World pi record smashed by female mathematician with help of google

[BiologyIsReal]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47524760

As a maths naive I'm a) not sure how much more useful it is to have 31 trillion digits as opposed to 22 trillion digits but b) well impressed.

Emma Haruka Iwao was born male btw

if a transwoman achieves something is that still an achievement for women?

When I read the story, I saw the picture and saw a man. I then chastised myself about how I must not let the issues arising from transgender ideology make me assume that everyone woman’s achievement reported in the news is in fact the success of a transwoman. I stopped myself from looking it up. I literally gaslit myself

When I read the story, I saw the picture and saw a trans woman. Didn't think anything more about it.

There is no evidence she is trans, other than your own short sighted prejudice about ehr looks

Oh come off it. FWR is usually choc a bloc with posters going on about how trans women never really pass/how it's obvious.

Two interesting perspectives:

But I guess it’s not a true picture of women in tech as she was obviously socialised as a boy and maybe even went through the whole of her school/university life as a boy.

vs

When I read the story, I saw the picture and saw a trans woman. Didn't think anything more about it.

If Emma is transgender and, according to pic above, Emma is and Emma is happy to state they are, then the glory story becomes more complex.

Should we be celebrating Emma trailblaizing for women in STEM, forging a path and showing a way for women?

Or is Emma a story of male socialisation, acceptance into IT world and promotion (trans at some point in this story), and then accepted as trans/woman in STEM, already at an acceptable level before 'achieving as a woman'.

Which makes it a very different 'inspiring' story for girls wanting to get into IT.

Version One: Female smashes Pi record
Version Two: Male who identifies as a woman smashes Pi record.

This is similar to sport:
Version One: Conneticut Woman smashes women's track record.
VersionTwo: Conneticut male who identifies as a woman smashes woman's track record.

Not in this case because of the variance of ability in intelligence, which isn't the same as sporting variances in athletic and physical ability.

But because our girls, and the wider world, are being gaslighted.

That’s interesting lass, because I saw a man, not a transwoman.

As I said though, the point is not about this story, but about the fact that we creating a society in which it is no longer acceptable to be truthful about sex.

When I saw this story earlier today I immediately saw a man, but I didn't want to presume anything. It pisses me off no end when men present themselves as women to get an extra pat on the back - I mean, in this case the feat is impressive whether by a man or woman, but the whole idea that we're supposed to celebrate this as a 'women in tech' inspirational story - takes the fucking piss, doesn't it?

I was wrong... I honestly thought from the video that this was a woman.

Well that's a bit depressing.

Not rtft

Just the first few posts

Isn't it sad that now, when a woman is reported as doing something really amazing, or really awful, the first thought is, is it a cunty woman or a penis woman.

And the whole what do they look like thing is highly detrimental as well. What a woman looks like is irrelevant - everyone know what one is. Men since forever have derided women who look masculine. This situation exacerbates it. Is it really a woman? Who knows any more... And stereotypes come back in and women who do not fit certain ways of looking come under suspicion...

This is a terrible place to be. Watch the womens sports, woman wins.. Is she a woman like me (cunty) or not? It fucks it all up tbh.

Will read thread now :)

Have RTFT

This is a transwoman?

I have real problems with this being presented as a major achievement for a woman TBH.

It is a major achievement, but. Why not a major achievement for a transwoman?

These examples are / can / will be used to dismiss arguments that women are under represented in STEM.

Thing is, beyond this case there are ramifications for women's achievements. I don't want to look at women's photos and wonder if they are trans. I don't want women to be looked at and judged as 'feminine' or 'possibly trans'. The achievement of a TW is not the same as the achievement of a woman, and we should not have to attempt to distinguish which we are looking at. It's detrimental to all involved.

I take back my original comment - as this is the FWR board I reserve my congratulations for women and not people who perform womanface.

And the whole what do they look like thing is highly detrimental as well. What a woman looks like is irrelevant - everyone know what one is. Men since forever have derided women who look masculine. This situation exacerbates it. Is it really a woman? Who knows any more... And stereotypes come back in and women who do not fit certain ways of looking come under suspicion...

Indeed. I want to be in a society that does not encourage gossiping around corners. I want to be in a society where being truthful is seen as a good thing. I want to congratulate Emma. I don’t want that tainted by the knowledge that the reporting of their achievement has chipped away a little more at women’s ability to have words that define them.

*themselves. I don’t want to lose the ability to describe reality. I don’t want people telling my children that black is white.

When I saw this story earlier today I immediately saw a man, but I didn't want to presume anything

Me too. It's the sheer gaslighting of it. Many many people will also have had that initial thought - but as the BBC says they were a woman, well they must be. It kind of creates an unease where I feel that maybe I can't trust my eyes and my instincts, and that's a pretty discomfiting feeling.

Can we all write a letter of complaint to the BBC, please? This should NOT become the norm. It's appropriation of the struggle of women for equality, and as others have rightly mentioned, it skews the idea that women are underrepresented in tech, which they very much are. This sets up the idea that we have a new female role model, who then turns out to be male - how do they imagine young girls who have been presented with this feel when they find out - 'oh yes, you can achieve great things in STEM - oh no, wait, you have to be born male first'. I agree with the suspicion around looking at someone and considering whether they are trans or not, I don't want to start have to asses everyone on their looks, I just want to be told the truth.

*Assess - not asses! :p

These examples are / can / will be used to dismiss arguments that women are under represented in STEM

Quite. Which is exactly why I didn't just "see a picture of a transwoman and then thought nothing of it"
Because I also read the word woman describing this person, and thought a lot about that.

It is a major achievement, but. Why not a major achievement for a transwoman?

This is what they should be telling us, if they want acceptance for transgender people.

You don't gain acceptance for transgender people by telling everyone (or implying) that they're not transgender.

Ugh. That’s disappointing. I got so annoyed finding myself scrutinising this person’s looks that I decided to just believe it was a woman and not ruin a thread about “her” achievement by talking about trans stuff or indeed about her looks.

Fuck this shit though. I hate how this bullshit ideology makes women’s issues invisible. Oh, look at all the successful women in tech, there’s no issue there. And what do you mean, male violence, look how the number of female sex criminals is growing.

Wow what a huge coincidence that I managed to guess she was trans, what with her not looking at all male steppemum? This is the problem. Everyone can see this is a male if they look but we're all being trained to ignore what's obvious which is that we can distinguish between sexes. That's not basing sex on stereotypes of femininity. In fact we are being told to look for gender markers rather than sex markers which is terribly sexist and more likely to result in "misgendering" than any other way.

You've said I dont believe a woman can succeed because i could see this person was male and sent your daughter this story so she can have a woman to look up to and see that women can make it. Except this woman did it without dealing with any of the shit your daughter will.

Personally I do think it is important that if this person is going to represent themselves as a woman and wear shirts that say they are a "woman in tech" and be on lesbians websites they need to say they are actually a transwoman. It's really unfair.

If you're born into a rich family, then privately educated, go to a top uni... you can't then move into a shit flat and say you got the job despite being poor and from a working class background. You've had all the privilege from the start.

My trust has gone. This is the future. It is now normal and considered acceptable to mislead, normal to create a false narrative, false information, false records, false statistics

This.

And even more alarming to have this from scientists and mathematicians. How would we know what they have actually achieved if they are willing to mislead and dupe about the basics. This is a man. Science is about facts.

Funkaccino Exactly, it's no different to the trans-racial stuff either, and yet we're witches for even mentioning that we can see the 'womanface' on display, to be submissive to the menfolk and not worry our little heads about how our rights and representation are being snatched away from us.

The impact of this can't be understated

• Girls being inspired will be v deflated when they find out women presented as role models were born male. It's not appropriate to hold transwomen up as examples of female success. They should be held up as examples of transgender success, what's wrong with that?

- If there is no confidence around what woman means, and women are (understandably) quite interested in hearing about inspirational / successful women, it does introduce this whole "but is it a woman or a transwoman thing" and gets us focussed on appearance. Something that we have worked so hard to get away from and are still working at. So all the work to say there are all sorts of (cunty) women who look and dress all sorts of ways, we are back to square 1. - And TBH this will probably apply in certain areas more than others , science, sport etc. Male dominated things. Reinforcing sexist ideas about "who does what". A woman winning a physics prize will trigger this sort of scrutiny, that a woman winning a prize for community outreach services might not. That sort of thing. It will increase this isssue - The level of female representation in male dominated areas will be overstated

Of course there are arguments against this that are arguments women have used for years, turned back on us. Why are you judging on appearance? Why are you assuming it might not be a woman because it's a physics prize, that's sexist etc etc.

The times had one of its leader about this, reporting as a woman (though not making an issue of that) ... I wonder if Janice Turner might want to correct them?