SudokuSolver Forum

First, a disclaimer: by no means am I a sexist/chauvinist. I just figure this would be an interesting topic to discuss.

I believe, in the world of Sudoku players (including Killers and other variants), 75% (more or less) are male. But that doesn't mean female can't be great players. As a matter of fact, the first World Sudoku Champion is a Czech lady named Jana Tylova. And numerous national Sudoku championships have been won by women.

So the problem is, generally speaking, would a guy or a gal more likely to excel as a Sudoku player? While I'm a guy I do respect a lot on the intellectual abilities of the opposite sex. I think women are generally more careful (less prone to careless mistakes) and have longer attention span than most men, so in a timed competition on medium-hard puzzles women do have a bit of an advantage over men.

The blokes, on the other hand are generally better in logical reasoning and critical thinking, so would be more likely to crack extra-hard puzzles with variants (including arithmetical operations such as Killers). A good example is Thomas Snyder (aka motris), the reigning 2-time defending World Sudoku Champion.

Another issue is puzzle creation. In this forum most (if not all) puzzle creators are male, and I do believe guys are generally more innovative in the field of metagrobology. That said, many of the elite Japanese puzzle creators (from Nikoli etc) are female, including Ms Miyuki Misawa, the "mother of Killer Sudoku".

So still, no solid evidence on which sex is more prominent in the world of "Sudokuists" (except population speaking).

And a side note: as I was watching enxio27 asking some Excel questions on this forum, I was also thinking about the issues of male/female IT supporting. I have no idea about the gender of enxio27, but based on the avatar of Liv Tyler/Arwen (?) I'm guessing it's a "she". I think many pros with IT support/helpdesk experience would know that you need to take two wholy different approaches on helping a guy or a gal.

But of course stereotyping is not a good thing so perhaps I'll need to adopt a whole new viewpoint on these issues.

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On my Sudoku email distribution list there are more women than men, about 70% to 30%.

For puzzle creation in general I think that women are at least as creative as men. When it comes to puzzle creation requiring programming, it is very likely more men doing this, simply due to the fact that there are far more men than women who are interested in computers and programming. Sudoku programming is also very technical in the sense that it requires "complicated" data structures and algorithms. Back when I studied in the 70' and 80' several fellow IT students were women (and they were all very good), but after graduation all of them chose IT careers requiring as little programming as possible. My personal experience is that women are better than men at designing good and easy to use user interfaces.

Often so, but also depends on the profession. Many secretaries are for instance stellar in using MS Office, whereas many managers are generally clueless.

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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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A piece of advice from an experienced project manager.

Put as many gals as possible on the team. For the following two reasons:

1. Their often complementary ideas and views on things, which speeds up general progress and problem solving.
2. "For their looks." It makes the blokes more focused and productive, and during meetings prevents them from making too many unrelated and "funny comments".

Thanks Børge for the excellent insights! I agree I need to retract my 75% prediction. It was just based on the demography of the participants in various sudoku forums I encountered, but probably many female Sudoku players don't hog in front of the computer.

Your project management advice is a genuine gem!

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Yes, but no one has ever accused me of being a typical female!

I think a lot has to do with familial and cultural upbringing. My sister and I were the "sons" our father never had. We were taught to think logically and were steered toward typically male pursuits and careers. We both have found ourselves spending the better part of our lives in a male-dominated world.

There the similarities end and the individual differences take over. My sister thinks in parallel and mutli-tasks very well, both of which are needed in her profession as a helicopter pilot (which would quickly drive me batty, I think). I, on the other hand, think sequentially, and I'm very methodical and systematic in my approach to things, all of which are essential to computer programming and the like, something she has a hard time grasping.

That is not to say that I'm unemotional; quite the contrary. I'm very sentimental, especially when it comes to my children. One of my favorite hobbies, even a passion, is scrapbooking--preserving my family's memories, photos and memorabilia in archive-quality books that can be passed down for generations.

Further, even though I CAN write computer programs, I don't have the emotional temperament to handle time pressure well, especially dealing with other people's deadlines. The programming I do, I do for myself, to solve some problem or fill some need for myself or my family that can't be taken care of by existing programs, etc.

Unfortunately, in the U.S. at least, the vast majority of women (and an alarmingly increasing percentage of men) are taught, even indoctrinated, by our culture and our public school system to think with their emotions rather than with their minds. Logic is almost a lost discipline. It's all about "feelings".

My husband is no exception. He was brought up in a family and a culture (here in the U.S.) that fosters such "emotional reasoning", and even though he excelled in math and the sciences, he seems almost incapable of applying that logic to matters not directly related to those fields, often to my utter frustration and exasperation.

That same inability to reason is also sadly apparent in the customer service field, even in IT support. Too many "tech support reps" are taught to parrot from a manual rather than to actually LEARN how and why things work, and to answer customers' questions from that basis.

A sad truth. If you do not understand something yourself you cannot explain it to others or solve problems outside a manual's "narrow" field. When I want to know if someone knows what he/she is talking about and not only recites some facts without knowing how to arrive at them, I ask the person to explain it to me.

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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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Hmmm. . . This brings up an interesting point. I spend my share (some might say more than my share) of time in front of a computer (indeed, I grew up around computers, and even build my own). We currently have no less than five computers in the family (one of them issued to me as part of my volunteer work).

However, as I've mentioned in another thread, I absolutely DETEST sitting in front of a computer to work a sudoku puzzle, read a book, or do other tasks that don't really require the use of a computer. That's my idea of NO FUN. I also don't allow my children to spend hours on end in front of a computer screen (or a TV screen, for that matter), whether in educational pursuits or for entertainment.

I wonder whether that attitude is related to gender, or instead can be attributed to my familiarity with computers (or perhaps even both). I've gone past the fear of computers, past the novelty factor, past the "computers can do everything" idea, to the concept that computers are just another useful tool, not the "be all, end all".

My personal experience is that this is more education dependent. Persons (parents) with higher education tends to be more selective with what they and their children fill their leisure time with, and are more selective when it comes to watching TV and the TV is only on when being watched. I have good friends of mine who are blue collar workers and it annoys me that when I visit them, they almost always have the TV on, even when no one is watching it.

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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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Wow, thanks for the in-depth sharing of experiences. I'm really glad I opened this discussion!

I must admit I'm myself a bit of a "computer hogger" too. But that's also a job-related thing. If I have kids I would probably follow enxio27's way and don't let them too much computer/tv/video-games time. Sadly it's also a cultural thing, many teenagers (and adults) in the Asian-Pacific region are already immensed too much in the multimedia space. Hopefully things are a lot different in Europe/US.

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