As Dude said, just because you know the message is illogical, doesn't mean that a young girl does and they're the ones receiving it - not you. Even if judging a book by its cover is illogical, it's a fact of life - everyone does it anyway. Otherwise why bother dressing up for job interviews or a blind date?
Not to be too personal, but how do you know whether or not your DD has doubts about whether women are welcome in STEM fields? She may not necessarily ever voice them to you. For that matter she may not ever realize that she has doubts because she doesn't even realize that it's an option worth discussing. That's my point here. The message that women are not welcome is insidious. No one ever says it straight out, but you just seldom see any women in STEM careers. To the point where many girls don't even think to try because by the age of 10 or 14 or 6 they've already internalized the message - they never even get to the pont where they ask themselves or any one else - "Could I do that?".
Even if you personally can convey the message that women are welcome in STEM fields, how much weight does that carry against the possibility that your DD is the only girl on the robotics team and she is one of only two girls in the Honors Algebra class in 7th grade or that she is the only girl from her school to submit a science fair project? Last I heard, most tweens and teenagers don't always have a lot of faith in what their parents say, especially if real life appears to contradict them.
Maybe this particular program isn't your preferred way to handle this - to each their own. So what exactly are you doing to actively spread the message that women are welcome in STEM fields? How many secondary school or college women or junior staff in you organziation are you mentoring in your field? If you aren't contributing to the solution then it's not entirely appropriate for you to be tearing down an organziation (government supported or not) that is trying. Constructive criticism is a different story.
As I mentioned earlier, if you've got another idea, or two or three, please share. Many of us who are currently women in STEM fields would love to figure out how to get and keep girls interested in these areas when so much else of what they see undercuts the message we want to send.
I guess I'm also a little stuck on what exactly you see is discriminatory about the program. The admission criteria do not appear to exclude boys. The message is clearly targeted at girls, because that's the intended audience being marketed, but that's the message, not the program. It's not generally considered discriminatory to market to a particular demographic.
