I am an enlightened woman of the twenty-first century. I support women's rights, women's issues, I wander about in a veritable sea of female-oriented hobbies and career paths. I am woman; I sympathize with my sex.
However, rage blackouts do occur when one is searching for engineering camps for summer and discovering they are all for girls.
This is where Parent of Male Child meets Woman Who Understands. I am glad that girls are being encouraged at an early age to pursue more traditionally male-oriented fields. I am thrilled that more and more of my sex are going on to achieve in the hard sciences.
*narrowed eyes* I want Child to go to engineering and robotics camp, and he refuses to temporarily go by the name of Mary.
Pardon me while I go sulk in a deeply entitled way. I am a terrible feminist today. Though I can't tell if I resent more the lack of camps or the fact Child will not temporarily take on an alternate sexual identity.
/end tantrum
This was brought to you by googling. MIT/UT has one, but it's a.) hideously expensive and b.) not really engineering oriented.
And see, that is why I don't call myself feminist, even though I goddamn am. I refuse to be associated with a label that is exclusionary and frankly? There are very few feminists (most of them on LJ, not at all surprisingly) who aren't exclusionary.
What locale are you near, if you don't mind letting me know? I love searching for things like that and there's just got to be something.
Nice, but I'm not really calling that a win. Grr.
Emailed; I'll keep hunting, I've got a few more places I need to log in and try.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Guides/SummerCamps
A couple of years old, but...from a Jane Grieg column:"List possible camps. Ask parents about camps, attend a camp fair or contact the National Camp Association, (800) 966-CAMP or www.summercamp.org, which offers a free camp advisory service, or the American Camping Association at (800) 428-CAMP or www.acacamps.org."
http://www.engineeringedu.com/summercamps.html
Googling led me to a couple of places people have already linked, as well as here: http://www.watonka.com/cgi-local/wpage?sci
and here: http://engineeringcamp.vmi.edu/
Good luck - may Child have the engineering and robotics filled summer of his dreams (and may the CIA not knock on your door if he follows the example of one R. McKay).
Based on all these answers, the problem may not be exclusionist feminists, it may just be poor advertising on the part of everyone else. It's harder to blame women for that.
Edited at 2007-12-18 06:54 pm (UTC)
Space Camp is possible, but so far I can't find one in my state that is also overnight. Still googling though.
We had a similar/different problem last year - our youngest loves to cook. There are not very many camps for cooking with boys. We teased he might have to go as a girl. He was fine with this. Mind you, this is the same child who whips off his shirt and sings, "I'm a Lady Marmalade" as well as tried to pole dance with his ninja scarf this Halloween (he also recently tried on a velvet coat and asked if it made his butt look big). He's 8. He settled for French Camp (which is local for us) and took the electives of every cooking course they offered.
Good luck in finding a camp for him. If all else fails, you could try convincing him "Mary" is actually a very masculine name and/or hint at all the chicks he'll be around.
Because unless there's some kind of sci-fi overthrow of the male gender, girls who want to go into scientific fields will be working with men. They need to learn to argue with men, and that if a man interrupts them it's fair game to interrupt back.
Have you looked into general summer enrichment programs which offer options including either a main course in engineering, or at least two out of four or five engineering-related courses?
/gifted camp geek
</gifted camp alum>
I'm going to medical school if I can get in but plan B for graduate school is biomedical engineering. (I find biophysics extremely interesting too, just not something I'd want to work in.)
Edited at 2007-12-18 08:27 pm (UTC)
Thanks!
It may be as one poster suggested above that it's just a case that google is only throwing up the ones that aggressively advertise themselves on the net - it might pay to check with either a schools guidance councillor/tertiary institution, or again as someone suggested, ring one of the No Smelly Boys Allowed Camps and see if they can direct you to somewhere.
Otherwise there's always costly and painful surgery.
I'm checking with teh school to see if they have any kind of list.
I'll ask around amongst my near and dear and see if any of them know of a good engineering/robotics summer camp for boys. Have you checked with the school and/or your son's teachers?
I'm calling tomorrow to ask the school; there might be some kind of listing since it's a science focused school.