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US Wins Math Olympiad For First Time In 21 Years

Posted by samzenpus on from the back-on-top dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. won the International Mathematical Olympiad for the first time in 21 years. Gender diversity is brought up in this NPR article because the eight team members on the U.S. team were all male, but they made a point to mention that of the top 12 people participating in the U.S. Math Olympiad, 2 are female, which is better than last year when there were no females in the top 12. "I will say that it's not really a super-great spectator sport, in the sense that if you are watching them, it will look like they are thinking," Po-Shen Loh, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and head coach for Team USA says. "Although I will assure you that inside their heads, if you could spectate, that would be quite a sport."

5 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. Sad summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The point is not that 2 were women, but that they won. If you treat people like they're special, they'll think they are.

    1. Re:Sad summary by quenda · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Its not just the US. Australia has a lot of data from national standardised testing, notably NAPLAN.

      Girls consistent score slightly higher on average in most subjects. I don't think this means any failure or conspiracy in our schools, as it is well know that boys develop later. The difference is very obvious in early school years. If it is considered "a problem that needs fixing", you could set the start age for girls a bit earlier, say six months, and the scores could be equalised. Or you could just accept the "diversity".

          However maths is a special case. Unlike all other areas, boys are a bit in front on average. More interestingly, the standard deviation is substantially larger, so there are more boys at both the bottom and top of scores. The higher the score band, the greater the disparity in numbers. (And again - only in maths) So it is no surprise if >90% of the olympiad-level students are male. If it was equal, something would be seriously wrong in the selection process.

      Data can be seen here: http://reports.acara.edu.au/Ho...
      Select domain:numeracy and subgroup:sex
      Note the M/F numbers in the first ("exempt") and last columns.

      Project that as a normal distribution, and it will predict that the Maths Olympiad is a sausage-fest. Mathematically.

  2. Diversity? by reboot246 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Diversity can go only so far. There are no women playing in the NFL and no men in the LPGA.

    In this world you're supposed earn your way to the top. Let people be who the hell they want to be.

    And I would have said the same thing if the math team were all females.

  3. Re:And as usual, Slashdot commenters miss the poin by Pubstar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think that a lot of the problem in the work place is not institutionalized sexism, but the problem of high profile incidents that make people be worried about hiring female staff. Take the whole incident where the one woman put two guys on blast for making a stupid joke about the word "Dongle" at a tech conference. When you see high profile cases like that come up, naturally people in an already male dominated field are going to be more defensive and not as open to having females with them in the field for fear of being put on blast in public. Combine that with the worry and fear of sexual harassment lawsuits that can be filed pretty much on a whim and can be a death sentence for someone's career, it creates a barrier for women. I work in a place right now where I've been told to be EXTREMELY careful about the wording I use around the female employees. Our workplace will sooner fire me than hear my side of the story so that they don't get a law suit. And its happened here before. Twice. I thank god I work after hours support and I don't have to deal with the regular staff.

  4. You offer NO PROOF for your claim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You offer NO PROOF for your claim. In fact there is poor anecdotal evidence it is about the gender since it's consistently all male. There is no proof this is caused by "society peer pressure".

    Personal opinion (with only anecdotal evidence) is that males are more motivated by math and as such get their talent developed further. I know several boys from my youth (myself included) that went absolutely bananas with math (and computers), studying more just for hobby and personal joy. I've known several girls that were very talented in math, but without the passion. It was just one school topic.