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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

#71

Post by microcolonel »

striking wrote: post #68
microcolonel wrote: post #67

I've taken the liberty to rewrite the article in literal sentences so people can enjoy it without the opinionated flourish. The interview was preserved as-is, though I added speaker labels to make it clearer who is talking. ------------- TITLE: These Three Young Sisters Perform Very Well in Programming Competitions 5 min read Mari would be skeptical of a claim that females are not good at engineering, programming, or…

Thanks for this, actually. I'm not sure I love the term "propaganda" used on puff pieces because of its denotation (I think it's a little much and yeah I'm not disagreeing that you sounded a little "butthurt"), but I'm very glad that you rewrote the essay into a more easily read, more accessible, more neutral format. I wish internet-based journalism promoted writing like your rewrite. It's too bad neutral writing tha…

Noted, I will update my post with that in mind. It really was pointless anyway, nobody should care what I think of the original piece. I just get annoyed when I read something like this; I would rather just read the statements, but people want to make you think it proves their point.

Thank you for the feedback.

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#72

Post by davidgay »

chroma wrote: post #65
GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would hope all commentators on HN are feminists. I would hope so too, but the empirical evidence is against us.

I think people are operating under different definitions of feminism. It's sort of an "if-by-whiskey"[1] thing. If by feminism you mean not discriminating against (or in any way thinking less of) women, then practically everyone on HN is a feminist. And many –including myself– would argue that if that's what you mean by feminism, then the term doesn't need to exist. We don't have a term for a non-racist. Why should w…

>If by feminism you mean not discriminating against (or in any way thinking less of) women, then practically everyone on HN is a feminist. And many –including myself– would argue that if that's what you mean by feminism, then the term doesn't need to exist. We don't have a term for a non-racist. Why should we need a term for a non-sexist?

Hmm, along those lines, why would we ever need/have needed terms like "civil rights" or "abolitionist"? I mean, why should we need a term to designate being against racism, or against slavery?

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#73

Post by oldmanjay »

ae_keji wrote: post #53
user_0001 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The fact that makeup exists speaks a lot about our culture and how it views women.

Culture does not have a view, as abstract concepts cannot themselves conceptualize

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#74

Post by surfmike »

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.

Totally anecdotal, but I seem to meet disproportionately many woman engineers from Russia and Iran.

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#75

Post by reitanqild »

clevernickname wrote: post #59
tenpies wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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). Witho…

Came here to post that documentary (the entire series of which is freely available, btw[1]). I think you misinterpreted it slightly, however. The documentary presents evidence (strongly denied by the Norwegian social scientists interviewed) that male and female brains are wired differently, to be good at and enjoy different activities. It even goes so far as to show studies that link receiving an excessive amount of…

If this holds up to scrutiny maybe a better way forward would be to try to increase the status and pay jobs that typically attract women?

Note: I am not saying girls shouldn't code, quite on the contrary I'd hope that all kids, regardless of gender, get more practical subjects earlier in school: coding, woodworking, low-voltage electronics, mechanics, cooking & housework etc etc.

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#76

Post by foota »

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,…

I'm not sure I'm understanding you correctly, are you saying that men are better at programming or are you saying that no one is saying that they aren't?

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#77

Post by pedrosorio »

positivity89 wrote: post #8
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,…

I think you're really underestimating these strong women. The title is not misleading because of this point: "I was one of the first few girls on the Georgian team in IOI and I was the second Georgian girl to win a medal." It doesn't matter if they are 2nd not 1st place. Bottom line is that these strong, awesome women are setting a great example.

Regarding IOI, that's a common misconception people have about high school olympiads: "The top 50% of the contestants are awarded medals, such that the relative number of gold : silver : bronze : no medal is approximately 1:2:3:6 (thus 1/12 of the contestants get a gold medal)."

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#78

Post by warlox »

jlg23 wrote: post #60
jacalata wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of it may be traceable to the enormous number of Soviet men who died in WWII, prompting intense state support for single mothers and allowing the remaining men to avoid responsibility and be spoiled, essentially. This is mentioned briefly in this article if you're interested - http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-...

Maybe, or maybe it was the basic understand that the communist dream can only come true if everyone, men and women, equally work towards it. In my parents' generation (I'm born in the GDR) there was no debate about feminism. Women were expected to work, childcare was available, it was free and it catered to people who had to work 40h/week. Sometimes I was in kindergarten from 8am to 8pm. I still remember how I did no…

Communist revolutions threw out the old order entirely, including the part where women were considered inferior to men. There was never such a revolutionary change in the West.

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#79

Post by kevinwang »

home_boi wrote: post #40
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.

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

But just because you don't hear them complain doesn't mean that there aren't problems.

Re: Three teen sisters who win medals in coding competitions

#80

Post by startling »

scrollaway wrote: post #57
startling wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, your argument is "no one has ever said men are better at writing programs than women"?

Not only am I not arguing (and thus don't have an argument), but even if I were, that would certainly not be my argument. I was explaining why the comment was getting downvoted. It is, however, interesting to see how you yourself are adopting a very similar tactic to the one I talk about in the post you replied to. Simply fascinating.

OK, I'll try to be more explicit.

> Saying "you can code even if you're a woman" is incredibly patronizing. It was never in question.

This isn't true. Tons of people question this!

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