[Mauronic1]

My American girlfriend's immediate response: seems militaristic and violent.

My daughter was turned off from robotics at a young age. She joined firstego league and there was a ton of domineering "boy energy" in her school. She enjoyed creating and personalizing the robots in unique ways, the boys wanted "to win".

This is what happens when you have a bunch of dudes designing educational robot toys.

[langitbiru]

You are posing an interesting assumption. Your premise is girls and boys are "biologically" different in this robotics context. Your words: "the boys wanted 'to win'", "She enjoyed creating and personalizing the robots".

If we accept your premise to be true, then we must cater to the girls so robotics can be more inclusive. Again your words: "creating and personalizing the robots in unique ways". Maybe DJI can provide robotics which is less violent, catered for girls. I don't know, maybe something like Baymax, or Wall-E.

The other side of coin is we reject your premise. Boys and girls have no differences. Boys want to win. Girls want to win also. If this alternative premise is true, then either we must push the girls to be more aggressive (want to win) or discourage the boys who are aggressive (want to win).

I am interested in other people's opinion about this. No, I don't have answer for this question.

[gatherhunterer]

The differences could be due to environmental influence or a number of other factors. You are reaching to establish a wider gender narrative. Children have different interests for a wide variety of reasons not the least of which is role modeling and social pressure. Anecdotal evidence is not a reliable basis for conclusion-drawing, especially when the anecdotes occur within a similar cultural context. You are trying to find ground for an assumption based on little to no information. Let people be people and stop with the armchair sociology.

[langitbiru]

Okay, I am trying to have a conversation here.

So according to you, the situation of boys like "more military and violent" type robotic toys and girls like "more creative" type robotics toys, could be caused by social construct (role modeling and social pressure).

In that case, what should we do as society? Should we let this social construct be because it is harmless? Should we uproot this social construct as society because this construct is harmful for children?

The second question is what do you mean by "let people be people" in the parent's context? Should DJI produce another kind of robotics toys (which is less violent)? Or if a kid who happens to be a girl and does not like "violent" robotics toys should accept the situation and just find another toy? Or she should learn to love "violent" robotics toys?

[akerl_]

I’m more concerned by the idea that wanting “to win” is “boy energy”. Why should we persist the idea that wanting to win is a boy thing, and wanting to create/personalize is (as implied by your comment) a girl thing?

[cbg0]

> Why should we persist the idea that wanting to win is a boy thing

Because it most often is, boys typically like to compete more than girls do. I'm not going to quote studies on this, just basing this on my experience growing up and now as an adult being around small kids.

[akerl_]

This speaks to society’s role in conditioning men to be aggressive and women to be passive, which was exactly what I said I was concerned with.

Unless you’re making the case that absent cultural conditioning, women are biologically less interested in “winning” than men?

[lm28469]

Ew, I can't for the life of me understand this "everything is a social construct" mindset.

The average man is biologically different than the average female. Testosterone alone can explain why men are generally more violent and sexually aggressive than women. And there are many many many other factors in effect. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/

Why do people get angry about facts, there is no value judgment in saying "The average women is inclined to do X while the average man is more inclined to do Y", it doesn't mean "every woman HAS to do X and every man HAS to do Y". Why would every animals of different sex present different behaviours but somehow humans are all 100% equal and every difference is due to "society" ? Is biology a social construct now ?

[akerl_]

I’m not claiming that “everything” is a social construct.

I replied to the claim that wanting “to win” is a masculine trait, and compared it to the feminine trait of personalization/creativity. It seems pretty far fetched to claim that biology causes boys to be more interested in winning Lego programming competitions.

[lm28469]

> It seems pretty far fetched to claim that biology causes boys to be more interested in winning Lego programming competitions.

Why ? The "Lego programming competitions" is a detail there, the important part is "does winning at X triggers the same biological pathways as winning at Y ?" and "are men more inclined to be competitive ?".

For example men are more inclined to do dangerous activities for fun, like racing cars or rock climbing. Does it means that biology ""wants"" men to race cars, no, just that racing cars trigger biological pathways somehow perceived as more beneficial for men than female.

[reitanqild]

Does society do this to apes as well? Reindeer? Etc?

Study history and biology and I think you'll probably find that society used to accept nature but today it is trying to romantizise nature and blame it on culture, while the opposite is more true.

[trevyn]

>Why should we persist the idea that wanting to win is a boy thing

Because the same processes that make male and female bodies have different structure and work differently make male and female brains have different structure and work differently.

[dgzl]

I'm curious, since you know your daughter's personality (and those of little girls in general) better than I do, how would the game be designed such that they'd be more interested? Keep in mind this is coming from a company known for making high quality drones.

[Mauronic1]

I am not informed enough to even guess. Was it the first robotics ciricculum or the gender dynamics of the class? Or both?

That was 7 years ago, now she is in an all girls high school. The same sex education has provided a much less distracting environment. (Don't want to get off topic but I could go on and on about same sex education)

[dgzl]

So you have enough intuition to criticize this drone toy as being "designed by dudes" and not palatable for girls, but have zero intuition about how the game can be changed so your own daughter would enjoy it better? Do you realize how unhelpful that is?

From your own words, it sounds like your daughter enjoys being aesthetically creative rather than technically competitive. In which case, why are you bitter about a drone company being a drone company?

[Mauronic1]

It's not intuition. The product team was lead by a man (see the Bloomberg video). The CEO of DJI is man, every senior exec is a man and 98% of all the DJI reps that I have met at trade shows since 2014 have been men.

It's true that I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about how to solve the problem. But it annoys me when a billion dollar company doesn't seem to either.

[dgzl]

> But it annoys me when a billion dollar company doesn't seem to either.

It is literally not their responsibility, nor should it be. If girls aren't interested in battling or racing or "winning", then giving them competitive battling and racing games might not be a good choice.

[bubblewrap]

Get your daughter a different toy, then, and let the boys enjoy their battles.

[Mauronic1]

Are you feeling threatened?

I was just sharing some female perspectives. If this wasn't so expensive, I'd buy 2 for myself.

As a parent, I don't think there's a need to teach the next generation ok kids about AI in the context of autonomous killing machines...

[bubblewrap]

Sure, yes, I feel threatened - because it is visible in many educational institutions that the only focus is on somehow getting girls into STEM. The boys are on their own, it is assumed that they will be interested in STEM anyway. Which isn't even the case. More boys than girls go into STEM, but many boys don't go into STEM or much of anything, really (less men than women complete higher education these days).

I have a son and a daughter, and I don't like that approach for either of them. I think if boys or girls are having fun, that should be encouraged and used as a motivator. If "killing machines" is what motivates the boys to program robots, so be it. Although I don't think this toy robot can actually kill anything, so that is just hyperbole.

And presumably it goes further - will I be blamed if I give my son a water pistol, because I encourage his toxic masculinity? Where does it stop?

[Mauronic1]

I get it that boys are biologically different. I was at a party recently and two 14 year old boys wrestle for an hour on and off in dress clothes. My daughter rolled her eyes and texted her girlfriends.

The problem that I observed is that my daughter's co-ed elementary STEM program attracted a lot of hyperactive boys. On top of that, the curriculum flipped some primal switches. What I called the "boy energy" spilled over to my daughter's experience and made it crappy for her.

She has been in a same sex educational setting for the past several years and it has been great. FWIW, she loves Chem, Bio and Theater.

p.s. I am enjoying this conversation even though I must be getting downvoted a lot since my karma is negative. LOL

[bubblewrap]

I have a general issue with school forcing kids into sub-optimal learning environments. It's not OK if a few ill-mannered kids make it difficult for everybody else.

I don't think it is an inevitable outcome of having boys in the class, in fact, many boys also suffer from the behavior of such classmates.

However, if single-sex education helps, why not.

What irks me is when there are STEM courses just for girls, without similar offers for boys. In my country, significant amounts of government money are available for that kind of thing. Firms and organizations also do it, presumably for marketing purposes (displaying how progressive they are by encouraging women in tech).

An example that comes to mind is Google sponsoring women traveling to their Google I/O event. It's nice to encourage women in tech. But if there is a woman reluctant to go, being convinced by being offered money, and a man who would love to go but can't afford it, I feel something is amiss. Although I give the companies that they have their own incentives, namely getting their hands on cheaper software developers. The market for male developers might be tapped out, so it is understandable if they set their eyes on women.

[dgzl]

It doesn't. This is all because there's a lack of women in STEM, and people trying to find out why.

If we can conclude that it's society's fault (nature/nurture) women don't like STEM, then we can change society until women are interested.

If the reality is that women are uninterested in STEM from a biological standpoint, then it's harder to manipulate to get women interested.

The people who are most concerned with this problem are really fighting the idea that any of this is biologically responsible.

[bubblewrap]

First of all women are doing lots of STEM - they are the majority of medicine students, for example. It seems to be mostly engineering they shun.

In my opinion, the main reason for that is that they have lots of other interests, too, and they have more options than men (being less dependent on a good income). For that reasons alone it is to be expected that less women choose engineering. Biological aspects might play a part, too, of course (apart from having a womb, I mean).

[dgzl]

> In my opinion, the main reason for that is that they have lots of other interests, too, and they have more options than men (being less dependent on a good income).

Can you explain these three points? I really don't know what you mean by them. I assume men would have the same amount of interests and "options", and don't know why being dependant on good income has anything to do with it.