SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the recognition-for-the-right-reasons dept.
Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
This year's Ms Geek Africa is Salissou Hassane Latifa, 21, from Niger. Her winning design is an app that helps communication between people caring for accident victims and the emergency services, and allows medical staff to advise on basic first aid before they arrive at the scene.
"Ms Geek has already changed the perception of what girls can do," says Esther Kunda of the Next Einstein Forum, a founding member of competition organiser Girls in ICT Rwanda.
The contest was set up as part of a nationwide effort to transform Rwanda from a small agricultural economy into an engine of technological innovation, with women and girls at the forefront of the revolution.
The government has set a target of achieving gender parity in the information communications technology sector by 2020, an ambitious goal in a worldwide industry notorious for its lack of diversity. But through educational campaigns, scholarships and mentorship programmes, Rwanda is determined to become a global leader for women in ICT.
"It's a good place to be a woman in tech right now," Kunda says of Rwanda.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:43PM (23 children)
Men have beauty contests, too. Arnold Schwarzenegger one them many times; he won the "Mr. Universe" contest at age 20.
And, you know what? Nobody tries to juxtapose those pageants with other areas of talent/skill, such as computer programming.
Society is perfectly happy to recognize that there is a mind/body duality for men:
Strong, beautiful men tend not to be all that intelligent (though Arnold was both).
Smart, thinking men tend to be awkward or downright unattractive physically.
If you want equality, then afford women this same leeway: It's OK if your talent is being physically attractive; it's not a shameful thing to be a beautiful woman, and it's not a shameful thing if women are in general more physically impressive than mentally impressive. There's no need to juxtapose "Beauty and Genius" like this article does.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:58PM (7 children)
Alright, you should get rid of that alt-dictionary. I don't know how Arnold was defined as "intelligent", but that's bullshit. He IS smarter than a rock, but that doesn't make him "intelligent".
(Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @04:03PM (2 children)
Come on, mate. Military intelligence and Arnold intelligence is in the same league (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @04:22PM (1 child)
We never knew you were in the military. :P
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @04:29PM
Compulsory military service was a thing. Drain bamage inevitable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Funny) by FatPhil on Tuesday May 29 2018, @04:39PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday May 29 2018, @06:50PM (1 child)
Per numerous online sources, he was tested at 135, which makes him a bit slow compared to me, but pretty smart compared to the average Rwandan which is claimed to be 70.
That's kinda the problem with "the Next Einstein" concept in Africa... someone 60 points smarter than the average white dude is in fact a doctrine changing Einstein, whereas a Rwandan 60 points smarter than the average Rwandan is still dumber than Arnie tested... With a side dish of I've screwed around with Android development, and app development is ... not trivial but not exactly high IQ. Compared to revolutionizing physics a couple times like Einstein or Feynman or similar, writing a somewhat more elaborate "hello world" app is not impressive outside Africa.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:18AM
Interesting. This might be one of the reasons you so desperately wish to believe in IQ, which came straight from the bowels of the social 'sciences'. It's similar to how it's difficult to get someone to believe something when their paychecks depend on them not believing it.
But, of course, anyone who doesn't accept IQ is a liberal, even when that is not the case.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 30 2018, @12:08AM
Based on what? He's a successful businessman, for example, and became a millionaire before his movie career.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday May 29 2018, @04:40PM (5 children)
Your duality does not exist: Smart people don't have to be ugly, beautiful people don't have to be dumb. Those qualities are not correlated at all.
Even that perception of a duality in the male sphere does not exist: Society tends to associate masculine good looks with competence and leadership, even when it's absent. That's how your muscleman actor got elected governor of California. Meanwhile that same society pressures women into complying with various weird standards for physical beauty while associating feminine good looks with superficiality and low intelligence. As usual, there is a double standard in play and if one dares to point that out or even (gasp) try to correct / compensate for it (by highlighting intelligent women via a contest for female inventors, for example) one is labelled a "SJW" or a feminazi or something.
Who said it wasn't? Although I'd hardly call it a "talent".
Again, nobody is saying it's not.
Is that a backhanded way of saying that men are smarter than women?
No, that's not what the article is doing. You are the one talking about an intelligence / beauty "duality". It's almost like you are deliberately getting it backwards.
All the article is doing is pointing out that this contest defies societal norms by judging women on their mental prowess rather than how they look in swimwear.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @06:10PM
Of course they are!
An ugly man is only going to be able to get a good mate by being resourceful with his mind. Thus, ugly genes become correlated with smart genes—especially among men, because smart men will be more than happy to mate with a dumb trophy, whereas a smart woman has little use for a dumb trophy.
Similarly, a physically attractive guy is going to get a woman's juices going even if he's really dumb; in fact, dumb women will succumb more easily to this superficial, hedonistic attraction, and the fact that they are both stupid will more readily lead to accidental pregnancies, thereby producing doubly stupid children. Thus, handsome genes become correlated with dumb genes.
You can come up with other examples to prove the point.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @06:16PM
The fact that he was competent enough to marry into the Kennedy clan [wikipedia.org] helped.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @06:25PM
Why would you even think of this conclusion? Men weren't mentioned; that's a strictly intrawoman statement.
I guess you fall more towards the physically impressive side of things?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by unauthorized on Tuesday May 29 2018, @07:54PM (1 child)
Physical beauty and intelligence both take time and effort to cultivate, one cannot effectively maintain both to an optimal degree. You can compromise, but you cannot fully develop both to your natural capacity.
No, it's not society, it's genetics. Every human culture from ancient civilizations to modern isolated tribal native communities share this universal trend - females find dominant males desirable. Note the word "trend", you who were about to go on a "but mah exceptions" rant.
And not because he was previously popular or stood on a platform that appealed to people? Riiiight, of course. You are being bigoted. Arnold is an exception, rather than the rule. If being a muscleman contributes to getting into office, then you'd see a lot more musclemen in office, rather than being a unicorn among a bunch of frail old farts.
It's self-imposed. You don't have to, you CHOOSE to. You can dress conservatively and do just enough grooming to look presentable like most men do, and nobody would bat an eyelash.
People are upset because the government has "quotas". Trying to compensate for unequal outcome that is due to natural causes (ie tech doesn't tend to appeal to women, so women tend not to go into tech when they can choose not to) is a legitimate form of state-run discrimination.
You are labelled SJW because you willfully violate the principle of charity and refuse to address criticism with goodwill. How many "trolls" did you spot while reading the comments under that article? I bet there were a lot of trolls in there, just like under every article where a lot of people disagree with you. If the "trolls" tend to come out of the woodwork when a lot of people have points of disagreement with you but they magically disappear under every other article, then your "trolls" are imaginary boogeymen, just like their namesake creatures.
An actual troll will never be deterred by a lack of relevance under the article, just like the the dick niggers spammer.
No, it's a comment on the fact that women don't like doing brainy shit. See this, is what I'm talking about, this is an unreasonably strained interpretation that you and those of your ideological framework tend to automatically apply to any form of disagreement.
You are the one who is burning the bridge of decency here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @07:07AM
Unless, of course, you hit the genetic jackpot and have both. Intelligence, as opposed to knowledge, is largely genetic, but can still change to some extent. You can improve your looks with various surgeries and makeup; in that sense, it does take time and effort to cultivate, but some people don't really need those things.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday May 29 2018, @04:51PM (2 children)
Why is this the first thing you come up with? Why is this triggering you so hard? And for the love of Sappho's size six stockings, WHY do you insist on making everything all about DA MENZ?!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 29 2018, @05:55PM (1 child)
Why is this triggering you so hard?
Oh how flagrantly they exhibit all those "SJW" traits they accuse others of.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 30 2018, @06:35AM
Hypocrisy and projection are the central pillars of the right-wing, I can't help but notice. It's almost a law of physics.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 29 2018, @06:50PM (2 children)
Well, speak for yourself, AC
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @06:53PM
Get it yet?
You fools always go from collective statistics to individual characteristics. Idiots.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:19PM
Get it yet?
You fools always go from collective statistics to individual characteristics. Idiots.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 29 2018, @08:48PM (1 child)
Er, what? I suppose in order to be a successful governor (reelected, even? nice.), you need something, but I'm not sure I'd go as far as calling it intelligence. More like social skills, and the ability to compromise and delegate.
Or is there something else smart that Arnold is known for?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday May 30 2018, @12:00AM
California is the state that elected Ronald Reagan, so I don't think they care much about intelligence.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday June 01 2018, @08:08PM
I challenge @Schwarzenegger [twitter.com] to an I.Q. test, or a beauty contest, any time, any place. Believe me, I know more about beauty contests than anybody. I owned the Miss USA & Miss Universe pageants. All of the women on those and on The Apprentice flirted with me -- consciously or unconsciously. That's to be expected.