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Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

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Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#31

Post by dang »

rustynails wrote: post #5

I'm not sure what you mean by positive change. Firstly, the article was very sexist and I don't see that changing any time soon. "programming is just another skill to be mastered through persistence — with or without a Y chromosome.". Can anyone point me to a link where anyone (other than a feminist) has said this? Smashing of records? They came 2nd and 3rd in most instances. That's not refuting they may be talented,…

> Firstly, the article was very sexist [...] a thinly veiled pulp piece of sexist journalism [...] a propaganda piece

Even if the article is framed in a way that's not to your taste, the choice here is (1) celebrating how cool these sisters are vs. (2) angry denunciation leading to flamewar #3238. The latter is not a win for HN.

If you can't turn off the ideological rage here, where can you turn it off? And if you can't turn it off at all, then it's not really discussion, just bile. Good discussion, the interesting kind, requires the discipline to resist mechanical triggers and respond to the most alive details in a piece, which in this case is clearly the story of the sisters and what they have to say.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11538481 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#32

Post by tenpies »

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #7

There's something that continuously goes unsaid in the US tech industry where we do massive amounts of soul-searching about the lack and/or poor treatment of women in STEM: the ex-republics of the Soviet Union, while they have plenty of other problems, do not have this specific problem.

There was an interesting Norwegian documentary that looked into this[1]. The overall observation was that societies where women were extremely free, usually ended up with the same gender distributions as societies in which they were less free (e.g. few women in STEM).

By contrast, societies where women were only somewhat free, the number of women in STEM exploded (although I don't recall if it was quite 50/50). Without considering other factors, it almost seemed like some degree of social pressure to stay out of STEM was necessary to get the most women to be interested in it.

---

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#33

Post by home_boi »

nostrebored wrote: post #20
rustynails wrote: post #5

I'm not sure what you mean by positive change. Firstly, the article was very sexist and I don't see that changing any time soon. "programming is just another skill to be mastered through persistence — with or without a Y chromosome.". Can anyone point me to a link where anyone (other than a feminist) has said this? Smashing of records? They came 2nd and 3rd in most instances. That's not refuting they may be talented,…

Maybe this is coming from a generational gap, but your experience does not mirror mine at all. I went to an engineering school where women in CS were either assumed to be a management major or people assumed that they were taking the easiest courses available. I've had my wife answer questions for people thoroughly and correctly, and had them come to ask me the same question 20 minutes later and trust that my answer…

>take a look at the charts of women in CS over time.

You mean the chart of video game growth over time?

This might be a bit of a stretch but it has rung true with me and many other people. We all became interested in technology and computers because of video games. Our interests in video games transitioned to taking programming courses in high school and college.

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#34

Post by hackinthebochs »

Apocryphon wrote: post #22
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my personal observation over the years says that the vast majority of new female engineers have come from foreign countries. Or are American citizens who immigrated here after middle school. We're celebrating a narrowing gender gap, but American women seem to be largely left out.

I wonder which of these other nations are. Perhaps their engineering cultures are more gender-egalitarian than ours.

The best explanation I've seen is that in countries with high economic insecurity, people are motivated to work at lucrative careers with low barriers to entry, despite their lack of inherent interest. Programming is top of the list almost everywhere. The survival instinct surely is egalitarian.

But in countries with less economic insecurity this motivation to work in a field without an inherent interest simply isn't there. Perhaps this motivation is different across genders in wealthier countries (men are more likely to go into fields they don't like), or men simply like technical fields at higher rates.

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#35

Post by user_0001 »

Apocryphon wrote: post #22
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my personal observation over the years says that the vast majority of new female engineers have come from foreign countries. Or are American citizens who immigrated here after middle school. We're celebrating a narrowing gender gap, but American women seem to be largely left out.

I wonder which of these other nations are. Perhaps their engineering cultures are more gender-egalitarian than ours.

Equally as important, perhaps they do not have it drilled into them that beauty is all they should aim for. Everything they see is that women should be (model level) beautiful. Should flaunt their women-ness.

Advertising, makeup, dolls, television, films play a bigger part than the so called sexism that exists in engineering cultures

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#36

Post by ikeboy »

ryancouto wrote: post #30
and-can wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see many people arguing over technicalities here.

at this point in time, the 2nd highest comment is.

Note that new comments are weighted much higher (e.g. I've had top level comments on a thread with several comments immediately show up first) and so the fact that a comment is near the top at a point in time does not mean that it's popular.

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#37

Post by yarou »

jakub_h wrote: post #4
positivity89 wrote: post #2

Wow, this was really inspiring. There are probably hundreds of girls/women like this, but they don't make headlines as often. This is awesome. The youngest sister may even grow up in a world where she doesn't have the same barriers as most women today. Could this be a sign of positive change?

There are hundreds of boys like this as well. Geniuses get born everywhere, in different bodies, places, social strata etc. The fact that many of them get lesser chances to contribute to the world is an outrageous abuse of the most precious resource that the humanity has, regardless of why it happens.

And how do you propose we fix that, and more importantly, does your solution scale?

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#38

Post by ikeboy »

lotso wrote: post #28
eip wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity.. what barriers?

Here's one for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat I'm sure if you Google, you can find much better explanations than I am able to provide.

"Failures to replicate and publication bias" as a subheading on that page.

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#39

Post by dang »

komaromy wrote: post #9
differentView wrote: post #6

>As for my sisters, if a guy says girls can’t code as well as guys, then my sisters just say “well, my sister wins competitions.” >I’ve won 2 bronze medals at IOI, 1 bronze at CEOI, 2 silvers at IZhO. Mari, Ani and I competed in HackerRank Women’s Cup as a team last year, and we ranked third place! Some companies that sponsored the event even sent us a letter after the contest, but I had to tell them that we’re too y…

It's annoying when the subject of an article is interesting enough to warrant attention but the headline is sensationalized regardless.

To take this issue off the table, we've changed the title to something that's factually supported by the article.

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#40

Post by home_boi »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #13
YuriNiyazov wrote: post #7

There's something that continuously goes unsaid in the US tech industry where we do massive amounts of soul-searching about the lack and/or poor treatment of women in STEM: the ex-republics of the Soviet Union, while they have plenty of other problems, do not have this specific problem.

my personal observation over the years says that the vast majority of new female engineers have come from foreign countries. Or are American citizens who immigrated here after middle school. We're celebrating a narrowing gender gap, but American women seem to be largely left out.

Weirdly enough, these foreign female engineers never complain about "culture problems" even though they make up the majority of female engineers.
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