Discussion on All-Girl events

[anfrcguy]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I think the implied conclusions you are drawing from this study are a bit broader than the actual result shows. The implicit assumption is that the differences in neurobiology are the result purely, or predominantly, of biological sex's effect on brain development. But we already know that brain development is heavily influenced by a wide variety of outside factors, and it is impossible to isolate differently sexed people from social and environmental factors influenced by others' perception of their genders.

Good point. It's fair to say that further research is needed in order to conclude that this spatial ability disparity is nature and not nurture.

There are other performance differences between sexes that I feel would be more difficult to attribute solely to nurture. It's pretty known that the variance of male IQ is greater than the variance of female IQ. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf found that amongst the top 2% of IQ scores, there were almost twice as many males as females. Given that FRC is such an intellectual challenge, it wouldn't surprise me if the majority of students who choose to participate are pretty high on the IQ spectrum, which could perhaps explain why there are more male students than female students in the program.

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Even so, this point is kind of tangential - you can't use generalized trends to justify treating specific people differently

Exactly. I've thought about this more, and now the all-girl event in itself doesn't really bother me (although I disagree with the implications that all males need to be educated on unintentional bias). I just feel that sometimes males are actually at a steep disadvantage due to this "movement" to do whatever we can to get more females involved. There are less scholarships for males, and additionally, I've actually witnessed discrimination against males for Dean's list. Also, at one point when I was on a small team that happened to be all-male, judges had consistently asked "what have you done to try to recruit women," and even "why don't you have any women on your team?" Our team had limited member spots, so in recruiting members, our priority was to find people who would be capable (or willing to spend time learning), dedicated, and have plenty of time. After repeatedly receiving such comments, we talked about going out of our way to find females (who weren't interested in the first place) over more otherwise-deserving males (who were asking to be on the team) to avoid subjecting ourselves to such criticism in the future.

I guess my point is that we should just treat everyone equally, and that going out of our way to try to compensate is neither fair nor productive. If there is in fact an unequal nurturing epidemic (and at least some of the gender gap in FRC could be attributed to environmental factors), perhaps it would be best to address this at a younger age. I don't think treating women specially is good for anyone.

[Lil' Lavery]

Reading through this thread, it struck me how much of the discussion regarding female-centric events was taking place between males. Wil Payne made the same observation a few pages ago.

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

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

Edit, 48/4.

Figured I'd give an update on where this lies now, based on my quick and imprecise tabulation.


56 (78.8%) of the individual posters in this thread have expressed themselves as males
140 (76.9%) of the posts in this thread were posted by male users

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by s_forbes

If I was someone who lurked on this message board and only decided to create an account when I saw a topic that I had a heavy opinion on, being immediately labeled as a troll would surely turn me away from the community. Maybe I hang around different parts of the internet than the rest of you, but that user doesn't seem like a troll to me.

To quote the description of CD found by googling 'Chief Delphi', "This is a discussion forum used to discuss the FIRST Robotics Competition." If after weeks or months of lurking on Chief Delphi, the first thing you feel compelled to post on this ROBOTICS forum is some highly questionable research about the biological differences between genders, maybe you should find a different forum. The internet is a large place. I am sure there are dozens of forums that you may find more interesting.

[anfrcguy]

Originally Posted by ASD20

To quote the description of CD found by googling 'Chief Delphi', "This is a discussion forum used to discuss the FIRST Robotics Competition." If after weeks or months of lurking on Chief Delphi, the first thing you feel compelled to post on this ROBOTICS forum is some highly questionable research about the biological differences between genders, maybe you should find a different forum. The internet is a large place. I am sure there are dozens of forums that you may find more interesting.

In my case, I had spent months lurking on CD, but I didn't really feel the need to post anything. However, after reading this thread, I felt I had a heavy opinion on this topic and created an account. The thread is clearly robotics related (it's a discussion on robotics events), and so was my post. Also, you say there are dozens of forums that I may find more interesting, as if that's a reason not to participate on CD. I'm sure there are many CD users who find other forums more interesting; would you recommend to them not to use CD?

Also, I find it interesting that you qualify the research as "highly questionable"... I'm curious as to what exactly is highly questionable about it.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by anfrcguy

Also, I find it interesting that you qualify the research as "highly questionable"... I'm curious as to what exactly is highly questionable about it.

Wikipedia is not a reputable source of information.

[Ernst]

Originally Posted by Madison

Wikipedia is not a reputable source of information.

Yeah, neither are any of the sources that page cites:

American Psychologist
Personality and Individual Differences
British Journal of Psychology
Nature
Journal of Experimental Pedagogy
Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal
Science
The Spanish Journal of Psychology
Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment
Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology
Human Brain Mapping
Journal of Dental and Medical Sciences
Behavioural Brain Research
European Journal of Cognitive Psychology
Neuropsychology
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Journal of Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad
Biological Psychiatry
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
Psychological Science in the Public Interest
Psychological Bulletin
Psychological Science
American Sociological Review
Journal of Personality & Social Psychology
American Journal of Sociology

[Siri]

Originally Posted by anfrcguy

Also, I find it interesting that you qualify the research as "highly questionable"... I'm curious as to what exactly is highly questionable about it.

I'll speak for myself on this; I don't find the studies themselves particularly questionable. They're peer-reviewed, and their authors are well enough regarded. The Colom paper is very narrow in scope, however. The Linn paper is broader, well-cited and in a high impact factor major journal. It does a good job of reviewing the current debate on gender-based child spatial development research. Note however, that when I say "current", I mean from 1985. I'm not a cognitive development expert, but a cursory inspection of its recent citations indicates the field has moved on in the intervening 30+ years. (I won't claim to know in what direction.)

Moreover, neither of these papers have anything to do with what you're talking about.

All that Colom, Escorial, and Rebollo suggest is that contradictory findings from certain testing methods are attributable to the tests' specific visuo-spatial format. Their study is not designed to address the origins of the differences in spatial performance, nor indeed the veracity of any differences in reality. They are only saying that with regard to this specific test format, the differences in performance disappear when one controls for spatial ability as it is required in that test. They make no claim that this format for testing dynamic spatial performance is a reasonable or accurate reflection of reality, much less whether that reality is biologically (rather than experientially) based. (They do point to a general view of some kind of gap as a reason to check the possibility, but they make no assertions about it.) It's a very narrowly-defined study that only attempts to resolve inconsistencies in previous experimental results, which explains its length and minor reference status.

The Linn and Peterson paper is broader and more interesting. It's also very clear in its conclusions (in 1985) that the origin of any sex differences in spatial ability have not been determined or even fully characterized, and in fact are not decidedly genetic by any assessment. I'll quote for those of you who don't have access to the full version:

Originally Posted by Linn and Peterson, 1985

To the extent that any biological factors affect spatial ability they would interact with sex-typed experiences and sex-role expectations to produce the observed patterns of performance (e.g., Newcombe et al., 1983; Tobin-Richards & Petersen, 1981). Males and females have differing experiences across the life span (e.g, Bem & Bem, 1970; Cordua, McGraw, & Drabman, 1979; Haugh, Hoffman, & Cowan, 1980; Papalia & Tennent, 1975). The relationship between these experiences and documented sex differences in spatial ability has not been established but may eventually offer an explanation for sex differences in spatial ability (e.g., those in mental rotations) and for the success of training programs aimed at reducing the differences (Connor, Schackman, & Serbin, 1978; Goodenough et al., 1984; Newcombe et al., 1983; Liben & Golbeck, 1984).

In conclusion, sex differences in spatial ability are now more specifically described. The mechanisms that lead to these differences remain to be established, as do the possible influence of these differences on other behaviors. Individuals probably have an assortment of spatial skills rather than a single ability. Furthermore, several mechanisms may contribute to the observed sex differences. Researchers attempting to characterize the nature and origin of these differences and their potential influence on other behavior need to differentiate the types of spatial ability and the processes respondents use for each item type.

So in fact, Linn and Peterson 30 years ago said what several posts on this thread have said about them now: namely that such studies cannot possibly be controlling for environmental and experiential factors separately from biology. It's true, and they were sure to point out as much back then. Efforts like the type this thread is discussing are aimed at addressing experiential and environmental factors that might be contributing to any gender performance differences that do exist. So while neither of these studies do anything to reason away the gender gap via biology as you've alluded, they can be read as a positive for interest in correcting potential performance differences caused by gendered life experiences.


EDIT: Since we've pulled back to the Wikipedia page, the two articles I'm addressing were the ones directly citing in this post:

Originally Posted by anfrcguy

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.

(emphasis mine) My point in particular is that this post drastically misrepresents the studies it actually cites, inserting the word "physiological" where none is intended or implied, and saying that those who disagree with the assertion should do more research. In fact, the research investigated at the links provided in no way support or even address the idea that "disparities in gender composition could be attributed to physiological differences". (This is not to say it's impossible, just that it's unsupported. I could easily insert any number of words in for "physiological" in this context and have a similar strength of argument.)

[Siri]

Sorry to double, but I just want to say that I don't intend to assume anfrcguy is deliberately misrepresenting these studies or the consensus quote. I don't know their age or STEM background, and I'm willing to suspect this poster simply made a legitimate error in conflating findings of gender differences with theories of physiology. It's an understandable mistake, particularly as a layperson when reading a site like Wikipedia. The measure of one's scientific integrity is not who is correct first, but who is most willing to address to new findings.

To everyone interested in engaging on the scholastic research here, that is certainly your right and can be a very valuable experience. But do remember, as I think we sometimes forget, that most of the adults in this discussion are STEM professionals in our own right who don't blink at titles like "Sex differences on the Progressive Matrices are influenced by sex differences on spatial ability" and "Emergence and Characterization of Sex Differences in Spatial Ability: A Meta-Analysis". We can understandably digest these articles relatively easily versus students or laypeople. Heck, I have undergraduate students that might mistakenly interpret the former's abstract as a physiological assertion, though I'd hope they then ask how the authors could've isolated physiology/genetics from environmental/experiential factors.

Anyway, no maliciousness meant. I hope this discussion is a learning experience for everyone, both on handling professional digital relationships and on scholarly discourse--regardless of your incoming or outgoing views.

[Lil' Lavery]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Siri again.

[MikLast]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Reading through this thread, it struck me how much of the discussion regarding female-centric events was taking place between males. Wil Payne made the same observation a few pages ago.




Figured I'd give an update on where this lies now, based on my quick and imprecise tabulation.


56 (78.8%) of the individual posters in this thread have expressed themselves as males
140 (76.9%) of the posts in this thread were posted by male users

It may be good to confine this to those who commented in relation to the thread (e.g. any of my comments in this thread) as this thread is a mess when it comes to staying on topic.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Ernst

Yeah, neither are any of the sources that page cites:

(((a bunch of sources)))

Citing a source doesn't prevent conclusions drawn from those citations from being false, nor does it mean the authors of the article citing these sources are without bias. For one example, see the anfrcguy post earlier in this thread - it cites two papers, but then draws a conclusion that cannot necessarily be supported by those papers. The post isn't automatically accurate (or inaccurate) because of those citations, and neither is the Wikipedia article.

Wikipedia is a generally pretty good first pass source for knowledge, but if you are interested in scientific claims you should base those not on the Wikipedia article but on the studies directly that the article points to.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

56 (78.8%) of the individual posters in this thread have expressed themselves as males
140 (76.9%) of the posts in this thread were posted by male users

Does anyone know approximately what percentage of FRC students are male?

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

Does anyone know approximately what percentage of FRC students are male?

The latest study I see that stat in is 2011,
where the population of FRC team members is described as 30% female. However, if you're looking for the reference population for this thread, you'll likely want a stat for mentors as well. A stat for off-season active CD users would also be relevant.

Thread readers will likely want to review the various FIRST impact studies if you haven't; I'm surprised we haven't linked these yet.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by Siri

The latest study I see that stat in is 2011,
where the population of FRC team members is described as 30% female. However, if you're looking for the reference population for this thread, you'll likely want a stat for mentors as well. A stat for off-season active CD users would also be relevant.

Thank you.

If anyone had a reasonable stat for mentors or off-season active CD users I would also love to see it.

I would also like to see a unicorn someday, but since I think that is rather unlikely, I am comfortable looking at horses and letting my imagination fill in the rest.

[Karibou]

I've been avoiding posting in this thread because I didn't want to be the one to revive it after a week of inactivity, but for the sake of offering another female's perspective, here we go.

On the original topic (the panel discussions): I think that the post announcing the panel discussions could have been phrased differently, and I think it was taken the wrong way. I don't think the team/poster intended to insinuate that unintentional bias is something that only males are guilty of, but that is clearly how it was interpreted by several people. Unintentional bias is something that affects all groups, regardless of gender, age, skin color, sexuality, etc, but given that this is specifically an all-girls event, I assume that the main focus of this panel would be unintentional bias as it relates to gender, but it could also touch on other aspects of diversity. I could be wrong. But with that assumption, I think that the post would have been better as:
"Career, Opportunity, Education, and Challenges for Females in STEM"
"Unintentional Bias and Actions and the Impact on Diversity (focused on gender)"


On my experiences in HS/all-girl events: In high school, I had a very good experience on my FRC team. Not a lot of comments, actions, or other discrimination towards me based on my gender, and on the rare occasion that those things happened, the perpetrators were swiftly told in no uncertain terms that their comments were not appropriate. I was never told "you can't be in the shop/you can't be on the driveteam/you can't be on the pit crew/etc because you're a girl". I actually always wanted to be on the driveteam, but I proved very quickly that I was not very qualified in that department by driving our robot into a Christmas tree during practice time. There weren't any all-girls events in Michigan when I was in HS, but if there had been, I'm not sure my team would have attended them just because we probably wouldn't have been able to drum up enough commitment from the girls on our team - we were a small team (~25-35 active), and we'd need commitment from nearly all of the girls, and that would have been difficult for us to get with several of us doing fall sports.

I think that all-girls events are great, for the reasons others have highlighted in this thread - giving girls a chance to build confidence in an environment that turns many away because of both preconceived and perpetuated discrimination.

Here's a related post I made on here during my senior year of high school - funny how these topics repeat themselves.


On being a female engineer in the real world:
I graduated with a degree in Materials Science & Engineering, and now work as a metallurgist in a steel plant. While many other "typically male" fields have made great strides in diversity and inclusivity of women, steel is still very stuck in the past and is still very much a "boys club", which is off-putting and intimidating to a lot of women. It's a dirty, dangerous, rough and tumble environment that takes a lot of strength and dedication to stay in, for all genders.

I love the graphic that Karthik posted early in this thread, but as there's no breakout specifically for "steelworker", let me provide some insight. My plant, when operating at a good capacity, employs ~300 people. ~50 are salaried (managers, HR/office staff, and engineers), and the remainder are hourly (machine operators, millwrights, electricians, etc - this number can vary from 100-250). We have one female manager (in HR), and another non-manager woman who works in HR. There are no women in our maintenance department (in either salaried or hourly positions). I am the only female engineer in my plant. There are four female hourly workers, as far as I know. We're a very small plant, but it's not much better at larger facilities either, especially when you only look at employees who work "on the floor" (as opposed to solely in offices - accounting, HR, sales, supply chain, etc).

Basically, as a female, I stick out like a sore thumb.

(As an added bonus, I also have a college degree and am the youngest employee in my plant, so I stick out even more.)

And because of all of that, I know I'm treated differently. Some real-life examples from the past few weeks alone:

• Coworkers outright refusing to let me hold open a door for them (chivalry ain't dead, but it sure can be annoying sometimes)
• I was with two male coworkers one day, and we had to carry ~20lbs of samples across the plant. I was the one carrying most of the samples (I volunteered), and we were stopped THREE TIMES in a 1/4 of a mile by people commenting "why are you making the poor girl carry all those samples!?" (actual quote).
• Someone repeatedly handing me papers with my (male) manager's name written on them, knowing FULL WELL that I was the one responsible for handling the information that was on them, not my manager.
• Men apologizing after swearing or making off-color jokes in front of me (It's an industrial workplace. It happens.), or making comments like "I'd say something else, but there's a lady in the room", even though I established on day 1 that I don't mind the language. I know it's habit for many of the men to do it, but it's still a bias and still draws attention to how I'm different than them.

That's the tip of the iceberg, but you get the idea. Some of this is intentional, some is not, some is just habit on my coworkers' parts - many are in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, have worked in this industry for 20, 30, 40 years, were raised to be chivalrous and overly respectful of women (compared to today), and/or are not used to women in positions of authority in their workplace. It's a generational thing. It takes time and thick skin to change minds when you're often a one-(wo)man band, and not everyone has patience and thick skin. I imagine these behaviors would be less prevalent if there were more women in my workplace, but this behavior is probably why a lot of women leave this industry. Chicken and egg.

I love my job. I love my coworkers. We joke about the gender disparity a lot. I'm not looking for sympathy or special treatment - I want to be viewed as an equal, not a unicorn. It gets better every day. But I have to actively work to be thought of as just "Kara" instead of "that girl". I hope that someday, this industry will be at the point where women don't have to do this, which IMO is why discussions and education on bias and inclusion are important (in moderation). It's a culture change thing. These discussions are important for everyone, no matter who you are and what field you're going into. This topic applies just as much to men in early childhood education (the most female-dominated field in the graphic Karthik posted) as it does to women in engineering.


On a different note, I think that someone earlier in this thread asked "why do people keep saying 'females' instead of 'women' or 'girls'?" and didn't get much of a response, so I'll offer one: personally, I don't feel comfortable referring to myself as either a woman or a girl. To me, a woman is still someone much older than me, old enough to be my mom, and a girl is someone still in high school or younger. As a young professional, I don't feel like I fit into either category, so I always refer to myself as just "a female". "Females" and "Males" also unquestionably encompass all ages, which is commonly the intent of using those words in these kinds of discussions.