Girls in Engineering- Comic that explains it all

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

The struggle for girls’ attention lies in the homes, the schools, the communities they grow up in, and in the media. The recognition and validation of the child’s worth and intelligence is at the heart of this. How many television shows center around the imagination and exploration of the child’s mind, curiosity, and creativity? How many shows showcase the opportunities to build, construct, design, or develop ideas and programs?

I'm going to quote myself here, please bear with me.

If you substitute exploration with the word, exploitation, then you are moving pretty close to the core of the images and demands that bombard society's senses hourly, non-stop, and rapid-fire, today. And therein lies a large part of our problem in a lot of areas. When learning, exploration, and adventure become a part of each child's daily life - then we will be moving in a direction that will ease our diversity dilemma and others.

Jane

[GaryVoshol]

My daughter can probably give you better insights, but I'll try.

She was on an all-girls FLL team starting about 10 years ago. They often heard comments like, "All girls?" "No boys?" "Where's the boys?" They were much too gracious to say, "Why, don't you think girls can do it?" BTW, they were invited to the World Festival pilot at Disney, and World Festivals at Houston and Atlanta. And they had a good answer to that last question: the boys were at home because their team dissolved after the first year, when they all "knew best" and they couldn't compromise.

In HS, she was able to go to several "Women in Engineering" events and camps. The ones she liked best were those that DID engineering; the ones she liked least were the ones that told girls they were powerful, they could do anything they set their minds to - because she knew all that. She didn't want to hear it again, she wanted to do things.

Susan Lawrence, an FRC regional director, has some very interesting stories about her mentor who was the first woman admitted to her engineering school. Thankfully we're far beyond that!