why are there math olympiads for girls?

will be all the gender bull****. In sport there has to be seperate competitions that overall women are less physically built (please don't have a go just saying the facts) and at peak fitness which most athletes are, the men are going to be physically superior to the women and therefore would dominate the sport. To bring it into educational context is stupid. although girls are likelier to be more academically successful than boys I believe that this is mainly down to boys pissing about in school

no, you don't get it . women's sports being pathetic compared to men's is also a social construct. girls are being told boys are faster and stronger. and they don't get as much funding. and people don't come to watch them play. and and and and and...................................................

The question your answer is effetively the same as "why is the distribution of boys' grades more spread out" because they score high in the olympiads unlike girls (which means there are boys in the high end, and barely any girls) but in general they are outperformd (which means there are a lot of boys at the low end, but less girls). So yeah, for all intents and purposes, it means the same..

but year after year we are told how girls do better in school. and if there was a gender gap in math it's now gone. do you think that boys do better in the international maths olympics? any numbers?

But in order for the questioner to know that "for all intents and purposes it means the same", they may need reminding that only top students take Olympiads, or that the distribution of male performance is wider.

Besides, the two don't necessarily mean the same thing anyway. There are other possible reasons why boys outperform girls in Olympiads but not in other exams. It could simply be that the content is more suited to their natural abilities. They might be better at thinking on the spot, but not at revision. As far as anyone can tell from the question alone, a wider distribution may have nothing to do with it.

I don't mean to insult you, but that is the dumbest thing I've heard this week. Let's just agree to disagree, before you spout some more nonsense.

I think that holding a different Olympiad for girls is ridiculous. No matter how I hate the thought , I agree that for some reasons, more men tend to geniuses than women. However, that doesn't mean that there is no female geniuses at all.

Don't worry about it, everybody has their moments.

is it unconceivable to assume that millions upon millions of years of evolution could have had an impact on men and women's brains as they did on the rest of our bodies in order to ensure the survival of our offspring ? should we forever ignore any kind of empirical evidence that suggests otherwise like creationists and flat earth theorists do just because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside?

Of course not. That's why the International Mathematical Olympiad is a mixed competition.
Yes, but having an entire competition which is deemed to be easier exclusively for girls is ridiculous.

There is one.
Which one?

I agree. In fact, out of interest, I think not too long ago, maybe in the 2012 or 2013 International Physics Olympiad, iirc, a girl from South Korea or China won every single round.
Yeah, and I don't think that having a girl that wins is that phenomenal. But yeah, winning every single round is pretty impressive.

Then she should've tried to qualify for the IMO team. I'm not sure about other countries, but I think in Britain if a girl falls short of the IMO team qualification score but she still has a sufficient score for the girl's team, she is offered a place to compete on the girl's Olympiad team.
That's what I meant. If they are not qualified for the competition, then it should be left that way. As I said, having a competition for girls with lower standards (?) does imply the notion that boys are better.
And what's the point, anyway? Equality? We should have the best to serve the world, not a equal number of scientists from two genders.

Unless I'm mistaken, no one is forcing anyone to enter a specific competition - if they're good enough and they pass the qualifying rounds, they will represent their country in the IMO.

I agree with you, men and women have the capability of being equally intelligent, it just depends on how much you use your brain. I can guarentee you that an average British high schooler is more intelligent than 100% of the people without a primary education. On any test, IQ, math, verbal, whatever. People seem to think that inteligence is a certain intrinsic property of a person, determined at birth, kind of like someone's height. It isn't. Nobody is born intelligent. Gauss wasn't born intelligent. Euler wasn't born intelligent, even though people like to argue otherwise and use apocryphal anecdotes to 'prove' some people just possess a godly intellect from birth. Ramanujan is another example. He sometimes forgot to eat for an entire day because he was only focused on math. Yet people still claim he had a natural talent for mathematics. Nope, he worked more than anybody else did, so he had success.

I never said that men are superior to women (only jokingly), because it's bullocks. Physically, men are stronger. But mentally, nope. Our brains are the same, and I re-iterate: Your intelligence depends on how often and how intensely you use your brain.

Also, you did an absolutely terrible job at analyzing everything I said. You must be a woman..


p.s. - 2-3% was way too generous on my part.. it's probably <<1%. But that's not really of importance in this discussion.

I agree. In fact, out of interest, I think not too long ago, maybe in the 2012 or 2013 International Physics Olympiad, iirc, a girl from South Korea or China won every single round

Yes, but having an entire competition which is deemed to be easier exclusively for girls is ridiculous.

I don't have anything to say against your reply. But for the last remark, which part of my post made you think that I "did an absolutely terrible job at analyzing everything" you said?

By that logic, having separate categories for men and women in sporting events is ridiculous.
Men are physically stronger than women. Women have smaller lungs, less brute strength, less muscle,... That's why there are separate categories for men and women in sporting events. Everybody can see that men and women are different physically and have different capacities. But now, the brain. Nobody proved that boys are more logical or vice versa, and if you are determined enough, you can beat people intellectually, regardless of your gender. Facts.



The IMO.
Oh I thought you meant "one problem". I meant having ONE mixed competition.



It kind of is tbh - not in the sense that because she's a girl and she should be considered inferior to her male competitors (that's evidently not the case) but when you consider that it is consistently males who become the absolute winner (i.e. higher aggregate score) of the IPhO, it is surprising that in one year, not only did a girl have the highest aggregate score but won the experimental round, theoretical round, etc.



And what is wrong with that? No one seems to have a problem with accepting the notion that men are physically superior to women. And, for whatever reason, evidently boys seem to far outperform girls in the IMO, in the IPhO, etc and yet people still jump down your throats when someone says "boys are better than girls at maths blah blah blah".
See above.

I'll try to be PC about this and say that in general, boys tend to far outperform girls at these Olympiad competitions (which in no way imply boys are better ) so one may think that there is obviously an advantage somewhere - whether that is nature/ nurture is another debate. Why should these girls, who are clearly better than the vast, vast majority of Britain at maths, not have the opportunity to enter maths competitions just because some people can't stand the notion that someone is inherently better than you? That is something which you will have to learn to accept at some point. There are a lot of talented female mathematicians at my age in the country, far better than me, and the fact is, most of them will never get the chance to compete in the IMO because, for whatever reason, boys outperform them. An aspect of the IMO is meant to be fun, a competition where you can go to compete against and test your limits against some of the very best in the world.
If those girls are better than the vast majority of Britain, then surely they could stand a chance against the others? If they don't have the chance to compete then it's because they aren't good enough. Same for boys who are talented but couldn't enter because there are better people. If you want to have fun, you can go to the smaller-scale competitions like the local ones.
You seem to be confusing two matters. I don't even see where you're getting this from, how is creating a second IMO exclusively for girls advocating that we should have an equal number of men and women in every job?