> As if the argument for women is based primarily on opinion.
I'm not sure I buy the article's notion that hackathons aren't based on opinion, but your swing misses the mark in the other direction. It's pretty silly to fault someone for pointing out that the evidence is especially strong for a point you agree on. A lot of people really do have question about women in tech, why they're in the position they're in, what could be done to improve it, what successes really count, etc. So inasmuch as this is an objective measure of one girl's ability to succeed on an even playing field, it's pretty interesting. The article isn't expressing shock or anything, just promoting the strength of the data point it's presenting. It's a bit like an article came out saying, "discovery of additional irrefutable evidence that evolution happened" and you're like, "Ha! As if the theory of evolution was based on refutable evidence..."
> “It’s also important to note that Jennie’s idea is a completely universal, gender-neutral one"
I read that to mean that she competed with the men on their own terms, not by building something in a different category that had to be compared apples to oranges. She was running the same race. If she built a system for tracking Barbie dolls, she'd be in the position of, "isn't that cute, she made something no else here cares about..." like it's really the Best Woman Project award. The quote is preemtively shooting down potential "that wasn't real" counters.
> As if the argument for women is based primarily on opinion.
I'm not sure I buy the article's notion that hackathons aren't based on opinion, but your swing misses the mark in the other direction. It's pretty silly to fault someone for pointing out that the evidence is especially strong for a point you agree on. A lot of people really do have question about women in tech, why they're in the position they're in, what could be done to improve it, what successes really count, etc. So inasmuch as this is an objective measure of one girl's ability to succeed on an even playing field, it's pretty interesting. The article isn't expressing shock or anything, just promoting the strength of the data point it's presenting. It's a bit like an article came out saying, "discovery of additional irrefutable evidence that evolution happened" and you're like, "Ha! As if the theory of evolution was based on refutable evidence..."
> “It’s also important to note that Jennie’s idea is a completely universal, gender-neutral one"
I read that to mean that she competed with the men on their own terms, not by building something in a different category that had to be compared apples to oranges. She was running the same race. If she built a system for tracking Barbie dolls, she'd be in the position of, "isn't that cute, she made something no else here cares about..." like it's really the Best Woman Project award. The quote is preemtively shooting down potential "that wasn't real" counters.