At the age of 9, she's already learned that this is a field for boys.
DD8 took a Lego robotics class earlier this year, in which she was the only girl out of 10 kids. She loved the programming, so her grandparents got her a Lego robotics kit for her birthday. Building the robots was the first time she'd really had to do a task where she couldn't just glance at the instructions and be able to do a "good enough" job, even once she'd had some practice.
So when we were taking a frustration break, I explained to her how the skills she was developing - looking carefully, following instructions exactly, double-checking her work - would help her be successful in science, later. And then I started a sentence with, "some people think Lego is for boys, and some people think science is for boys," and she rolled her eyes and interrupted with, "Mom, *everybody* thinks that."
