I thought at the time of that thread (and still think) that this is one of the all-time best gender-related quotes for Vex I’ve heard:
I seriously think that THIS should be their focus, and that it makes for a far better speech on gender equality than any I’ve heard them make officially. I feel like the girl powered push often marginalizes boys (and I say this as the female coach/mentor of my son’s team for 5 years).
As far as being a girl in Vex - if you like to build robots, build robots! There is little stopping anyone interested from using the resources available online to learn everything from design to CAD to coding and on. If possible, get with like-minded people that you are comfortable being around, regardless of gender, and build robots. If options are limited, just be who you are and let others be who they are and build robots (it will happen a lot in life that you just need to do the best you can with what you have). Males and females are all just people - some will be rowdy, some will be calm, some will be snippy, some will be kind… I guarantee that there are just as many females as males in the general population that I’d have trouble connecting with. You already have a connection with everyone there that you can build on, since you all (I assume) like to build robots…