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Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

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Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#101

Post by JohnHaugeland »

arbutus wrote: post #97
JohnHaugeland wrote: post #90

Why do you need a woman? I don't understand why we all talk about the gender problem in engineering, then continue it by isolating female students from male teachers. There is no isolation between male students and female teachers, or same gender students and teachers. If we want to move towards equality, why carefully structure inequality in?

It's important to be able to see people who look like your potential future self. There's more to it than just seeing neat work - everyone needs role models. Kids are very perceptive. This girl sounds lucky to have parents who encourage her in STEM topics, but that doesn't shield her from media/misguided school teachers/councillors/other kids telling her these things aren't for her. Having a female role model is a po…

I'm a man and I modelled my professional self on a woman, so I have some difficulty with this.

I believe that choosing to limit one's role models by gender is a problem.

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#102

Post by JohnHaugeland »

GuiA wrote: post #96
JohnHaugeland wrote: post #90

Why do you need a woman? I don't understand why we all talk about the gender problem in engineering, then continue it by isolating female students from male teachers. There is no isolation between male students and female teachers, or same gender students and teachers. If we want to move towards equality, why carefully structure inequality in?

Because chances are, she's not isolated from male teachers, and even if she is, the need to offer a relatable role model is more important to inspire and motivate her than the need to not isolate her from male teachers. Over the past 8 years, I've taught programming to people from ages 6 to 50, of all genders and cultural backgrounds. Female students have generally related more to my female colleagues, just like blac…

"the need to offer a relatable role model is more important"

My point being that I don't actually believe that people need to be the same gender (or skin color or etc) to be relatable as role models.

I think making role models less demographically binned would be an important and positive step.

.

"Female students have generally related more to my female colleagues"

Do you have any reason to believe that this isn't because every time they're getting started someone carefully creates that situation, as is being created here?

Measurements are frequently measurements of effects, rather than of causes.

.

"Which is perfectly fine"

How can you be sure that refusing demographic cross pollination by intent is not a negative thing?

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#103

Post by mynameisasdf »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #90

Why do you need a woman? I don't understand why we all talk about the gender problem in engineering, then continue it by isolating female students from male teachers. There is no isolation between male students and female teachers, or same gender students and teachers. If we want to move towards equality, why carefully structure inequality in?

Exactly what I was thinking. Its quite insulting to suggest that girls are so myopic they can't possibly be inspired unless they meet someone of the same gender.

For the record, I'm a female engineer who moved to the USA from Ghana when I was a smaller. I can't stand this ridiculous patronizing attitude there is towards female engineers, as if we need "extra help" or something. Even worse are the feminists creating us-vs-them politicization of the issue.

When I was learning to code, ride a bike, tie my shoes or something, I never thought "gosh I can't do that since none of the role models are female". In fact, if there are no role models of the same gender or race, its usually even more inspiring as you want to be the first one.

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#104

Post by mynameisasdf »

arbutus wrote: post #97
JohnHaugeland wrote: post #90

Why do you need a woman? I don't understand why we all talk about the gender problem in engineering, then continue it by isolating female students from male teachers. There is no isolation between male students and female teachers, or same gender students and teachers. If we want to move towards equality, why carefully structure inequality in?

It's important to be able to see people who look like your potential future self. There's more to it than just seeing neat work - everyone needs role models. Kids are very perceptive. This girl sounds lucky to have parents who encourage her in STEM topics, but that doesn't shield her from media/misguided school teachers/councillors/other kids telling her these things aren't for her. Having a female role model is a po…

Source?

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#105

Post by JohnHaugeland »

mynameisasdf wrote: post #103
JohnHaugeland wrote: post #90

Why do you need a woman? I don't understand why we all talk about the gender problem in engineering, then continue it by isolating female students from male teachers. There is no isolation between male students and female teachers, or same gender students and teachers. If we want to move towards equality, why carefully structure inequality in?

Exactly what I was thinking. Its quite insulting to suggest that girls are so myopic they can't possibly be inspired unless they meet someone of the same gender. For the record, I'm a female engineer who moved to the USA from Ghana when I was a smaller. I can't stand this ridiculous patronizing attitude there is towards female engineers, as if we need "extra help" or something. Even worse are the feminists creating u…

I am glad to know there are others who see it the way I do.

I draw great inspiration from people who do not have my gender, my race, or several other role model limiting demographic factors.

I feel very sad for people who are set up to not have the advantage of looking up to everyone of value.

===========

Edit: why is this being downvoted? Is it disagreeable to say "I have learned from people unlike me?" Are we now saying it's bad to argue for inclusion?

It's a polite, friendly comment, stating a positive opinion that says "I think people of every gender, race, etc are of value and should be available."

I feel like people are using downvote to show personal frustration.

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#106

Post by JohnHaugeland »

smtddr wrote: post #99
splintercell wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the idea behind this would be that a woman can guide her more and talk to her about the potential problems she faced. Consider it like getting an advice on getting into a good college from someone who got in using Affirmative Action vs someone who didn't.

>>Consider it like getting an advice on getting into a good college from someone who got in using Affirmative Action vs someone who didn't. A better analogy would be considering someone getting into a good college because of their connections & wealthy parents vs someone who didn't.

"A better analogy would be considering someone getting into a good college because of their connections & wealthy parents vs someone who didn't."

In that case, isn't it absolutely imperative to start making those connections, by not demographically binning mentors?

Connections don't just spring out of nowhere.

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#107

Post by mrtron »

heartbreak wrote: post #32
voicereasonish wrote: post #30

> she's in love with it > I can't talk her out of it. I've tried. Why would you try and talk her out of something she's in love with? If she "knows some python", is she in love with it? Is she actively learning more on the web?

Because 16 hours a week of gymnastics costs quite a bit of money, and if she does meets then it probably costs a fortune. So money, money would be why a parent might try to edge a daughter out of gymnastics. Or the injuries. They suck too.

I did this level of gymnastics as a kid. It taught me many things in life.

How to work hard and improve at something through many small iterations.

Learning multiple events is tricky and useful.

Dealing with injuries is an important part of life. Nobody goes through their day to day at 100% all the time. Working through the challenges is part of life.

I think gymnastics is one of those 'learning to learn' activities like chess.

I would strongly recommend looking into BJJ when she wants to move on from gymnastics. It has very similar benefits and is substantially cheaper. It can also be done at a slower pace than gymnastics, you could take a few classes a week instead of 4 x 4 hours.

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#108

Post by JohnHaugeland »

amputect wrote: post #100
JohnHaugeland wrote: post #90

Why do you need a woman? I don't understand why we all talk about the gender problem in engineering, then continue it by isolating female students from male teachers. There is no isolation between male students and female teachers, or same gender students and teachers. If we want to move towards equality, why carefully structure inequality in?

> Why do you need a woman? Because role models are a great thing thing for a young person to have. Why is it a problem for him to want a female role model for a female child? Why do you think that "wanting his daughter to meet a female engineer" represents inequality? Do you think that it would somehow be more equal for women to only have male role models?

"Do you think that it would somehow be more equal for women to only have male role models?"

You seem to be going to great effort to misunderstand me.

By saying "I think young people should have access to everyone, not just people demographically like them," you seem to have heard "I think young women should only have access to people unlike them."

A call for inclusion has been misrepresented as a call for exclusion.

.

"Why is it a problem for him to want a female role model for a female child?"

For the same reason that it would be a problem to only want male role models for male children. It reinforces existing problems and stereotypes, prevents social connections across demographics, limits group knowledge cross pollination, and limits the students' access to whoever is the best mentor available in the case that that mentor does not match them demographically.

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"Why do you think that "wanting his daughter to meet a female engineer" represents inequality?"

Does this actually need to be explained?

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#109

Post by amputect »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #101
arbutus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to be able to see people who look like your potential future self. There's more to it than just seeing neat work - everyone needs role models. Kids are very perceptive. This girl sounds lucky to have parents who encourage her in STEM topics, but that doesn't shield her from media/misguided school teachers/councillors/other kids telling her these things aren't for her. Having a female role model is a po…

I'm a man and I modelled my professional self on a woman, so I have some difficulty with this. I believe that choosing to limit one's role models by gender is a problem.

The average man in an engineering discipline can trivially meet other male engineers, and will be pretty much surrounded by them anywhere they work. This would be true at the grade-school level up through the pinnacle of their careers.

This is not true for women. This guy's daughter might be the only girl in her class who feels comfortable expressing an interest in engineering. She might go on to be one of a tiny (and steadily decreasing) number of women in an overwhelmingly male university-level engineering program. Can you imagine how it might be nice to at some point be able to meet and learn from someone whose life experiences more closely match your own, and learn from the experiences that they have (or will have) in common?

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#110

Post by amputect »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #108
amputect wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you need a woman? Because role models are a great thing thing for a young person to have. Why is it a problem for him to want a female role model for a female child? Why do you think that "wanting his daughter to meet a female engineer" represents inequality? Do you think that it would somehow be more equal for women to only have male role models?

"Do you think that it would somehow be more equal for women to only have male role models?" You seem to be going to great effort to misunderstand me. By saying "I think young people should have access to everyone, not just people demographically like them," you seem to have heard "I think young women should only have access to people unlike them." A call for inclusion has been misrepresented as a call for exclusion.…

It's absolutely trivial to meet male engineers. Many, if not most, of his daughters role models will end up being male engineers. The effort isn't to exclude men from being involved in her career choice / education, the effort is to include a woman in it.
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