Originally Posted by ABQMom
Originally Posted by DAD22
Originally Posted by ABQMom
Originally Posted by DAD22
I can't say I support the message that the brothers of the girls partaking of the program will be receiving.

What message will the brothers be receiving?


I am an engineer who grew up as a talented math student, and I am somewhat accustomed to the double standard. There was always extra excitement surrounding a girl who was good at math (and awards for best performing girl at public school math competitions... sorry to the dozens of guys who outscored her, you're the wrong sex). Now I am involved in recruitment and hiring, and the excitement carries on. Engineering firms compete to bring in female engineers in a way that they don't compete for males. Maybe this is a complete reversal from decades past. If so, I think we should damp the oscillation instead of driving it.

It sounds like this is personal for you because of your own experiences of dealing with bias.

I guess I could take it personally as well that I was turned down for funding by a group of Angel Investors because I was a woman that they thought wasn't up to the task of running a tech corporation. But the truth is that they would have made lousy advisors and mentors and second-guessed every decision I made because of their bias. After continuing to bootstrap, I made it to a profitable year without taking in any investor capital. So I'm in a better position, and I've proven them wrong in the very best of ways - by being successful.

The point is that BIAS is very different than mentoring a specific under-represented group with the goal of alleviating cultural and societal bias. It is a shame that your corporation displayed bias and that you dealt with teachers who displayed bias. I am sure you're mentoring your own son to not show bias, having experienced the negative effects in your own career.

I think you're missing half the point of my post. The bias I experienced was at public school. NASA is a government funded organization. I expect my government to operate without bias. I'm glad that your angel investors missed a money making opportunity as a result of their bias, but while I see it as the duty of government to treat citizens fairly, I don't see it as the duty of government to force citizens to treat each other fairly. I want people to do that on their own. However, our government actually does have anti-discrimination requirements for economic entities, so it seems to me that you could have filed a case against your would-be angle investors, if you felt you had sufficient evidence. (Not saying you should have, obviously that's a personal choice, and I wouldn't ever bring a case against a non-government entity for excluding me from their business dealings.)