First female teen to win Ohio masonry competition bumped from national contest

[exboyfil]

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/06/19/teen-girl-bumped-from-national-masonry-competition.html

Shania Clifford, a 17-year-old from Scioto County, became the first female to win a gold medal in the SkillsUSA Ohio masonry competition in late April.

But in mid-May, Clifford found out she would not be attending the next level of the competition, a national leadership and skills conference held in Louisville, Kentucky.

And she found out via Facebook.

This is a great competition that I knew nothing about. On the other hand the administration is abysmal.

[think]

1. This is just wrong. Best wishes to Shania Clifford. She should be going to the next competition....

[WhiteTara]

2. But there is no sexism!

No woman mason and no woman president. Let's just change the scores and all will be well.

[exboyfil]

3. They said a similar scoring snafu happened before

I would not attribute it to sexism without additional information. It does look suspicious. I think all the competitors are being cheated by a poor administration. It is really a shame because we need more competitions and learning experiences like this for our young people.

Hopefully we get more information in a follow up story. The group sponsoring the event needs new leadership and they need to fully explain what happened.

[oberliner]

4. You think they deliberately changed the scores to prevent a female from winning?

What do you base that on?

[WhiteTara]

5. 70 years of being female

and watching my accomplishments attributed to men. Being denied entry into certain fields because they are "for men." Just being affected by the general misogyny that pervades all societies.

What makes you think it's not? She had the highest score and was replaced by a male in third place.

[oberliner]

6. Seems like it was a clerical error

The numbers were incorrectly entered onto the scoresheet and it ended up leading to a tabulation error.

That seems many times more likely than a deliberate conspiracy to falsify scores in order to put a boy in the first place position instead of a girl.

[WhiteTara]

7. Of course. nt

[oberliner]

8. Is it your contention that they deliberately changed the scores so the girl would lose?

Specifically because she was a girl?

[WhiteTara]

9. Of course not. Boys always win.

The judges allowed her to keep her medal, but gave her place to someone else, who just happens to be male.

[oberliner]

10. OK

I am trying to understand what you are claiming here.

So you think this claim that the scores weren't entered correctly is a made up cover story to hide the fact that these officials wanted to replace the female winner of the contest with a male one?

[WhiteTara]

11. Of course not.

Male judges would never do that, that would be so unfair.

If you have never been the subject of racism, sexism, rape, misogyny, it probably seems so outside your sphere of reality that it seems natural that the first girl to win a competition like that was fairly bumped. Of course, you are most likely correct. The 3rd place boy was really the winner.

[oberliner]

12. I get the sarcasm

I just would like for you to explain what you think happened here.

[WhiteTara]

13. She won and had her win given

to someone else.

[oberliner]

14. Because she was a girl?

And the people in charge of the competition did not want a girl to be the winner?

[WhiteTara]

15. You'll have to draw your own

conclusions. Tell me what you think.