And that's why we can't use sexism to fight sexism (or mistakenly enforce the same composition of the general population on self-selected subsets).
Special robotics classes for girls are not the way. Making robotics cool again, like space travel was cool in the 60s and 70s, is the answer. Most schools in the US see these pursuits as some kind of uncool dorky stuff, and girls who face a ton more peer pressure than boys for their age, tend to be directed away from them.
Excluding sometimes seems worse than the biases these programs aim to solve.
That doesn't seem to make much sense to me.
I remember this exact same rhetoric all throughout school. It's frankly unsurprising therefore, that more boys are more comfortable doing something that leads them to be ostracized, or to become a target. It's also unsurprising that more boys are happy to enter tech, where you're expected to constantly teach yourself without others helping you. For all the VonGuard's and the education system's suggestions to the contrary, working together and being cooperative isn't sustainable in a professional programming environment where you have to be comfortable with constantly keeping yourself up to date with changes in tech.
Frankly, the actual solution to the 'girls in tech' problem is going to be one that few pseudo-feminist social justice warriors will actually want to bear: stop attempting to blame conspiracy theories for the low levels of women in tech, and start raising girls in the same harsh ways as boys. I hear a lot of 'daddy daughter programming time' being mentioned in threads like this, but for the life of me I can never remember the 'daddy son programming time' that lead me to become a programmer. I can only remember no-one giving a shit about me learning to program until it started paying lots of money and achieving results.
However, how can one twist helping someone into "distributing own mistakes"? Seriously, that is beyond ridiculous. And going off ahead and get lost is also something entirely different then "they try extra hard to learn beyond their limits, even if it proves tough".
The point of daddy daughter programming time mentioned in those thread is to show the girl it is normal for her to spend time coding. Boys know it is "normal" for them to code. And actually, plenty of boys do tech stuff with their parents. It was always normal and usual to teach your son crafting and tinkering. When daddy needed to repair car or some furniture he would call his son to help.
It was not usual to teach the same to girl. The "daddy time" is just a call to extend the courtesy to girls too.
Small kids do try to conform to gender roles they see around. Girls and boys alike, we are all herd animals. Daddy time is an attempt to offset the message about her supposed abilities and likes the girl (but not boy) hears.
Every team I have been on with a women has be edited from their far increased tendency to communicate and Collaborate (which of course the best men do too). It's a little freaky how fast culture changes and longstanding interpersonal obstacles get solved when a woman manager shows up.
I've heard that men actually get more competitive in the presence of women, which would contradict your story. But maybe you are right. Nothing against women on teams. But please don't claim that men can't cooperate.
What about the army, for example? How do these regiments work? Why do ex soldiers miss the time with the boys? It seems unlikely to me that they don't cooperate.
It articulated a personal perspective (such a farce,) properly scoped it (men who can't cooperate,) referenced personal observation (team I have been on,) identified a positive attribute (tendency to communicate and collaborate,) ensured not to exclude men which have those traits and expressed amazement at the strength of the positive effects.
I'm sure I won't ever hear it, but I'd loove to hear from someone who feels this is worthy of a downvote...
High school boys in tech are much more likely to be misogynistic and socially inept than other high schoolers are. They make girls uncomfortable (they make me uncomfortable too, and I'm not event the subject of their creepiness), and this discourages girls from trying to program or build things.
There are women who can handle this quite well (the author of the piece is an example), but there are also many women who don't deal with this so easily. Those who can deal with the male-dominated environment will always be free to join mixed-gender events and groups, but girls' robotics classes target those who could gain a lot from having friends of the same gender who share similar interests.
Women aren't self-selecting themselves into tech, but there's no reason they couldn't. Women-in-tech events aren't fighting sexism with sexism, they're providing counterexamples to the misconception that programming is only for men.
No
That rings very false to me. It was not at all the case when I was in high school. In fact it was just the opposite, and I see no reason why that would have changed.
I think that you give highschoolers too little credit.
Rocketry and science competitions are not really any different from robotics and programming. None of them are exactly football team, if you know what I mean. The only real differences between "model rockets nerdy" and "programming nerdy" are a result of how the adults treat the participants.
I'd honestly want a source on this. Socially inept, maybe.
But misogynistic? So, is your average jock some paragon of chivalry and philogyny?
Even if this is true, which I kind of doubt, do you think it will make them less misogynistic and socially inept to keep them as isolated as possible from women?
Speaking from the perspective of a current high schooler in tech, this is untrue. I organize the math club, and robotics club.
The gender ratio for the math club is 50:50 (4 female members, 4 male), while the robotics club has a ratio of around 33:66 (around 5 female, 10 male). I have seen few, if not none instances of sexism in these clubs.
The kids in these clubs are not really "in tech", but they are interested in science and math, which are similar fields to tech (and I suspect that their is overlap between science/math interest and programming/CS interest).
Now, your claim of them being socially inept has some truth to it, but these kids rarely have negative intentions behind their "social slip-ups".