China Girls' Math Olympiad

In My Humble Opinion
41

Well, I won’t get into how black people are treated in China. But 1950s America wouldn’t be too far off. China even has special universities for their own minorities. Hell, there is a coffee shop in downtown Chengdu with a sign on the door that says “No Japanese allowed.” China is currently a culture that is not afraid to classify people and rank them. It’s really, really, really not America and you can’t expect them to act like Americans.

But we still send black and Japanese-American Peace Corps volunteers here, because there is something for everyone to gain out of it. Sometimes you have to take the good parts and shrug off the bad parts.

As for me, I went to school in a wrong-side-of-the-tracks California suburb. No, I don’t have any empirical proof that my guidance councilor gently pushed women towards lower achievement activities. But it seemed kind of obvious to me, given that he kept telling me, an A student, that I should take keyboarding because one day I was going to need a job and being a typist is good steady work. He didn’t seem impressed when I said that I planned to do a bit better than “typist.”

Atypical? Maybe. But remember huge chunks of America do not grow up in the middle-class. Millions of American girls still live in a world where they are expected to get married, pop out a kid, and make down payment on a trailer. Since I was pretty much one of these, I’m really not about to write off their problems.

42

I’m not the one you are asking, but why the heck not? I don’t understand why we always want to watch the best of the best compete. The same ubergenius always wins, until he is replaced by another ubergenius who might as well be the exact same person.

People should, in general, be allowed to compete with people who are around the same level as them. If they win, then they can compete with someone better, but, until then, what’s the point?

It may not be PC, but the highest math scores amongst females are lower than those amongst males. While it is perfectly fine for these two groups to compete, there’s no reason they have to. I would prefer more groups to say, “sorry, you’re too good for this competition. Go try the next one up,” than for somebody who is head-and-shoulders above the rest to compete with his/her intellectual inferiors.

And this isn’t even getting into the PR benefit. The winners can go around, encouraging other women to compete. Even if math skills are sex-linked hereditary, eventually a superior female will be found. But until there is a female who has a good chance at winning, why bother?

Also, Polerius, what did you expect your daughter to say when you use misogynistic reasons to support something? But, yeah, even here in backwards northern Arkansas, I’ve never heard of a woman being discouraged from pursuing the more analytical sciences.

As for your attempt to prove racism, I don’t see how anything is different. Perhaps there would be more people who thought it was racist than people who think the current contest is sexist. So? If an African-American team doesn’t mind competing in a black-only contest, why would that be any different from an all-female team that doesn’t mind competing in a all-female contest?

If there are enough women who want to compete in this contest to make a team, what benefit is there in preventing them from going? There’s no reason anyone but the actual contestants should have a say in the matter.

43

Whatever for?:confused:

For people who think it’s a good idea, how would you feel about a black-only chess championship, or a hispanic-only chess championship?

44

So, then, you are fine with a China Blacks’ Math Olympiad, and fine with the US and other countries sending teams to this event?

You said this was 10 years ago, in California? How old was this guy, 90? Amazing.

45

Why do this gender-based? As I mentioned above, there are so many males that aren’t uber-geniuses, how do we handle them?

Should there be a Pretty-good-at-math Math Olympics where people who are uber-geniuses are excluded?

How about other groups that historically underperform: Black-only Math Olympiad, Hispanic-only Math Olympiad.

Are you fine with these too?

If all these existed: Girls-only, Black-only, Hispanic-only math Olympiads, what message would that send? Basically, that white males are the smartest at math and others have to make their own competitions, since they can’t compete with white males. Terrible.

In case you weren’t following the thread, those aren’t my arguments, those are arguments used by others in this thread to justify the existence of the girls-only math Olympiad.

And see even sven’s post above for an example of a woman who says they were discouraged from pursuing the more analytical sciences.

I agree, it wouldn’t be different. They are both equally a bad idea.

I never said anything about preventing them from going. They could decide to go to a competition called “Boys-are-smarter-than-girls Math Olympiad” for all I care, and it would be their choice. But it would be a dumb choice.

46

Why should I care? Encouraging anyone to play chess is a good thing, and that includes black and hispanic people.

In any event, this is a meaningless comparison. Women-only math contests are about breaking down gender roles. There are no societally defined roles for black or hispanic people.

You don’t seem to understand the nature of competition. Do you think the kids who win the state Little League championship throw down their medals in disgust because they were only competing against teams from their state?

It doesn’t send that message at all. You choose to assign that message, but that’s shortsighted. White males do generally outpeform non-Asian minorities in mathematics. Klansmen take that to mean that white males are more intelligent, but it’s more to do with educational standards and socioeconomic status. White kids go to better schools than black kids; kids who go to better schools, unsurprisingly, do better academically.

47

IME the goal of these sorts of girls-only science and math programs is to find girls who would make good scientists but would not otherwise get enough of a nudge from family, peers, and teachers. No, they may not turn out to be the most brilliant mind of the century, but it’s not really like the movies, you don’t actually have to be a childhood prodigy to make a good scientist.

And like Shagnasty said, it’s just a contest. It’s a chance for people to compete, push themselves, set goals, make new friends, and hopefully go home a little bit more inspired to come back next year. Make it a girls-only competition means that girls get to do all this without the mental weight of always being the only girl in the room. Keep in mind we’re talking about teenagers here, I don’t think it’s so unreasonable to think that a 15 or 16 year old girl might be more relaxed (and want to do it again next year) if she were in a room full of girls vs. a room full of guys.

And FWIW there are plenty of black and hispanic professional societies in the US, I’m sure that some of them have competitions of some sort at their yearly conferences. Again, it’s a chance to get together in a friendly atmosphere, if people are showing up and investing their time and money then they must be getting something out of it.

48

And having segregated math competitions is the way to encourage them to do so?

Even if there are remaining gender roles, the best way to smash those gender roles is to compete in a competition for everyone, and not have a segregated competition for girls only.

AFAIK, you are wrong. Blacks raised in black neighborhoods and do well in school are made fun of and ostracized for “behaving white”.

This is different for three reasons
[ol]
[li]Local championships are a practical way for people within a geographical area to play with each other. It’s much easier for kids to play with kids in the same area than kids from across the country. There is nothing practical about getting girls from around the world to come compete with each other.[/li][li]Local championships are not fully exclusionary in the sense that, if a kid from Florida moves to Texas, he/she can play in the Texas state championship. The original exclusion is not permanent and is not based on what the kid is (boy/girl, black/white). But a girl will never be able to compete in a boys-only competition, and a white kid will never be able to compete in a black-only competition.[/li][li]Local championships are a way to find out the best in an area, and then, the area best go to national championships, and, for some activities, the best from the national level go to the international level. So, local championships are a stepping-stone to larger championships, not ends in themselves.[/li][/ol]

49

Am I the only person on the SDMB who thinks a girls-only Math Olympiad (or any other intellectual competition) does not make sense in this day and age?

Anyone else?

50

This day and age? Getting girls to study and enjoy math is an ongoing problem. What do you think is going on out there?

51

The girls going to the China Girls’ Math Olympiad have no problem studying and pursuing math (and as a previous poster showed, also getting medals at the International Math Olympiad) , so there is no need for a motivation for them.

Do you think this competition has a knock-on effect on girls not attending it?
Can you show that this is the case?

That is, for other girls, who are not interested in studying math, do you think they will start enjoying it more and decide to study math just because “Julie, the math wizz, went to this all-girls math competition and got a silver medal” ?

If possible, yes, we should get more girls to study and enjoy math. I don’t see any evidence that having an all-girls competition helps with that.

52

I don’t really have anything substantive to add, but I just wanted to chime in as “anyone else”. I think it’ll be a testament to equality and non-prejudice when the time comes that nothing is segregated - no separate male/female competitions, no hiring or college acceptance decisions based on reaching quotas of minorities, etc etc. In a perfect world, awards would be based on merit alone and nothing else.

I guess I don’t feel that strongly about it, because I’m aware that we haven’t yet reached those ideals of equality and non-prejudice. But I figured I’d chime in to say: no, you’re not alone. :slight_smile:

53

Thanks, I was beginning to think that I was the only one with this opinion on this matter, which is weird for a message board where we have such a variety of opinions that we have some people arguing about the pros and cons of fried semen :slight_smile:

54

Sure, why wouldn’t it? Kids get interested in things all the time because it’s what their friends are doing, girls tend to be friends with other girls. They take a class because their friends are taking it, or took it last year and said it was a really cool class, etc. Or they just see that there is some output and reward from doing well in a math class, it’s not just some giant sink hole of time and effort.

55

For people with daughters and who like the idea of girls-only math Olympiad, how exactly would you phrase it to your daughter?

That is, in this day, in the US, in most educated households, I assume the message to girls is “You can do anything boys can do and just as well”. In fact, this is not even an explicit message anymore. It’s implicit. It’s accepted by most girls my daughter’s age I know of.

So, if your daughter has this understanding of the world, how do you go about telling her? “Honey, there’s this international competition in math, and it’s only for girls, do you want to go?” If she asks “Why is it only for girls?”, what is your response to her?

56

Here’s one example I found in 5 minutes of searching. It implies that women can benefit from an environment that isn’t male-dominated making them more inclined to study math and science. There are other studies that I didn’t dive into but also seem to support the theory.

http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/2007/10/women_in_math_science_and_engi.php

This subject isn’t cut and dry, but it seems clear that there are still societal and cultural pressures that are working against women in the sciences. I’m not sure why you think that these will go away if we just claim to treat everyone equally.

57

The data doesn’t bear out your premise. They may say it, they may even believe it, but the data shows that they don’t act on it.

58

missed edit – as for the girls who are going already, they may still benefit from making connections with other girls who have similar interests, and for not always standing out as the only girl in the room. Again, they’re just teenagers.

Here’s a 2007 article about the US girls team:
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-08/2007-08-09-voa31.cfm?CFID=232418167&CFTOKEN=27171998

59

That may be the case, but again, assuming that you have this understanding with your daughter, how do you explain to her “Why is this only for girls?”

60

Because there’s a coed one but it’s actually mostly boys, you might enjoy going to the one where you’ll meet other girls like yourself. And all the judges and coaches are there because they really want to work with girls like you.