The first wave of day-campers at the new Bob and Renee Parsons Leadership Center for Girls and Women in South Phoenix don’t know who Katniss Everdeen is. As 8- and 9-year-olds, they’re a tad young to be familiar with that particular feminist hero of young adult apocalyptic literature. They’re simply learning archery on this June morning because it’s fun. And it’s required in any tract offered at this Girl Scouts Arizona Cactus-Pine Council camp, which re-opened to campers this summer after five years of construction.
“It gives girls an opportunity to try something new and take healthy risks,” says Jessica Lyons, senior manager of Campaign for Girls, which oversaw the $18 million capital campaign to renovate the 14.5-acre property that has housed thousands of girls since 1948. In addition to traditional camp activities, Lyons says 50 percent of the programming falls under the STEM umbrella. Campers might bolster their math skills in culinary classes or science acumen through water evaporation experiments.
Girls were also involved in the design of the sleek, eco-friendly campus. The Phoenix-based architect, former Girl Scout Marlene Imirzian, says one perceptive girl told her the flagpole was in the wrong place in the blueprint. “She was totally right, so I moved it.” Imirzian says engineering fields like hers haven’t improved much in terms of access for young women since she was a scout in the ‘80s. “Providing opportunities is key to me… What I like about the Girl Scouts is it doesn’t have to be so formalized – you can be exposed to [STEM] without making a choice, without fear of commitment.”
Not everyone agrees separation by gender is the key to advancing girls.
• A 2014 study in Psychological Bulletin found only trivial differences in student performance and attitudes between single-sex and co-ed schooling.
• A 2011 neurologists’ report in Sex Roles concluded there is no scientific basis for teaching boys and girls separately.
• A 2016 Newsweek article purports the STEM gender gap comes not from differences in girls’ ability or confidence but societal gender segregation, i.e. young women turn away from STEM career tracts because they feel unwelcome in predominantly male environments.
According to a 2016 report from the National Girls Collaborative Project, K-12 girls and boys are basically equal in their math and science abilities but do differ in their interest and confidence in STEM subjects, particularly computer science and engineering. This disparity doesn’t equalize over time, with data from the National Science Board showing women constitute 28 percent of STEM employees besides making up half of the total U.S. workforce. (The numbers are worse for students of color.)
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed cutting upward of $9 billion from the Department of Education, including summer and after-school programs that offer access to STEM fields for girls and minority students. And in May, an internal memo said Trump was discontinuing former First Lady Michelle Obama’s initiative Let Girls Learn, aimed at increasing adolescent girls’ access to education, particularly in developing nations.
But while such moves from the White House seem to suggest girl-specific programming is no longer a priority, or even necessary, movements here in Arizona imply the opposite. Tech startup entrepreneur Rebecca Clyde, who co-chairs the new Phoenix chapter of Girls in Tech – a nonprofit aimed at getting more women into the tech industry – says they flew past attendance goals of their launch party in June, with more than 700 people registered. “Women are a huge untapped resource, and we’re not being utilized fully.” Clyde says one of their first courses of action is to develop a mentorship program among girls and women working in tech. “If girls do not see role models – somebody who looks like them as a data scientist or whatever… it’s very difficult for them to envision themselves doing that one day.”
At the Girl Scouts camp, Jessica Lyons says a single-gender (i.e. all girls) space is central in fostering young girls’ confidence in their own abilities (see sidebar). “It’s important to feeling safe and supported to take risks and grow,” she says.
In July, the Bob and Renee Parsons Foundation (headed by the GoDaddy founder and his wife) announced it was contributing another grant to the Girl Scouts camp on top of the $5 million they contributed in 2014 – this time a dollar-for-dollar matching grant of $1.6 million so the Girl Scouts can close out the $3.2 million remaining. “I’m hopeful we’re getting back to [an era] of strong women focusing on being successful, entrepreneurial and forging their own path,” Renee says. “I am optimistic that it’s a good time to be a girl.”
