"Gadget Camp" Takes In Girls, Turns Out Budding Engineers

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Because a "just for boys" camp would get slaughtered in the press we have to go out and slaughter a "just for girls" camp? Yeah... that makes sense....

Reductio ad absurdum and strawman.

I'm saying that an Engineering Camp story should go through the press because of its teachers skill, and the benefits it will bring, not just the unisex nature of it.

Every bad thing that happens to our gender we'll just return full-force!

Strawman hysteria.

We demand equal discrimination and limitations!

You're not arguing here, you're repeating hysterical claims. I was asking for equal opportunities.

If there was a clue that the reason that Antigone Sharris felt uncomfortable with boys and girls together? Not a problem. When the article(s) are weighted that "POAR WIMEN DESERVE MOAR STUF BECOZ THEY DON'T GET ENUF", then it's a problem. For one, because I believe Antigone came from Yugoslavia to serve in the American Military without the "helping male hand" that you seem determined to give her.

And reading comprehension much?

I believe you meant "You seem to lack reading comprehension."

Does that sound like I'm talking about first world countries?

Then it has no relevance to your original statement other than a false implication that the first world should make up for the third world. Which I retorted to.

As she says

My best advice is: avoid negativity, don't listen to anyone negative. If they say "you can't," tune them out and say "yes I can," and show them that almost anything is possible if you work hard at it.

But you know what would be apples to apples? A nursing camp for boys. Or an early education camp for boys. Male nurses and elementary school teachers are in high demand, yet socially discouraged from these careers. That would definitely be a worthwhile effort.

Precisely.

 

[Nurb]

Girls are already:
-doing better than boys in school gradewise
-more girls are in honors classes in both math and sciences than male students
-girls have a higher graduation rate from highschool
-girls attend and do better in college than male students
-women now outnumber men in the workforce.

Boys outnumber girls in suicides and in amount of drop outs from high school and college.

The gap is growing every year in all of those areas too, so yes, getting onto someone asking for a boy's only class or orginaztion focused on education is wrong and misled. It's all because of the attitude that girls are some how still put down by some mysterious patriarchal system. Some colleges are even thinking of a "gender quota" because they get so few guys applying to them.

Boys are lagging behind in all areas of science and math and they get worse every year, they are the ones that need special programs to get them into stuff like this. It's not "Anti woman" to say boys need special attention the same way girls did when THEY were the ones struggling and outdone in school and college performance.

And before anyone asks, here's the sources:
School performance
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/1531930/Why-do-boys-perform-so-much-worse-than-girls-in-exams.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/andrew-cunningham-why-girls-do-so-much-better-than-boys-435426.html

Honors classes
http://waylandstudentpress.com/2011/05/13/gender-gap-appears-in-honors-courses/

graduation rates
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_48.htm

College performance
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/27/admit

workforce
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/18/AR2010011803834.html

Suicides and dropouts
http://www.livescience.com/5505-society-ignoring-boy-problems.html

 

[King of the Sandbox]

Is it wrong that the first thing I thought of when I read "Gadget Camp" was the possibility of a summer camp that installed helicopter rotors in your head and skates in your feet?

OT, this sounds excellent. We need more technically minded womenz in the world. My wife is the daughter of a guy who is flown to oil rigs all over the world to fix them, and he has a natural penchant for tinkering with everything, and she adopted it growing up. So now, when our washing machine or car or whatever breaks down, she fixes it right up.

She even fixed a red ringed 360 that I threw against the door in a rage.

I was all.. O_O.... "I love you."

 

[Hagi]

You missed these:

[/sarcasm]

I was making fun of the ridiculous idea that seemed to be behind your post that if something isn't allowed for boys then it also shouldn't be allowed for girls.

Negative media attention about "boys only" camps existing does not somehow make it a good thing to give negative attention to "girls only" camps.
Female-only professions increasing does not somehow make male-only professions decreasing a bad thing.

Just because discrimination happens to men does not mean we should attempt to hijack any attempt to stop discrimination against women. It means we should set up our own attempts alongside those of women. That's what equality is about, not turning everything into a uniform blob, but accepting our differences and living with each other peacefully and respectfully.

If you want my serious view on this read my earlier post:

Because gender roles exist.

I'm well aware that for the most part they shouldn't. That they're a bad thing and shouldn't be encouraged. But reality is that they do exist, and we have to live with that.

In a single-sex environment it's much easier to let go of useless gender roles then it is in a normal environment as in a single-sex environment everyone is letting go of their gender roles while in a normal environment it's just, in this case, the girls while the boys are doing exactly what their gender role says, engineering.

This will just demotivate all the girls as they don't want to appear the weird ones not filling their gender role while the boys are acting normal, and yes these gender roles do exist among children. I'm sure you noticed at your school as well that in certain activities there was much less motivation from either boys or girls to enthusiastically participate in a that activity.

Of course you could hold a summer camp in which the girls are all doing engineering activities while the boys are all doing fashion design, that would work. But it's not really a very effective way of holding a summer camp.

 

[LordFisheh]

Hmm...I guess it is good for the girls, but there are already science camps why not advertise them a bit more (/change their focus) and let boys and girls have fun together?

Because science, engineering and related fields are traditionally male areas of interest and work. Girl to a much larger extent than boys are told by society that they can't (whatever it is because of biological or social reasons) work in these fields or are actively discouraged because they are seen as "men only" jobs. Letting these girls go at it in a girls-only enviroment lets them try it out without the interference of socially created gender roles and is thus more likely to enthuse them (if they like these things) to later get an education and a career in these fields.

You know, this attitude is why you have a lot of girls-only activities nowadays.
In my opinion schools have to begin with equally teaching boys and girls in every aspect and my school did this - though with some exceptions.
We had activities for nearly everything together as long as the interest was there and the teacher was able to motivate enough people.
So in the end these gender-only activities aren't any good as they favor a specific group and will lead to envy and separation.

The problem runs deeper than that, it has to do with social expectations, gender roles and peer pressure. But I think that falls a bit outside of this topic. Look up my posts in the R&P sectio on the wage gap to see a more in depth explanation of these problems.

The thing is, we're all exposed to pressure and expectations constantly. If we just blindly followed them, how would we be better than animals, living on instinct and social urges? I don't really mind the idea of a girls-only engineering camp, but still, people should be expected to have responsibility for their lives, instead of 'peer-pressure-made-me-do-it'.

I just... tend to think that people should be expected to overcome social expectations and pressures, rather than have them removed for their convenience. We should at least have the willpower to be able to do that.

 

[Charli]

Why didn't this exist for me... :S

 

[Da Orky Man]

Hmm...I guess it is good for the girls, but there are already science camps why not advertise them a bit more (/change their focus) and let boys and girls have fun together?

That sentence came out wrong.

Of course you could hold a summer camp in which the girls are all doing engineering activities while the boys are all doing fashion design, that would work. But it's not really a very effective way of holding a summer camp.

Rather than just most effective, I would actively hate that. The girls get the interesting, mechanical/electrical side of things, ans I get dumped drawing suit designs? I see how this may apply the other way around as well, but fashion is an area dead to me, and just isn't essential for any society, whereas science and engineering are.
In the meantime, I want more writers camps here in the UK.

 

[maninahat]

Hmm...I guess it is good for the girls, but there are already science camps why not advertise them a bit more (/change their focus) and let boys and girls have fun together?

In a perfect world, science camps would be adequate, but the reason why we have institutions or groups aimed at exclusively serving the marginalised groups is because this isn't a perfect world and there are marginalised groups in the first place. There probably should be a larger proportion of women in engineering. These camps should probably exist to address this imbalance.

 

[Hagi]

Of course you could hold a summer camp in which the girls are all doing engineering activities while the boys are all doing fashion design, that would work. But it's not really a very effective way of holding a summer camp.

Rather than just most effective, I would actively hate that. The girls get the interesting, mechanical/electrical side of things, ans I get dumped drawing suit designs? I see how this may apply the other way around as well, but fashion is an area dead to me, and just isn't essential for any society, whereas science and engineering are.
In the meantime, I want more writers camps here in the UK.

You could replace the fashion design with any female dominated industry. Nursing and elementary/middle school teaching would be prime examples of female dominated industries that are essential to any society.

Main point is that you need to create an environment where everyone is breaking gender roles. If just half are breaking them then that half will likely feel hesitant, shy and demotivated, especially since it can be expected that they'll have much less experience with the subject at hand.

And if you want normal engineering camps there's 9 other camps this foundation is organizing that don't seem to be girls-only here [http://www.nutsandboltsfoundation.org/Manufacturing-Camps/Manufacturing-Camp-List.cfm], and even if those happen to be girls-only there's thousands of summer camps out there, bound to be one that has what you're looking for with the environment you're looking for.

 

[4173]

I'll get angry if I write much, but a engineering camp "just for boys" would get slaughtered in the press.

So we build a camp that helps to reinforce the idea of a "female engineer", putting one group of people above another.

Remind me - all you white knights - among Chicago low-privileged young people, does the idea that "women are the weaker sex, to be ruled by men" hold true? Is it not that both genders are desperately fighting for work to get free of the poverty, drugs and degradation in a first world country?

If we're aiming for equality, why are the amount of male-only professions/meeting places being wiped out, while the female-only professions/meeting places already above the male-only, and are increasing?

Not to mention that one of the first things the girls are going to need knowledge of is other boys, so they can form a working relationship.

By delineating the genders constantly, all you're doing is widening the gap.

Take an idea like this, make it countrywide, get Ford or someone to sponsor it and give it to ALL the people. Not just the unprivileged few.

Judging the third world is for the third world to do. Not us.

The argument is an all-male engineering camp would be redundant, because engineering camps skew heavily towards male participation. I have no idea if that is true, but the camp leaders probably have a decent grasp on the demographics of their other camps.

 

[2xDouble]

While I appreciate and support educational endeavors like this, the title of this article sounds... wrong, somehow.

 

[FreakSheet]

I will say, as a male in advanced courses, and someone who went to an engineering summer camp,

It sure was a sausage fest.

 

[IceStar100]

This only this sex is the dumbist thing that came about. Congrade your teaching them something they will fail at becuase they become unable to work around the oppisite sex. There is an all girls Collage near me. So far no one in the area will hire from there becuase the women are unable to handle the real world. If you teach they are diffrant they will think they are and act as such.

 

[Moosejaw]

Or, hey guys, what if we have boys-only camps, girls-only camps and coed-camps and let people choose where they want to send their kids and let the people organizing the camps make whatever camps they want? I like that idea.

 

[Stall]

Most engineers are rather insufferable people professionally (from both what I have heard, and from what I have slightly seen), so I suppose this is a rather nice case of gender inequality where proactive people are ensuring that women too can become insufferable engineers.

 

[Treblaine]

Economy down, eh? Someone is going to have to build and pilot the uber-mech fighting bots when the apparent alien invasion is coming?

Didn't you hear? Aliens are invading? Better prepare! *wink*

 

[ShadowKatt]

Utterly and blatantly sexist. Shut it down and sue the people running it.

Its not that I don't like the idea of it, but if I tried an all boys camp, I'm pretty sure there would be hundreds of people that would come out of the woodwork to destroy me. Lawsuits, defamation, maybe even death threats for being so sexist. It sucks that you have to reduce yourself to such spiteful actions especially when kids are involved but if we try to be the more mature and do nothing, they win and more exclusionary calls and clubs like this show up. Let people keep writing exclusionary legislation like that that lets people blatantly tell the male gender they can't because of a Y chromosome and we'll end up with the direct inversion of the 1920s. "men shouldn't be allowed to vote because they're not smart enough to vote" "men are only good for manual labor, they're not suited for a career".

Now cue the mass quotes calling me stupid. As if i care.

 

[scienceguy8]

Most engineers are rather insufferable people professionally (from both what I have heard, and from what I have slightly seen), so I suppose this is a rather nice case of gender inequality where proactive people are ensuring that women too can become insufferable engineers.

As a soon to be EIT, I find this generalization of myself and my fellow engineers to be highly inaccurate. I can say that all of my professors, who had backgrounds in engineering, were not conceded or full of themselves.

Also, to give you an idea why getting women interested in engineering is a good idea, let's look at the numbers. Let us assume that the campus of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (my alma mater) has a roughly 50-50 split between male and female population. The SIUC School of Engineering has a female student population of only 11-14%.