In the last year of primary school (I was around 9 or 10), our school entered a local science competition and I was one of three students chosen due to being extremely high IQ. The other two were girls, one an extremely wealthy rich kid (family were literal nobility) and the other was an ugly girl who was somewhat competent at maths.
There were at least two dozen other competing teams, and the goal was to construct a bridge over a defined space using a limited amount of given resources, string and some small sticks. Whichever team could build a functioning bridge and used the least resources to do so would win, and the time limit was 1 hour. It was surprisingly difficult, most teams failed to build anything at all and some even resorted to bargaining with other teams to acquire string and sticks to try and support their own failing bridge designs.
My team and I tried a few obvious designs, and it was clear they weren't going to work. The two girls gave up pretty much straight after, and we spent most of the time idle. I eventually thought up a new design, quite an obscure and unconventional one that used a bare minimum of sticks and string. I built a quick prototype to see if it would work, and when it was clear it was a good candidate I got the girls to help me build a full scale version.
After the hour was up, only 3 teams in total had managed to construct working stable bridges. The other two had used all of their resources, but my design required less than half - so not only did we win, we absolutely blasted the other teams out of the water. We won a pretty sick giant trophy, but when we returned to the school my win, which had quickly become my teams win, became the girls win. The ugly girl in particular got the credit, because she had a reputation for being somewhat clever. Due to being female, she got massive accomplishment haloing, where everything she did was slightly better because she was a girl, not a dumb boy. Despite being 100% my design, the other two girls ended up getting the credit. I didn't get a single congratulation or thank you from my teachers, nor did my two teammates offer me any kind of validation or suggest that it was my idea that won.
Like most primary schools it was 100% female teachers, and they mostly just saw boys as noisy and unpleasant little brutes, only good for kicking / throwing balls.
Anyway I had the last laugh - to commemorate our win the headmistress wanted the trophy on display alongside a recreation of the bridge design that won it - I refused to help build another model because of my lack of acknowledgement, and the two other girls couldn't re-create a functioning version on their own
There were at least two dozen other competing teams, and the goal was to construct a bridge over a defined space using a limited amount of given resources, string and some small sticks. Whichever team could build a functioning bridge and used the least resources to do so would win, and the time limit was 1 hour. It was surprisingly difficult, most teams failed to build anything at all and some even resorted to bargaining with other teams to acquire string and sticks to try and support their own failing bridge designs.
My team and I tried a few obvious designs, and it was clear they weren't going to work. The two girls gave up pretty much straight after, and we spent most of the time idle. I eventually thought up a new design, quite an obscure and unconventional one that used a bare minimum of sticks and string. I built a quick prototype to see if it would work, and when it was clear it was a good candidate I got the girls to help me build a full scale version.
After the hour was up, only 3 teams in total had managed to construct working stable bridges. The other two had used all of their resources, but my design required less than half - so not only did we win, we absolutely blasted the other teams out of the water. We won a pretty sick giant trophy, but when we returned to the school my win, which had quickly become my teams win, became the girls win. The ugly girl in particular got the credit, because she had a reputation for being somewhat clever. Due to being female, she got massive accomplishment haloing, where everything she did was slightly better because she was a girl, not a dumb boy. Despite being 100% my design, the other two girls ended up getting the credit. I didn't get a single congratulation or thank you from my teachers, nor did my two teammates offer me any kind of validation or suggest that it was my idea that won.
Like most primary schools it was 100% female teachers, and they mostly just saw boys as noisy and unpleasant little brutes, only good for kicking / throwing balls.
Anyway I had the last laugh - to commemorate our win the headmistress wanted the trophy on display alongside a recreation of the bridge design that won it - I refused to help build another model because of my lack of acknowledgement, and the two other girls couldn't re-create a functioning version on their own
