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 I can't help but express my complaints to parents with outdated views who, until you show them a diploma as proof that you are capable of something, will keep convincing you that this is not for you and you should leave it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.
Are you on the mandatory list to defend your country in the case of war? Can you emigrate in such case?
The whole point of having a special olympiad for a specific sex sounds a bit odd to me, for physical sports, I can understand, that there is a need to have separate competitions for men and women.
Maybe olympiads type of competitions do not need to have sex-specific competitions. This itself makes the other gender look weak.
Having competitions to encourage young women can be considered a special case, or else I don't see a reason to have different competitions.
Suppose there weren't gender-specific olympiads. Let's take a look at some supposedly gender-neutral olympiad.
Say, for whatever reason, 90% of participants are men, 10% are women. Statistically, women are going to get worse top results (the averages might be the same, but who cares about averages in sports?), so the society believes women are not worth investing in, so they aren't trained, so the cycle continues.
Woman-only competitions exist precisely to encourage women to train -- and, on the flip side, for the trainers to take women seriously.
I agree with your point. You are not getting my point.
In mental sports, like Olympiads. I am saying, that if a female is ranking first in female sports, but is performing badly in gender-neutral sports because of multiple reasons.
This is why people just assume that she is not good enough to compete against males. This is why, from the outside, it looks like one gender is superior and the other is not. I don't know how this assumption started, but this is how the current generation feels probably
Sad to see that you feel this way. Unfortunately, the argument of why there are less females than males in olympiad is way more nuanced than just "sexism". I won't comment on what those are, there are enough resources available on the internet if you are willing to read them. But most of those overlap with why there is a women's section in say chess, for example. On a lighter note, No, women aren't weaker. The vast majority of them just are smart enough to do better and more meaningful things with their life than stare at a computer screen for hours trying to solve abstract mathematical problems.
The vast majority of them just are smart enough to do better and more meaningful things with their life than stare at a computer screen for hours trying to solve abstract mathematical problems.
Says someone who could not enjoy solving math problems and finding every loophole to complain about it
I completely agree with other parts of your arguments though
I did my fair share of solving math problems, did math, informatics olympiads and stuff. But you don't care because how can a "newbie" be reasonable, right? Stop judging people based on their cf colours. And even if you do, at least look at the account once before shitting on them online.
Yeah, my points are still valid even if I remove that ratism thing. From your last sentence, reading it as-is, I can only read the following:
I'm not the one intended to start a fight here. People like you are too easily aggroviated.
Anyways, I won't comment on this thread further. Peace.
You can't just say "I won't comment on what those are" without any links and assume you won the argument.
The reason for this effect, and the same effect in Chess, is precisely sexism. No one takes women seriously, so no one invests in women, so women don't achieve good enough results (and when they do, they're accused of not being women, cue Olympics).
What sends me spiraling is that this fear and feelings of supremacy are internalized by women. It's xenophobia all around, there just isn't another explanation for, say, FIDE banning trans women from participating in female chess. It's people in control exercising said control in unfair ways all around.
There isn't an argument here.
'Unfortunately, the argument of why there are less females than males in olympiad is way more nuanced than just "sexism"'
Maybe it's just that, the amount of males participating in the qualifications round is more, and hence more male talents qualify for the selections. Maybe the females participating in the qualifications round are just not that good to take on the competition with those particular talented males who qualified.
Why do you see that only males qualify? See that many males are not qualifying also and neither are the females.
Why are females not participating? I don't know. Maybe because of taboo, maybe they are not interested,
And for the case, the op is saying, I think it's just an issue at her place, maybe. So she will have to deal with it herself, just like we all deal with our own challenges. Like I am not good enough in CP, so I am dealing with it by practicing daily.
Interest is a big part of it. And I won't elaborate further because I am not interested in online arguments, because someone is bound to take it personally for some reason — this is the unfortunate reality about the nature of these discussions. I am both too old and too tired for that kind of stuff. If someone has an open mind, they can look into it for themselves.
You are right. The solution though is not expecting "the next generation" in the school system, but advocating for more open contests without any restrictions on age\gender\number of tries and so on. Ideally pushing your company to organize competitions, if your company can afford that.
Government\state affiliated or international competitions are generally extremely bad because of the tons of restrictions they have anyway, unlikely that they'll ever be fixed.
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.
In China, we choose the people who ranked 1, 2, 3 and 4 in team selection contests. Does this change anything about that ratio?
Btw you are so cute .
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.
Who are these individuals who are not talking to a cutie like you.
bro thats her childhood photo
Do you need teacher permission to participate in oi in Ukraine?
you don't have to worry for too long, in 10 or 15 years barely any male will be around competing, at least in the western world, as the female enrollment in the colleges will be around 80 to 90% compared to the 60-65% we have nowadays, it doesn't take a scientist to see the trend so.
also you will have a way easier time earning a say, 7 figure job than any men who complains about you or girl competitions in the comments so.