Good afternoon, Sofia Kurta is not my name, but in the photo, it is indeed me in my younger years. I was a participant in many olympiads during my childhood, and later I was a volunteer at some olympiads, for example, EGOI.

So, let's get to the essence of the differences between men and women in the field of programming from my experience. Fortunately, in my country, there are already positive trends regarding this: you can regularly see wise and smart girls at IOI, and the top prize spots are often filled by women. This is obviously progress compared to the sexist past years. But if you take a closer look, the peak for the ratio of the female part of the team to the male is about half, while for men, it is normal to fill the whole team. This is terrible.

Here's where I see the root of the problem — what is the situation with this share of girls at previous stages? You can barely find them there. The problem here is already in the system itself and in the approach of teachers who push boys to olympiads, who somehow manage the school math program, because how could they send a girl there — this was exactly my case during school years. That season, the boy took the second-to-last place at the district level, and there was also a "wonderful" subjective evaluation of the code by the school teacher, because of which I didn’t make it further. I can't help but express my complaints to parents with outdated views who, until you show them a diploma as proof that you are capable of something, will keep convincing you that this is not for you and you should leave it to the boys — awful.

Of course, it's not just about the results. I was very "lucky" to be the only girl or one of the few girls at many olympiads, which gave me the opportunity to feel all the attention from the big programmers and teachers with coaches. "What is such a beautiful girl doing here?" — a favorite question. But I will be solving the problems! Surely, after that, I won’t be talking with you. Why don't they ask such questions to any of the boys, when at any olympiad there are obvious passengers? And these handouts, when they give you a prize at the programming camp just because you are of a different build, is also one of my favorite situations, as if I need your praise for something.

So smoothly, or maybe not, we approach another painful topic. Will many of you consider a woman equal, even if she has the same results, the same rating on Codeforces? Of course, the majority of you are an adequate society. But I’ve come across individuals who wouldn’t talk to me because I am a woman and should be weaker, while talking calmly with others, even weaker ones — strange.

I would like to highlight the arrogance from some men towards women's olympiads. As if it's an olympiad for the disabled, and any of them would take the first absolute prizes there. There was a case during my volunteering at EGOI when a girl won a medal, was happy, and then after talking with her "friends," she began to say that it was nothing yet, and she would have to prove something at other olympiads. What good did they do with this? Did they take away her moment of happiness and pride? Yes. Don’t you dare belittle the significance of women's olympiads, it looks very disgusting.

Conclusion: the school system and parents' views are still outdated, with which it is impossible to build equal conditions. Despite this, there are prospects in the next generation, where the share of blind sexists is quite small.

Thank you for your attention, respect the !weaker, equal gender.