pic: We left the boys at home

[whytheheckme]

Originally Posted by Mikell Taylor

But it often is necessary, because the world can suck, and I struggle with this daily as a female engineer in the working world. We haven't, as a society, found the balance yet between the way it is (white males tend to have the advantage) and the way it should be (a balance of all genders, races, backgrounds, etc).

So how is excluding the boys helping this situation? If you are trying to simulate the real world and teach your deals to cope with situations which may involve discrimination, then excluding the boys does nothing to aid this. If someone comes over to your team asking for info about your bot, why doesn't one of your girls step in and say, "I can help you with that!"

Originally Posted by Mikell Taylor

I have the feeling the ones who didn't attend the regional will be getting just as much out of it as you did.

How? This is my point exactly. For me, as a white male, I know that I wouldn't get 'as much out of the event' by not attending... I guess my point is that the girls could do any job on the team, with or without boys there. Sending an all-girl team to have the experience what 'its like' to be an all-girl team at an event is un-realistic, and in my opinion, not only does nothing for them, but can hurt them by providing this unreal experience that they will never experience in the real world. There are no (none that I know of) all-girl engineering firms, simply because there is a company policy saying that only females can work there. In fact, I belive that this is against the law. There may, however, be all-girl engineering firms based on merit and qualification. This, in my opinion, is great.

Jacob