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

[jimborious]

Wow, I didn't know there were so many people who have never heard of "boy scouts"

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Ironically over in Australia we just have Scouts, which is unisex. Then there's Girl Guides.

OT: It would be nice if we just scrapped the whole 'segregation-based-on-sex' and just made them all unisex. I don't like the idea of anyone being left out of a program that they would like to participate in on something as trivial as which chromosomes they were born with.

I agree with your thoughts, however i think there needs to be an important distinction made for social organisations with a potential age limit of say 15-16. Purely because i don't see the harm in letting social groups like the scouts or guides remain single sexed, i don't see the harm in letting kids enjoy a same sexed enviroment when their young. As an example as a kid i was in the Beavers then Scouts (Beavers is just scouts but for under 8's) and loved the fact that i was doing activites with just boys, when however we had a joint camping weekend with the local guides group we all had less fun as we where constantly forced to mix when we really didn't want to. Later on whilst at high school I did The Duke Of Edinbrugh award (its kind of a comminity service/camping for those who don't know it) and i prefered the unisex approach because by then we'd all grown out of the urgh girls/boys mentality you have as a kid.

Wow didn't realise I'd rambled a bit so in summary single sexed social groups for kids fine with a uni sex approach later on.

While as you've stated it does work in cases, I just dislike the lack of option. 10 year old me was incredibly disappointed when I was told I couldn't spend time with my friends(who were female) in a more socially productive environment (not sure if that makes sense) because I was male. Although that's probably just me. The entire situation is a double-edged sword. I just think that removing gender segregation is just one step of many to remove the social stigma associated with sex.

The biggest problem with a subject like this is the massive difference from person to person, like you've pointed out you where annoyed the your female friends couldn't participate whilst I was happy for it to be all boys. There will never be a one size fits all law for a subject with this many different branches, i think you should be able to set up a male/female only club or event if the reason for it is good enough.

This camp for example is very specfically to address the lack of options for girls to take on practical engineering experience, now to me thats fine they should be allowed to deny male applicants, what wouldn't have been acceptable to me would be if the was also a lack of similar options for boys, in which case denying the boys entry would be giving the girls access to experience the boys are unable to get. That i would consider unfair and if that was the case making the camp girls only would be wrong.

If that makes sense.