&gt; all the positive discrimination is doing is countering the negative prejudices<p>IMHO positive discrimination might only reinforce those prejudices.<p><i>&quot;Haha, look at those women, they need a head start!&quot;</i><p><i>&quot;Damm, women are so weak they need lower standards to join the firefighters.&quot;</i><p><i>&quot;Women need their own separate tournaments because they couldn&#x27;t even face the worst male team.&quot;</i><p>All things I heard.<p>I&#x27;m pretty sure there is discrimination around. I&#x27;m just not sure positive discrimination helps at all, or only makes us feel like we&#x27;re doing something.<p>On the other hand, female-only tournaments (like in some sports) encourage the underrepresented gender to participate, since they&#x27;re more likely to succeed and feel like they can achieve something, and then maybe get to the same level as males in the long run.<p>It&#x27;s a complex problem, though. Teenage females are, on average, slower when running than their male counterparts, and this won&#x27;t change no matter how much positive discrimination you throw at it. I feel like a bigot just by saying it but, hey, I think it&#x27;s true and it&#x27;s been proven (e.g. soccer USWNT scrimmaged against the U-17 USMNT and was beaten 8-2, purely by physical advantage). Sometimes life itself discriminates and IMHO we have to accept it too. Maybe positive discrimination is the only way to work around it? How are we going to get rid of the biological discrimination, to then then get rid of the positive discrimination? I don&#x27;t think we can. I think we just have to accept it and normalize it and be fine with each person having different aptitudes and traits.<p>Unfortunately I don&#x27;t have any alternative methods to get rid of negative discrimination :( I like to think this is an education issue that will get fixed over generations and, in my eyes, it&#x27;s indeed slowly getting fixed (unless some event sets the progress back, like it&#x27;s happened in history multiple times... that&#x27;s what we&#x27;d have to work against.)<p>I like to think my country (Spain) is pretty progressive on getting rid of discrimination, be it gay, female, racial, etc. I think we&#x27;ve come a long way on getting rid of it, and I think education (e.g. TV shows including gay people) was the only factor that helped. I mention gay people because we&#x27;re one of the most progressive countries on that regard and, indeed, the problem wasn&#x27;t solved by positive discrimination but, simply, by normalization.<p>Change came from heroes setting example, not underdogs in need of help.