Affirmative action for women in math contests

JeremiahMRA · 2012-02-03T14:57:40+00:00

As someone who participated in math competitions (and won), this fills me with a fury I can't describe. Things like this have absolutely nothing to do with gender - nobody cared if you were a man or woman. It was only about intellect and competition.

I can't imagine the furious horror I would have felt entering math competitions and being told that a "certain percentage of winners will be female" and "in a tie, the female wins" and so on. Absolutely unforgivable.

Not enough women entering? Maybe they just don't want to enter. Don't destroy the integrity of the competition just to arbitrarily change who enters!

Not enough women football players? Change the rules! No more tackles, no more touchdowns!

TracyMorganFreeman · 2012-02-03T15:19:19+00:00

involved three methods that provided an initial advantage to women in a math competition. The authors found that, in each case, women entered the competitions more readily, but the aggregate performance of the participants was unaffected, and sometimes even improved.

So new foot races involve giving women a minute head start, and more women participated! The participants performance didn't change because their ability didn't change! Oy...

If the competitors know they have a higher chance of success before the contest even begins, the authors suggest, they are more likely to enter it with a positive view of their own abilities.In addition, excessive confidence in male competitors is reduced because they know rewards will be distributed in a different manner.

Ah yes, it's a good thing that girls have more confidence and boys have less. Wha?

A quota system was implemented, requiring that a certain proportion of the winners be female;

Why not just have a quota system for every demographic ever? We need more girls, fewer boys, more blacks, Asians, Hispanics. Hell we need more homosexuals and emos, too. Now, the only competition is to see what school can most closely represent the country's demographics for no good freaking reason.

the highest-performing woman was given preferential treatment in one, while in the other, if a tie occurred in the competition, the woman was always selected;

So, women were more likely to picked by virtue of being women, and rewarded better. Looks like that's a reason why fewer boys were willing to compete: It wasn't fucking worth it, even if they were as good as the girl.

The competition was repeated until a certain fraction of the winners were women.

This thing took multiple tries?

Note that none of these constitute "reverse discrimination," an accusation affirmative action plans often face. In no case was a top-performing man denied a reward if he outperformed everyone else. The main effect the researchers found was an increase in the number of able women willing to participate.

Um, reverse discrimination isn't only a top performer being selected against someone else. It includes preferential treatment based on rewards, preferential treatment barring all else equal, and pretty much any preferential treatment solely by virtue of being a woman(in this case).

A significant feature of the study is that it addressed concerns that men may not be willing to cooperate with women after the end of the competition. Critics of some programs have suggested that men may be resentful if they feel a woman had an unfair advantage.To examine this possibility, Balfoutas and Sutter paired men and women in a coordination game after the contest. They found performance in this game did not decrease compared to the controls, within the statistical errors.

Coordination game? As in, they had to work together? How is that relevant to when they compete against each other? That's one of the worst controls I've ever heard.

This is one of the most asinine self preening things I've read in a while, and is a microcosm for trying to dictate things by equal outcome, and it doesn't even do that-it actually tries to get girls to become more likely to win and get better rewards.

jvardrake · 2012-02-03T18:03:00+00:00

A significant feature of the study is that it addressed concerns that men may not be willing to cooperate with women after the end of the competition. Critics of some programs have suggested that men may be resentful if they feel a woman had an unfair advantage.

Third time commenting on this, but MY GOD is the spin infuriating.

Did anyone else notice how they did stuff like what I bolded in the section I included up above?

"...if they feel a woman had an unfair advantage"

It has nothing to do with the feeling/perception that a woman had an unfair advantage. The way that they constructed this/these competitions, the women actually did have an unfair advantage - the men competing in these competitions had a right to be resentful!

Again, it is just so ridiculous/insulting that they are using the problem that women merely feel/perceive that they are at a disadvantage in the normal competitions, as the basis for constructing ones in which the men actually are at a disadvantage, and now they are also implying that the men who are resentful because of this, are being unreasonable.

IHaveALargePenis · 2012-02-03T16:33:09+00:00

So why is it that feminists only want "equality" in some things? You want 50/50 CEO's, public officials, and STEM fields, and increases for a non existent pay gap??

You don't want 50/50 on the battlefield, in the coal mines, in crime sentencing, or in child custody?

I THOUGHT FEMINISM WAS A MOVEMENT FOR EQUALITY?

tailcalled · 2012-02-03T15:13:37+00:00

[permanently deleted]

Peter_Principle_ · 2012-02-03T14:14:21+00:00

Wow what a message to send. "Sorry women, but you suck at math... but don't worry A quota system was implemented, requiring that a certain proportion of the winners be female;"

jvardrake · 2012-02-03T17:44:05+00:00

I know I already made one comment in this thread, but the more I read this article, the more ridiculous it gets:

Passive methods (such as increasing potential rewards for everyone) do improve participation by women, but they also improve men's performance as well, which leaves the gender gap in place.

So if they do something that ends up increasing the performance of both sexes, it's bad? HUH? As a society, don't we just want a smarter population in general?

jvardrake · 2012-02-03T17:24:05+00:00

If the competitors know they have a higher chance of success before the contest even begins, the authors suggest, they are more likely to enter it with a positive view of their own abilities. In addition, excessive confidence in male competitors is reduced because they know rewards will be distributed in a different manner.

Or...as the males know that the situation now exists in which they can actually perform better, but still place worse simply because particular competitors have different reproductive organs, they (rightfully) have less confidence that they can "win".

Who in the hell comes up with this ~~spin~~ stuff?

Honestly, do the authors of this piece actually think that the males are going into the competition thinking they have a better chance to win because they are male? Even if they (the authors) were stupid enough to think that, don't they see the irony in trying to insert rules to change that, by making it so that the other sex actually will have a better chance to win simply because of their sex???

Also, just as a side note, I love how they added "excessive" in front of confidence in order to make males being confident in their abilities sound bad.

Boss_Monkey · 2012-02-03T15:54:32+00:00

Its the math that suffers. Have we just given up on logic?

AnthonyZarat · 2012-02-03T15:33:46+00:00

Here is how I responded:

I want affirmative action for fathers in family court. According to "divorce peers", mothers receive 87.6% of all sole custody awards. This 37.6% absolute difference is 2307% greater than the 1.63% difference between female and male math SAT scores. Consequently, to fix the problem:

A quota system should be implemented, requiring that 2307% of all child custody be awarded to the father.
Two related subcases: the best father should be given preferential treatment in one, while in the other, the father should wiin custody if a tie occurs.
The competition should be repeated until a 100% of all the winners are male.

How fair does this sound?

Faryshta · 2012-02-03T19:22:15+00:00

I was a math contestant an currently training teams for the competitions. This is something I have been fighting against since the first day.

And it does affect performances negatively. Look at the case of Colombia, in 2009 implemented a rule that at least two persons of the team had to be women.

http://www.imomath.com/index.php?options=gl%7Cimotres&zemljarez=COL&p=0

They went from silver medals to bronze medal and are losing even that now. People are demotivated of training because of that stupid rule.

borderlinebadger · 2012-02-03T23:08:32+00:00

Making women's achievements easier makes their achievements mean less. Affirmative action is the best way to make women not be taken seriously. Additionally making achievements harder for men makes mens achievements greater.

Nobody respects the person who won the fight with brass knuckles but we do the person with the hand tied behind their back.

ENTP · 2012-02-03T16:03:43+00:00

Let's have a quota for logic too because wimmin sometimes aren't so good.

So while men will still have to learn the hard stuff: Socratic questioning, Cartesian radical doubt, algebraic thinking, independent/dependent variables, and prove they know it;

Girls can just do their wimminthink, and talk about feelings, reach a consensus (more important than truth), repeat positive/Wicca mantras, and share recipes.

And we will say that these are exactly the same, because patriarchy has oppressed porr wimmin into not being very logical at all, and this makes it all more equal, because by giving wimmin an easier challenge we prove once and for all that they can reach the same high standards if not even higher.

PositiveBear · 2012-03-13T01:57:10+00:00

Bull fucking shit "that's not reverse discrimination".

3 dictates that the exams are done over and over until a particular amount of the winners was female.

The "quota" system of #1 is just as discriminatory as any other affirmative action policy.

The "tie breaker" scenario is sexism at it's fucking finest.

No, fuck this idea and fuck everyone who thinks it's a good idea.

ignatiusloyola · 2012-02-03T17:21:26+00:00

Yeah... I echo other people's sentiment when they say this is nothing but insulting/degrading to women. It clearly shows that - for a variety of reasons - they need help when competing against men. They are unable to compete on equal terms.

I think that women are capable of competing on fair terms, even if it means fewer women take part. I know many intelligent women - many who are far more intelligent than most of the men I know. I think that they would be very insulted if they knew about this.

As an alternative, I would support gender segregated competitions rather than this method.

Dax420 · 2012-02-03T19:56:54+00:00

x-post to TwoX and see what happens. I bet they will be just as pissed off.

BinaryShadow · 2012-02-04T05:33:05+00:00

That's right everyone. WOmen outnumber men in graduation rates. They have a school system finely-tuned to their learning styles. They are paid over men in many areas out of college (until they get married and quit). Yet...there's that one little area that they still don't completely dominate. Let's make sure it's equal and artificially inflate their numbers in competitions. I'm sure the boys who actually like the subject will appreciate that.

nignag · 2012-02-03T16:05:04+00:00

As I have a daughter, I'm torn about this.

For one, my daughter has excellent math skills. By excellent I mean she can do 2 or 3 grades ahead if she wants to and she did when we were teaching her ourselves.

The problem? Math is looked on, even at school, as a "boy's" subject. Fuck that shit.

Affirmative action is probably NOT the solution. I don't know how effective it was for blacks in the US though.

2012-02-04T08:51:07+00:00

wow, women are so stupid that they need enforced rules to compete, not actual skill.

zaferk · 2012-02-03T18:55:52+00:00

Affirmative action for ~~women~~ people with 47 chromosomes in math contests boosts participation without dropping results.

tayto · 2012-02-03T20:25:16+00:00

Why are people jumping at the conclusion of a study? I think the study has a lot of merit, and just because the research was done based on gender, the application of the lesson has many possibilities.

As someone who has done a lot of hiring in the past, I want more applicants for every opening. My final decision will always be based on the best applicant, but if another dozen people apply because I promised econ majors an automatic phone interview, then maybe that's worth the sacrifice of my time.

People are criticizing the study without thinking how this will be used. As long as there is an assurance in place that quality of the final winner(s) of whatever competition will not be decreased, I don't see a problem in doing whatever is possible to increase the number of contestants.

gprime · 2012-02-03T14:41:07+00:00

This would somewhat account for men's tendency to lower women's confidence in their mathematical abilities as well as their willingness to develop them, giving men an unfair advantage. Very good.

Title	Affirmative action for women in math contests
Author	Bobsutan
Upvotes	44
Comments	185
Date	February 3, 2012 1:17 PM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/p97bf/affirmative_action_for_women_in_math_contests/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/affirmative-action-for-women-in-math-contests.1028296 https://theredarchive.com/post/1028296

Comments

3 dictates that the exams are done over and over until a particular amount of the winners was female.