we are a robotics forum, not because some of us are women. If you're interested in recruitment of women into other fields, I suggest you follow up with places like National Association for Women in Construction, several for women in mining, Women in Petroleum, Women in Manufacturing, Automotive jobs, as I mentioned in a previous post.

There is no grand monolith of "women" in society that limit the priorities of our gender. Rather, there are just millions of women that have individual priorities and passions. The same is true of all people, and I would not expect a male engineer on this forum to be pushing male students toward any career they are not personally interested in avocating. If you would like to work with that Women in Construction organization, please send me a donation letter next tax refund season.

That said, while I am on this forum as an engineer, you have lucked into locating a woman who is indeed passionate about some very difficult and dangerous manual labor jobs. In fact I was injured training for just such a job and am still striving to recover and rejoin. So with that, I invite you to read my previous monologue. While its existence is not critical here, I'm afraid you must have missed based on your claim that no women have discussed this issue.

Originally Posted by Siri

As for whether people complain that men dominate many grueling jobs on the list, I need to control my temper. Do women push for male-dominanted jobs that aren't very socially valued? Not so much [see separate links to women's professional organizations in labor-heavy fields], but that's a recursive definition and also applies to low-paid women's jobs, most notably tipped food service (72%). But don't conflate low social value and grueling. Have women fought for access to other grueling male-dominated jobs? Of course. Countless women have being fighting for literally generations to be able serve and potentially die for their country in many military and law enforcement jobs, and for the recognition of women who already did before they were technically allowed. I hope you are not in this position, but I know I could wake up tomorrow to find out that any number of women in uniform I care about are dead for their country on the other side of the world, doing jobs they or their foremothers had to fight just to access, in an organization where they are still far more likely to be discriminated against, harassed, and assaulted. Regardless of what you think of women in combat, to say there's no push to grueling jobs is blatantly ignoring a very, very long and hard history of women pushing just to be able to compete against the same standards of the profession as men.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Drake Vargas

You're looking at it too broadly. That was a specific reply to Karthik's image. A very useful image with a lot of information, that was unfortunately being viewed in a very one-dimensional way. I pointed that out.


.

You're right, it was one dimensional. What additional data do you think would help make your point? I'll put my money where my mouth is and say that if you can provide me some information that would make your case (either an actual data set or simply the type of info you want) I'll go, hunt it down, and combine it with Karthik's image to see help you make your case in strokes that are less broad than "it's biology".

You tell me what more you want to see and I'll do my best to hunt it down, maybe we can have a discussion here . And maybe we can all learn something about the relative value of opinions and feelings in a discussion compared to that of data and evidence.

Addendum - Do not mistake this post for support of any ideas or positions.

[Tyler Olds]

I'm not going to read through all the comments on here but here's the process and feedback from my team's experience from last year:

One of my female students saw the post for Indy-Rage last year and after telling other girls on the team who became interested they practically begged me to go.

Girls who attended the event overwhelmingly had a blast being able to drive/operate/participate in a lead role and mentored first year female students attending to get them comfortable in the environment. The response from the seminars was "meh" but they said they absolutely want to go back next year.

This year we had our first female driver/operator in our teams history and had a very close bid for another female. Previous years our driver try-outs has never been close to a female student earning their spot. We also had a much higher percentage of our female students in lead roles including both of our student leads being female and a higher percentage of females in the pits. Is this 100% due to Indy-Rage? Of course not but I do believe that this sparked some motivation for my female students to take it upon themselves to step up and strive to assert themselves as equals in our program.

Make whatever opinions and observations you want from my post All that I care about is that my female students benefited from the experience and want to go back. Because of this I would like to thank Indy-Rage for providing this opportunity.

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by Joe G.

Agree completely. There's a lot of good information and perspectives shared by people with more patience with people than myself, which has helped shift my own opinion a bit on female-only events from more of a "those are things that people will put on, and while some people will gain something from them and there's nothing wrong with them, I'm not sure they're the most productive approach" to an "okay, I understand why this is a potentially very good solution with clear benefits for certain people, and I'm more likely to actively advocate for this kind of thing now."

Absolutely. In fact, I may even suggest to my team that we field an all female drive team for the off-season we plan to attend. It will be difficult to find a female driver because of the exact problem that's addressed by these types of events. We had our secondary driver leave after the 2015 season for a variety of reasons, and while I am not pretending to know all of her reasons behind leaving, I know for a fact that the team environment was far less inviting for her than it was for her male counterparts. So in my opinion, this mess of a thread has had some positive effect and has led to *some* good discussion amidst the chaos.

[Pauline Tasci]

What's so interesting to me is that a community who are all about spreading STEM, a category which strives for innovation, is pushing out inclusion.
You cannot innovate without more people involved, especially people who have different things to offer.

I cannot believe that FRC students will find this thread, read it, and have to feel to way I feel reading this thread.

Disgusted.

I cannot put into words how hurt I am that so many of you are telling women how we feel about being a woman in STEM. Theres a difference between understanding a situation and being in a situation. Please learn the difference.

With that said, thank you to the men and women who are fighting for the women in stem in this thread.

Now lets continue the conversation respectfully. In my opinion, the best person should get the job (whether that be in work or a lead in an FRC team), the goal of getting more women into STEM isn't to give them those positions more easily, it's to get them to the same level as their male counterparts. I am one who does not agree with special treatment of female members and would rather teach them to strive for being the best, interested what other people think.

Please keep your replies respectful.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Tyler Olds

I'm not going to read through all the comments on here but here's the process and feedback from my team's experience from last year:

One of my female students saw the post for Indy-Rage last year and after telling other girls on the team who became interested they practically begged me to go.

Girls who attended the event overwhelmingly had a blast being able to drive/operate/participate in a lead role and mentored first year female students attending to get them comfortable in the environment. The response from the seminars was "meh" but they said they absolutely want to go back next year.

This year we had our first female driver/operator in our teams history and had a very close bid for another female. Previous years our driver try-outs has never been close to a female student earning their spot. We also had a much higher percentage of our female students in lead roles including both of our student leads being female and a higher percentage of females in the pits. Is this 100% due to Indy-Rage? Of course not but I do believe that this sparked some motivation for my female students to take it upon themselves to step up and strive to assert themselves as equals in our program.

Make whatever opinions and observations you want from my post All that I care about is that my female students benefited from the experience and want to go back. Because of this I would like to thank Indy-Rage for providing this opportunity.

Tyler, this is really great feedback from someone who is looking to improve the experience of the students on their team.

One challenge of FRC is the limited number of slots for any given aspect of a typical FRC team, especially when it comes to drive team/pit team/scouts, etc. At a given competition, a typical FRC team will have between 6-8 students in the pit and drive teams combined. Given FRC teams can be much larger in size, many students simply do not get the chance to participate in some areas of the team during the regular season. This isn't a bad thing, just one challenge of FRC specifically.

This is why I really value off-season events like Indy-Rage. I place a high value on giving more students more chances to play with robots. This is also why I love events like Madtown Throwdown, where we can bring three robots to play with. We get to circulate more than three times as many students through a lot of these roles that they won't experience during the regular season.

More opportunities, if structured wisely, means more opportunities to inspire more students. I think the direction we are headed in FIRST and competitive robotics is a great one. Every year, the net gets bigger and we bring in more students from all backgrounds. From my perspective, casting a bigger net has and will continue to naturally close the gender gap, but I also think events like Indy-Rage play a much needed role in accelerating our growth as a community.

Thanks all,

-Mike

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Pauline Tasci

I am who does not agree with special treatment of female members and would rather teach them to strive for being the best, interested what other people think.

Please keep your replies respectful.

It's hard to draw a line on special treatment for female members when, from my experience, female members typically come to a team with less experience than their male counterparts due to general societal differences in how we raise each gender and what toys we buy for them. Those differences are changing, but it seems to be slow going.

So, to some degree you do have to treat people differently based on their experiences, when they first come to a team - you need to have increased training opportunities for those who need it, you need to promote an atmosphere of acceptance and learning that supports individual growth and achievement within the team regardless of what experiences someone shows up with. And, unfortunately, I think you'll see that separate largely across gender lines even when it's not promoted as such.

All of that brings up an interesting question... where is the line between treating genders differently, and the appearance of treating genders differently within a team, and how important is that distinction? Opening the question a little broader, how do we provide appropriate support for any subgroup (for example, hotel assignments for individuals who identify as other than their biological gender), without treating them differently (or giving the appearance of such)?