jakubd's blog

By jakubd, history, 23 months ago, In English

How come there is no European Boys Olympiad in Informatics? It's not like girls are limited by nature to perform as good as boys, as in sports? :thinking_emoji:

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23 months ago, # |
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Is this discriminatory, not fair or unequal? I don't think so. We need to encourage more girls in CP. But there are also other opinions, like that of TechLead. View his interesting video "Why Diversity is garbage (as an ex-Google tech lead)".

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    23 months ago, # ^ |
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    Well, it kind of is discriminatory. In most countries, the vast majority of high-school CP-ers are boys. This means a much weaker competition amongst the girls than the boys & girls. There are somewhat many cases of boys who are too weak to qualify at IOI/CEOI/BOI/etc., but are far stronger than girls qualified at EGOI. This is why I find it unfair: for a girl it's much easier to qualify for an international olympiad than a boy.

    I would also like to give you a bit of food for thought: what if there also was an ACM-ICPC exclusively for women, which received (almost) as much prestige as the regular ACM-ICPC? And imagine that the qualification to the World Finals at the women-ICPC would be much easier than the qualification to the regular ICPC (because of the weaker competition amongst girls in CP), but the participants at the women-ICPC would be as highly regarded as the participants at the regular ICPC.

    We certainly need to encourage more girls in CP and Computer Science as a whole, but without going to the other extreme, of discriminating the majority. Anyway, I think the lack of women in Computer Science is a quite deep social problem which unfortunately cannot be solved with an all-girls competition or similar somewhat superficial ways to integrate girls into CS.

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      23 months ago, # ^ |
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      First of all, EGOI doesn't receive nearly as much prestige as IOI (well, depends on how you define prestige)

      I also wouldn't call making a girl-exclusive competition extreme, it's just a supportive way to include more girls in PC, and doesn't negatively affect anyone.

      Quoting from the official website:

      "The stereotype of Computer Science being something only for men persists. Many young women do not even consider a participation, even though they would have talent and would enjoy it. This is where our competition comes in: girls who may not have the courage to participate at an Olympiad in Informatics feel included and directly addressed. This allows them to find the self-confidence to participate."

      As for:

      for a girl it's much easier to qualify for an international olympiad than a boy.

      I can definitely understand the frustration, but I think it's important that we remind ourselves to be happy for the contestants in EGOI and to look at EGOI as a positive thing for these contestants instead of a negative thing for ourselves.

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        23 months ago, # ^ |
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        It technically doesn't affect anyone and "prestige" is indeed a rather difficult term to define. I talked about prestige because, at least in my country, EGOI is almost as highly regarded as CEOI and BOI. I think that in every country, every student who attends an international olympiad is prestigious and this is why I find that it is potentially easier for a girl to get more prestige than a boy.

        However, if EGOI will indeed have a significant effect on breaking the stereotype of Computer Science being only for man, then I'll have a more positive opinion about all-girl intellectual competitions. But I think that, unfortunately, gender-related stereotypes are too deep to be broken by EGOI.

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          23 months ago, # ^ |
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          Again, I think comparing fame and prestige ( We're really over-using this word ;) ) is unhealthy, and shouldn't prevent us from supporting and lifting others.

          Also, as seen in the official website, EGOI is less about men's perception of women, and more about empowering girls and boosting their self-esteem. So in that sense, EGOI can have a really good and practical effect.

          Finally, you have to start somewhere, and you can't give up on breaking stereotypes when you can't instantly erase all of them. And so I really don't understand arguments like "we are already rooted with stereotypes too deep to be broken by EGOI".

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            23 months ago, # ^ |
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            Hmmm. Fair enough.

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              23 months ago, # ^ |
                Vote: I like it +58 Vote: I do not like it

              89% of people in the construction industry are men. 97.1% of bricklayers are men. 89% of elementary school and preschool teachers are women. 91% of registered nurse are women. Maybe these numbers aren't accurate down to the percentage (just found them on google), but it does demonstrate that certain jobs are really male dominated, others are really women dominated. There's nothing wrong with that.

              First of all, there's biology in play. Women have the ability to give birth, or at least most women do. Many women have children, and this automatically means that you have to take several months off work, at a minimum. Men don't have to take that long off work, because, well, they don't literally bear children. This typically means that it's harder for women to have jobs which require full activity and few vacation days. I suspect that's why so many women are elementary school teachers: it allows them to take some months off. By contrast, it's harder for women to maintain jobs at (for example) faang companies.

              There's even more biology going on behind the scenes. Women tend to be wired differently: they're typically more emotional (just based on personal experience--how many times do you seem men versus women cry?). Women also tend to be unable to hyper-concentrate more. Women tend to be more social and into gossip. I say 'tend' to mean 'on average.' On average, women are more emotional; on average, they can't concentrate as long on very specific domains; on average, they are more social and into gossip. Obviously, there are big exceptions--I just mean to talk in generals since it's easier that way. I don't think average women and average men are the same--they're different, but none is better than the other.

              And as for stereotypes? I'm a girl. I've never felt them...I've never cared for them. Up until maybe 7th grade, I didn't even notice that there were more men in stem. And then in grade 8 and beyond, I always hear crap about how women are 'stereotyped.' In my 16 years of existence, I've never once felt abused because I was a girl. Never--not even once. And I've lived a long time. I've interacted with a lot of people. I've never been oppressed by men or whatever crap people like to tell me.

              I think that the gap is fine--it's just a manifestation of the different biological constructions of women and men. It has nothing to do with stereotypes. Even if stereotypes accounting for 1% of the gap, if you keep talking about it, it's going to get worse.

              I'm not a fan of EGOI or women competition.

              Now, I was just talking about the USA. There are other countries (quite a few in middle east) in which women are stripped of rights. That's a different story. I'm just talking about vast majority of European, Asian, and Western countries.

              TL;DR Genetics, not stereotypes.

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                23 months ago, # ^ |
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                Again, at no point does the EGOI official website mention abuse or discrimination. They say that a lot of young women don't consider participating in CP, so they want to give them the self-confidence they need.

                I don't see anything wrong with that, but some people here seem to view it as an extreme case of discrimination against men.

                Like I said in another comment, so what? let them do their competition and benefit from it, why do people view EGOI as such a negative thing? It isn't meant for all girls, and doesn't imply that all girls don't do CP because of stereotypes, it just helps those who want it. And for a lot of girls it's just another fun competition

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                  23 months ago, # ^ |
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                  I'm not talking about EGOI, I'm talking about your argument

                  You said: "Finally, you have to start somewhere, and you can't give up on breaking stereotypes when you can't instantly erase all of them. And so I really don't understand arguments like 'we are already rooted with stereotypes too deep to be broken by EGOI'."

                  And secondly,

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                  23 months ago, # ^ |
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                  Oh ok, In that case you may not feel any discrimination or stereotypes of women, but that doesn't mean they don't exist (talking about CP and science in particular).

                  If we're not talking about EGOI and CP and instead talking about the general subject, then I don't feel I'm educated enough about the subject to confidently talk about it. I just wanted to explain the purpose of EGOI and why it's a positive thing.

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                  23 months ago, # ^ |
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                  Your problem is that you think girls don't enter cp cause their average performance may be weaker so we should have an other division for them so they compete with each other but in this website and many other websites there's an enormous variety of people competing from newbie to lgm and if a girl wants to compete she can compete and nobody will ever understand who is behind the handle

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                  23 months ago, # ^ |
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                  I'm Sorry, but I have a hard time understanding what the heck you are talking about?!

                  Where did I say that girls perform worse on average than boys at CP???

                  And how is codeforces related?!

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                  23 months ago, # ^ |
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                  you said that

                  The points is not to give girls an unfair advantage, but to boost their self esteem in a separate competition.

                  So where does that esteem comes from? performance. So you want to separate them so their self esteem is boosted.

                  And about codeforces it's a platform that weekly organizes contests which a girl can freely use and observe her real ability in cp not the overestimated one.

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                  23 months ago, # ^ |
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                  I didn't say anything about EGOI's difficulty, because there was only one edition and I didn't try solving its problems yet, so I have no idea.

                  Like I said, EGOI's mission is to encourage more young women to participate in CP competitions, by pushing them to join the competition. The boost in self-esteem won't come from easy problems, This is NOT a pity contest, This contest includes the strongest young women in CP in Europe. You completely missed my point, quoting from the website: "girls who may not have the courage to participate at an Olympiad in Informatics feel included and directly addressed. This allows them to find the self-confidence to participate." <- This is the problem they are trying to tackle, they are targeting those who can do CP on a competitive level, the separation is just a way to target them, not to separate them entirely.

                  As for CF, this is a great platform, which doesn't solve the problem EGOI is trying to tackle.

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      23 months ago, # ^ |
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      what if there also was an ACM-ICPC exclusively for women, which received (almost) as much prestige as the regular ACM-ICPC?

      Then there will be guys changing gender to win ACM

      Spoiler
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    23 months ago, # ^ |
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    When you apply for scholarships, there are often more points for international olympiad than national olympiad. Sometimes those are restricted only to IOI, but not always. So it might lead to discriminatory/unfair/unequal situation, but it probably affects only life of a few. It's quite complex topic and it's rather hard to evaluate it properly without doing research, statistical analysis etc. Also the effects may vary in different countries.

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    23 months ago, # ^ |
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    I firmly agree that the so called diversity is garbage , most of the nurses , teachers and artists are women , do we need to encourage men to join those fields? Certainly not. Speaking of competitive programming , your ability is everything , if you aren't good at it , no matter if you are a boy or a girl , you should do something else , also , most of the well-educated people in this world do not discriminate against women anymore. Women today are not oppressed (except a few countries).

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      23 months ago, # ^ |
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      The point of EGOI is not to stop oppression, nor to push girls who are weak at CP to doing it. The point of EGOI is to introduce girls to CP who would otherwise keep away from it because of lack of confidence or their surrounding's perception of them.

      most of the well-educated people in this world do not discriminate against women anymore. Women today are not oppressed

      While partially true, that entirely misses the point, of course if a girl comes to a national team exams / team selection she would be given the same chance as a boy, in any civilized country. The points is not to give girls an unfair advantage, but to boost their self esteem in a separate competition.

      I want to add something general to this discussion: WHY does everyone always concentrate on themselves? why does everyone always look at others' success / positivity as their own failure / negativity? Why does empowering girls at the CP scene in Europe has to come at a cost of hurting the boys? Why can't we be happy? happy that, like you said, we mostly don't discriminate against women. happy that we introduce more women into CP. happy that we grow the CP community.

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        23 months ago, # ^ |
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        I am not against hosting such a event , what I mean is the so called "diversity" is nonsense. The meaning of the EGOI is not diversity or "stop the discrimination" , it's just providing girls with a chance to participate in a competition and boost their confidence because most of the CPers are boys , as you said.

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23 months ago, # |
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I think its discrminiatory because this kind of sport is intellectual, not physical where males can have some advantages probably ...

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23 months ago, # |
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EGOI tries to help with the diversity problem in CP (lack of girls in competition), there's no lack of boys in CP, so EBOI would try to help with a non-existent problem (If we're thinking about it as the same as EGOI but for boys).

I think adding a BOI will also worsen the problem, because separation of the genders isn't the solution, quite the opposite, EGOI tries to encourage girls to participate in general competitions like ioi by introducing more girls to this subject (its effectiveness is debatable though, I've seen some interesting discussion about that).

When talking about sports, there's a biological inequality between males and females, so it wouldn't be fair for them to compete together. On the other hand, like you said, in CP (and other science-y stuff) women have the same chance for a good performance - given equal settings - , so EGOI tries to give girls these equal settings.

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    23 months ago, # ^ |
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    I think adding a BOI will also worsen the problem

    true, there are already like 7 competitions who use that acronym

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      23 months ago, # ^ |
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      We should definitely move to 6 letter acronyms to avoid collisions

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23 months ago, # |
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You are right, but if you look at the scoreboard of any competition in CP in which both boys and girls can take part, you'll almost never see a girl on the top. For some girls that can be very demotivating. And it's not just in CP, the situation is same in math, physics, etc. Those are the reasons why there are competitions for girls only. In my opinion, they should be far less prestigious.

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23 months ago, # |
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It exists, it's called the IOI.

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23 months ago, # |
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On the one hand, of course, competitions like EJOI help girls reach heights in sports programming, and, as mentioned above, help break stereotypes. I agree with that.

I'm not against holding EGOIs, I'm all for it: the more Olympiads, the better. I do not see anything unfair in it: it does not occur to you to say that the Russian Olympiads are unfair because only Russians can participate in them.

But on the other hand, doesn't EGOI create stereotypes of itself? You know, like "oooh, women are so dumb they can't compete with men on equal". It seems that such a division could create even more stereotypes and prejudices.

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    23 months ago, # ^ |
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    Sorry for correcting you, but EJOI is European Junior olympiad in Informatics, What the talk is about is called EGOI, please, change it :)

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    23 months ago, # ^ |
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    Creating a competition to introduce more girls to CP doesn't promote any stereotypes. The contestants are encouraged to participate in competitions like ioi, so they are not separated from the rest.

    Can you give me a single thing about the official website that promotes the idea that "women are so dumb" ???

    Like I said in another comment, this olympiad is about the girls, not the misogynistic people that judge them and will only use stuff like this competition to justify their beliefs.

    You raise an important subject, but the organizers of competitions and events like EGOI should plan according to their contestants needs, and not according to these people.

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23 months ago, # |
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It's called IOI

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23 months ago, # |
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Shave your cock if you will

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23 months ago, # |
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I highly doubt that in most countries offering such a chance for women would be discrimination against men, because to create such grounds, you would first need to find that women are fierce competitors among men in all teams across the world (which is not the case). Promoting such olympiads would ulteriorly raise the standards for female programming, and only then you could say that it would be discriminatory.

And, Ironically, this is such a rare case when men are discriminated based on gender (basis on which this competition has been created because, statistically, women participate so much less in OI competitions, very possibly because they themselves are victims of such discrimination). Honestly, I can't understand how you can be so entitled to ask that it would be only fair that women be continually discouraged to participate in such activities. The only thing that is fair in this moment is to judge yourself and your capabilities.

And, to sum up, the entire argument built around this could be given to a competition such as the Paralympics. "The majority isn't". "It's much more easy to qualify to it". Of course it is easier! Because it isn't encouraged! The entire purpose is to arrive to a state where most teams sent to the IOI contain a similar quantity of men as of women. And so far, we aren't there, reason for which, very possibly, you haven't qualified to IOI etc. because of men, not of women.

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    23 months ago, # ^ |
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    Your argument isn't necessarily bad, but here's a problem: it would be very inappropriate for someone to apply the argument against EGOI to the Paralympics, for a very simple reason: the physical capability difference between people with and without disabilities is huge. Meanwhile, there is no difference between men and women when it comes to mental capabilities.

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      23 months ago, # ^ |
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      Except, there is: Possibly most disabled are possibly unaware of the existence of sports for their category, yet by sport they can follow a passion of theirs while also reaching self-reliance. Same goes for women in this case: through the stereotypes built over the years, many are unaware of the possibility of participating in such an event. But through promoting it with great emphasis on their participation, they could help tear apart these stereotypes while also possibly pursuing a possible passion of theirs. also I like the "women don't deserve" yet the "women are as capable"

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23 months ago, # |
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Yeah what about we take a field that already pushes woman away because of infinite years of stereotypes and make a competition where they cant participate even if they want! That seems like a great idea mister, i wonder why they havent done it yet

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23 months ago, # |
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I hope that there will be EBOI, so arbuzick won't participate from Russia and will give me a chance

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    23 months ago, # ^ |
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    Downvoted because when I said the same thing, I got -327

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23 months ago, # |
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Actually, I believe the concept of EGOI is quite flawed, as organisers often don't take into account how weak countries that aren't the USA / Russia / China / a few more Asian and Eastern European countries are at OIs in general. For the previously mentioned countries, a contest like EGOI is needed, as the fierce competition for IOI spots means that there are so many capable participants who end up not getting chances to compete on an international level. As someone representing arguably one of the weakest countries in the world at such competitions, this is definitely not the case for most of the countries not mentioned above. I have heard of stories from other countries where EGOI participants learn Python in the week prior to the contest....

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23 months ago, # |
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I like how people are offended that EGOI would help women more than men vecause it is regarded as an international competition of high prestige and what not.

Bitch, this whole thing will amount to approximatively nothing in the end. If you are doing CP just to "go to olympiads", then you are already 5 steps back.

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23 months ago, # |
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Also, nice troll post

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23 months ago, # |
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when aops moment on codeforces:

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23 months ago, # |
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eboiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii