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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."

Show me STEM mentors that are accepting boys and turning away girls. I've never heard of such a program. It seems to me that every mentor available to a boy is also available to a girl. Thus your comment that boys have more than enough mentors while girls don't is highly suspect.

I would say that the rationale for making STEM mentors available to our youth is plenty strong. The rationale for making mentors available to select youth groups is flawed.

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'm just wondering. How long ago was that?

I helped raise funding for a tech startup back in 2000, so I knew the VC community quite well. Granted, I am not a woman, but there were successful women entrepreneurs at the time.

2010 - local angel investors; not national. I considered and was approached by a national VC but by then was only a few months from revenue and no longer wanted to go that path. The data, however, indicates I was not along. Women led tech firms are funded only in a fraction of the amount and in far less quantity than similar firms with male CEO's.

Decades ago, the guy who invented Legos was pretty clear that they were supposed to have universal appeal. Boy or girl, Lego was for everyone.

Then, at some point, all that changed, and pretty much everything outside the Duplo range became aimed at boys. Last Christmas, I tried to find a Lego kit (not just a bucket) that my daughter would like, and had to hunt high and low to find a lighthouse or a log cabin. Everything else was blast 'em up!!

Then I read that Lego was trying to make a line called Friends that would appeal to girls. I thought the kits were (are), well, err, kind of stereotypically over-the-top uber-pink GIRLIE!! You can judge for yourself.

I don't jump in here very often anymore, but I think one of the points being overlooked in the discussion is the primary aspect of a mentor/mentee relationship - it's not the technical stuff, it's the other stuff - the social side, the networking, the obstacles, the exposure, the who you know, the unwritten rules, etc. These mentors are female and their primary target audience is female because that is who the mentors feel need their specific expertise and who they can provide the best and most appropriate assitance/advice to.

A mentor is an experienced advisor and supporter who advises and guides a younger, less experienced person. I'm sorry but male STEM workers simply aren't going to provide the same kind of advice, guidance and perspective for a young girl interested in a STEM field as can a female who has been there/done that, especially because of the history of bias that already has several examples posted on both sides of this discussion.

The point of this program is to connect what I think nearly everyone on this thread has agreed is a rare resource - experienced female STEM workers - with students interested in the STEM fields. The boys interested in STEM fields have lots of other exposure to potential mentors - teachers, professors, parents even in their day to day life. The girls, not so much.

Those of us with daughters interested in the STEM fields seem to find very few available mentors who are female, without intensive effort. The girls interested in STEM fields need access to female mentors both to truly understand the bias and gender issues that may be found in day to day working conditions, but also in order to figure out how to deal with those issues and build a support network. I could find male mentors easily for my DS. This resource provides a concentrated access to female mentors that many young girls would otherwise have no access to at all.

Was this an official NASA sanctioned event, or something this particular pilot likes to do on his or her own time? Do you know whether or not an effort was made to invite or coordinate with the girl scouts or another girl oriented group?

Well said.

Another important function of a mentor is to serve as a role model, which is only effective if a child reasonably thinks that they have a chance to grow up like the role model. The correct gender can be an instant disqualifier.

And it goes both ways... the child must identify with the mentor, and the mentor must identify with the child. Since boys and girls have completely different social experiences...

Events like these are considered public affairs events, and organizations make requests. I don't know if the girls scouts made a request but I doubt they would be denied if the crew had time available. I'm also not clear why having an organization that caters to one "group" needs to take away from the others. There are many examples of groups, boy/girl scouts are just one and while my daughter could possibly join the boy scouts, I doubt she would enjoy it or want to do this. I did play baseball as a kid because we missed softball sign up. While I didn't hit home runs, I did steal a lot of bases and get walked a lot .....

I wanted to second Prissy's point. I would think girls would want to find like role models to show them that they can do it as well vs a male mentor.

While I don't think I ran into bias in college, I did get some bias in elementary and high school (ooposite from DAD22s experience where girls got special favors). So it can go both ways. Instead of being bitter, I just like to prove them wrong and even today enjoy finding solutions to problems/errors that the guys sometimes don't see or overlooked.

I would suggest if anyone is looking for mentors it sounds like there might be some available on this forum (for a wide variety of careers).