Discussion on All-Girl events

[The Swaggy P]

I would like to also point out here, specifically to the people who are flaming & bashing me, rather than trying to talk reasonably about my posts, that I, as a boy/man/male (whichever you prefer), have been discriminated against multiple times in High School.

When my club got an opportunity to host the concessions stand for a football game, I was treated by the women running this event as if I was nothing but a "dumb shop kid". Only the girls were allowed to handle money, or take orders. I was only allowed to pour cheese on tacos.

When my father applied for jobs as a grade school music teacher, when he was not chosen for two of the positions he applied for, he was told, and I'm not making this up, that they "Wanted a woman". When he went to a lawyer to ask about filing a discrimination lawsuit, the lawyer told him that there was no point in filing a lawsuit, because a white man had no chance of winning.

In my own Robotics club, the teacher recruited cheerleaders from our school to join, because it was apparent that our four-man team would never be chosen for Playoffs without girls. The girls could only come to about half of our robotics meetings, and couldn't make the first competition, because of a basketball game. For the second competition, our drive team was told they had to give up half of their scheduled matches to the girls, even though the girls were first-year members, and the current drive team was made up of 3-4 years.

I am not a troll, and I am not against women's events in FIRST. I was originally ONLY against the gender labeling of lectures at a lunchtime meeting. It seems that I cannot express this intention enough, as I still see users accusing me of trying to bring down these events.

I have received private hate messages, both directly & indirectly insulting me. I've been called names, I've received veiled threats. And after looking into my sudden reputation drop to 5 negative reputation bars, I found out that between 12:00 AM & 9:00 AM this morning, 400 negative reputation was added to my profile without any additional rep comments. For these reasons I choose to remain anonymous, since I don't want to be yet another victim of discriminatory violence in a country that supposedly allows freedom of speech.

I am only a high school student, and you have shown me the worst of what the future has to offer here. I will no longer be posting or responding to users in this thread, as I will clearly only receive hate in return.

[TINCAN foodgas]

Lady Cans FRC #2881 Austin Texas can't make it during the school year...too far to travel by car/bus and airlines don't have good connecting flights during the school year. We are a girl scout team and we'd love to be here, but we have to deal with unexcused absences from school. Every FIRST event that we attend during the school year comes with a consequence. Fortunately the girl's passion for building FIRST robots far exceeds the pain of making up school on Saturday and having to take all the final exams.

Maybe next year Lady Cans FRC 2881.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by The Swaggy P

I am not a troll, and I am not against women's events in FIRST. I was originally ONLY against the gender labeling of lectures at a lunchtime meeting. It seems that I cannot express this intention enough, as I still see users accusing me of trying to bring down these events.

I have received private hate messages, both directly & indirectly insulting me. I've been called names, I've received veiled threats. For these reasons I choose to remain anonymous, since I don't want to be yet another victim of discriminatory violence in a country that supposedly allows freedom of speech.

I am only a high school student, and you have shown me the worst of what the future has to offer here. I will no longer be posting or responding to users in this thread, as I will clearly only receive hate in return.

I'm sorry to hear that you've been turned off by the community.

While I do think your initial post was very poorly worded (if the intention was to promote civil discussion), I think this latest post clearly shows how you've developed in your posting during the course of this discussion.

An increasingly evident (to me) development in our internet culture is the polarization of discussion. It is OK to be in the minority, it is OK to be in the majority, and it is OK for both sides to disagree and throw facts/figures/opinions out to prove/disprove their respective points.

We cross lines in productive discussions when we insult, demean, and slander others. Anyone and everyone can be tempted to cross those lines. Personally, I have crossed those lines many times.

I hope we all take some time to consider the person sitting at the keyboard on the other side of the internet. And I hope we can especially consider the words we say in PM/Rep that the rest of the community wont see.

Thanks everyone,

-Mike

[hardcopi]

People have a bad habit of forgetting that sometimes it is kids that are posting questions or comments on here and tend to go "rabid". Private messages to a student insulting them, by either student or mentor should not happen.

He might have worded it poorly, but his point wasn't lost on a lot of people. Personally, I can see both sides of it. As a mentor I look at it and think "My girls don't need their own event, they'll make all the events theirs if they want." Our team had a leadership that was mostly female. Had nothing to do with anything other than they were the best we had. President, Vice President, Safety, Spirit, Finance, Marketing, Programming all female led on our team.

That said I also know not all teams, schools, organizations work that way and we need to try and remember, even if your team has good about it doesn't mean all teams are.

I do know that, if you had an all boys event last year we would have been hard pressed to put together a complete team.

[Drake Vargas]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

I'm sorry to hear that you've been turned off by the community.

While I do think your initial post was very poorly worded (if the intention was to promote civil discussion), I think this latest post clearly shows how you've developed in your posting during the course of this discussion.

An increasingly evident (to me) development in our internet culture is the polarization of discussion. It is OK to be in the minority, it is OK to be in the majority, and it is OK for both sides to disagree and throw facts/figures/opinions out to prove/disprove their respective points.

We cross lines in productive discussions when we insult, demean, and slander others. Anyone and everyone can be tempted to cross those lines. Personally, I have crossed those lines many times.

I hope we all take some time to consider the person sitting at the keyboard on the other side of the internet. And I hope we can especially consider the words we say in PM/Rep that the rest of the community wont see.

Thanks everyone,

-Mike

Well said.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by The Swaggy P

I would like to also point out here, specifically to the people who are flaming & bashing me, rather than trying to talk reasonably about my posts, that I, as a boy/man/male (whichever you prefer), have been discriminated against multiple times in High School.

...snip...

Discrimination is rough, and I am sorry that you have had to experience it. It sounds like your father got an even more impactful dose. It might be good to think how those experiences have shaped your viewpoint of discrimination. Have they made you more empathetic to others experiencing discrimination in other areas, or have they hardened you and in turn make you feel like others should "toughen up"? Experiences like you have had can really make a person go either direction. Not that either direction is necessarily wrong, but it is important to be mindful of how they will influence your personal perception and in turn expressed viewpoints.

I used to PM a lot of students on posts like your previous few posts to be very mindful of "tone" or "wording" when getting into controversial subjects. In most case I would have hoped it would be considered as coaching, but giving someone a warning that they are headed into trouble may sometimes be taken the wrong way. After reading through YPP documentation, I now usually refrain from PMs unless I know they are a mentor or the discussion is purely technical in nature.

I am saddened that you feel threatened. Reading through this post, I see several folks that I have a ton of respect for being pretty harsh in their return commentary. I suspect that if some of them re-read their wording, they may realize why you are feeling threatened.

Because of the aforementioned concern regarding PMs, I would like to give this advice more openly:
If/when taking a position that you feel will likely be met with controversy be very careful of your wording. A good rule of thumb is, if I need an anonymous or relatively anonymous account to make your message, think very hard about what you are hoping to foster. Example: If you have health concerns because someone's baby looks ill, you wouldn't approach them with: Hey that's an ugly baby, is something wrong with it, or does it just look that way.

With controversy, try to avoid humor which does not translate well in text based communication and can often be misconstrued. Humor often works well in a personal conversation, but it is troublesome in written communication that is not story telling. This is especially true of sarcasm.
"Tone" via email or message boards can be very difficult to read. Folks may read into things incorrectly (from your perspective) as they read your post with a different tone than you intended. I personally had an issue with this a few months back with a work related email where I was frustrated, and my frustration came across as insulting and condescending. That was not my intent, and because I was expressing frustration, I actually had management review the note before sending it (and they approved it), but it still resulted in someone being offended and me writing a written apology*.

I would suggest sticking to some technical discussions. It looks as though you have some good posts in those areas. Keep working on your writing style. Not that I don't think your viewpoints or opinions merit discussion, but I as you can see, controversial viewpoints can get you lit up pretty quickly.

*An important thing to understand is that a persons perception is their reality. You may not intend to offend, but if they are offended, they are offended. An apology can be very beneficial as a starting point to have further discussion.
I would also hope that folks that may have threatened you might do the same.

[JohnTu]

Check out this FIRST Strategic Pillards posted today:
http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...is-first-going

Increase Diversity is one of the pillards which coincides with our topic of All-Girl events very well.

From the blog:
"We also know that the demographics of FIRST participants do not fully look like the communities we serve. With approximately 30 percent female participants in our Programs overall, we are underrepresented in young women, as well as people of color and kids from lower-income families. I am proud to say that FIRST demographics are quite a bit better than the tech workforce overall, but we still have a ways to go to mirror our communities.

Why is this important? If you believe, like I do, that FIRST programs are real game changers for kids, opening them to a world of opportunity and enabling them to become the critical innovators and problem solvers of tomorrow, then shouldn’t every kid have access to these Programs? ..."

- John

[s_forbes]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

(...)

While I do think your initial post was very poorly worded (if the intention was to promote civil discussion), I think this latest post clearly shows how you've developed in your posting during the course of this discussion.

(...)

Reminder that this user did not start this thread. Moderators split off a post from a separate thread into a new one.

Mods, please don't do this without adding a disclaimer at the beginning of the thread. It's ridiculous.

[nerdrock101]

Originally Posted by The Swaggy P

I would like to also point out here, specifically to the people who are flaming & bashing me, rather than trying to talk reasonably about my posts, that I, as a boy/man/male (whichever you prefer), have been discriminated against multiple times in High School.

snip snip snip

I am not a troll, and I am not against women's events in FIRST. I was originally ONLY against the gender labeling of lectures at a lunchtime meeting. It seems that I cannot express this intention enough, as I still see users accusing me of trying to bring down these events.

I'm sorry for the hate you received in this thread, but I can understand how users may have perceived your post as being directed more at women's events in general versus just the lunch lectures. I'm also sorry that you have faced discrimination, but I wish that it had given you a glimpse into what women face in other areas rather than hardened your heart to this subject.

However, I disagree with you about the lunch lectures because to create a welcome environment for everyone, focus needs to be put on how men act with women in their "zone". I have had a number of events in my life where I have been bullied, mocked, and sexually harassed in the engineering field and every event had one thing in common: men were the perpetrators. Some didn't have bad intentions, but just didn't know how to act with me around. After explaining to them why I was hurt by what they said or did, it was easy for them to pick up the subtle language changes and get along splendidly. The potential for this event and the lunch to teach those skills to students before they enter the workforce is invaluable.

Finally, if you really will no longer respond to this thread, PM me if you feel comfortable continuing to discuss this. I think there's a lot we all can learn from each other if we take a breath first.

[Jon Stratis]

I wanted to share another anecdote... This past year, my team hosted a luncheon at the Minneapolis regionals for girls and women on teams, volunteers, judges, and the local university SWE chapter. It was a wildly successful event, with a much larger turnout than we expected. We had gotten e-mails to all the team leads about it, informing them of the event and asking them/their team to RSVP with the number of women that would be attending. At the event, one of our mentors went around to talk with some of the teams that did not RSVP, and here are some of the responses she got from male team leaders:

"Well, I'm not a girl so I didn't reply" - a female team member was standing right next to him at the time.

"Man, that's a lot of estrogen in there!"

And to top it off, after the luncheon there were some leftover pizza/cookies that the team took down to our pit and tweeted out that they were available for anyone that wanted them. One guy came by and asked "How many ovens do you have back there?"

So, whether we want to admit it or not, FIRST is not always as open and welcoming to women as we would like. Comments and attitudes like this are one very good reason why women might hang back instead of taking charge.

[Pauline Tasci]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

So, whether we want to admit it or not, FIRST is not always as open and welcoming to women as we would like. Comments and attitudes like this are one very good reason why women might hang back instead of taking charge.

Maybe treating us like we are special makes people devalue us even more, makes people believe we had a million opportunities in FIRST. Which we frankly do, as there are SO MANY programs targeted to get women into STEM.
When you treat someone as different people think of you differently. When you treat someone as superior for a different anatomy people stop looking at what you know and start looking at what gender you are.

This is one of the biggest issues with getting more women into STEM that people seem to miss a lot.
To truly have women be EQUAL to men in STEM fields in a percentage and in a respect sense, we need to teach them the same skills when they are younger. We need to show girls they can do anything.

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

*snip*
And to top it off, after the luncheon there were some leftover pizza/cookies that the team took down to our pit and tweeted out that they were available for anyone that wanted them. One guy came by and asked "How many ovens do you have back there?"

Your other examples I understand as supporting your argument, but I fail to see how this specific comment is relevant. I'm not going to deny the existence of gender bias, but sometimes I think people look for examples where there aren't any.

[Jill_ls101]

In an attempt to contribute something to this thread that is both productive and informative, I’d like to share my thoughts as a female in FRC. I’ve been involved in FIRST since the tail-end of the 2009 season as a student, and the last four years as a mentor in CAD and manufacturing.

I was fortunate that the team I was on in high school was very welcoming and was not overly biased, but that didn’t make it perfect. Many of the issues I felt I faced were subtle and now many years later, I believe were possibly unintentional by my teammates. At the time, I would not have labeled as any kind of sexism, but also felt as if there was a “boy’s club” mentality that I was not a part of.

This is why these panel discussions are so important. No one intended to cause me harm, but now that I’m older (and hopefully wiser), I realize that those kind of actions are the most harmful. When neither side knows what has transpired, neither side can open a dialogue to fix the issue.

I always felt that I had to speak with great conviction to be listened to on my team, especially in the beginning. Over time, I did gain more respect of my peers, but sticking it out in the beginning was difficult. Naturally, I am a very patient and stubborn person and that enabled me to see it through. I also found support in one of the college mentors of our team. He was the first person on the team I felt took me seriously, and I will always be grateful.

Now as a mentor myself, I often stop and wonder if I’m doing enough for my students. (I’m sure we all do). But in context of this discussion, I worry about the girls whose skin might not be as thick or don’t know why they perceive this odd “feeling” about being on the team, as I had. As was stated earlier in this thread:

Originally Posted by teku14

<snip> ... the real problem seems to be that women are more likely to give up at a given field after an attrition event, than men.

As a mentor, I’ve seen many girls come onto our team, and I’ve seen many disappear. I always am asking myself am I doing enough? Sure I can get girls interested in the team, but getting them to stick it out is hard.

1646’s two student drivers this year were female and I was drive coach. Midway through the season I belatedly realized our team had created a drive team that was 75% female. Did this inspire any of the other girls on the team? Do they want to be drivers too? How can I inspire more students on the team (all students) to be this involved?

Events like the IndyRAGE are a crucial step in this process, but we can’t let it end there. Letting the girls know they can be heavily involved in a FRC team is only part of the process. Empowering them to continue to do so once they leave the event is something we need to focus on.

Parting thoughts: How can we give girls the resources to succeed on FRC teams and in STEM? What can we do to aid them when faced with actions and behaviors of others that are unintentional but harmful? How should we approach any individual who exhibits behaviors that are potentially harmful to others on the basis of gender?

What can we do to make events like IndyRAGE even better for everyone?

[Pauline Tasci]

Hi all,
I've gone back and forth whether to post again in this thread, but I've gotten a lot of requests from people in community asking me to post a speech I gave that I shared on my personal Facebook. This speech is about my personal views on the growth and acceptance of women in STEM.

I have removed my opening and closing remarks so that anyone reading this can just focus on the content.

I do not want to start more debate, but would rather have other individuals see my side of being an unrepresented person in STEM who is not respected the same as her male colleagues.

Here is the link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing


Thanks.
Please keep respectful.

[anfrcguy]

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.

Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_di...n_intelligence (and the references at the bottom). There is a fairly overwhelming scientific consensus that there are "differences in the capacity of males and females in performing certain tasks, such as rotation of object in space, often categorized as spatial ability," in which a male advantage exists (https://www.researchgate.net/publica...tial_a bility, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1130467?...tab_conten ts are just a couple examples). I doubt many would disagree that spatial ability plays an important role in building a robot.

Note that I am certainly not suggesting that women can't excel in FRC as men can, nor am I suggesting that biology is the sole cause of the gender gap. But to those who dismiss so quickly and confidently the notion that some of the disparities in gender composition could be attributed to physiological differences, I feel that further research would be worthwhile.