I'm going to share a story my mom told me about when she was in high school in the '60s.
There was an academic achievement award at her school, given based on objective criteria. I don't remember exactly what this award was called or what the exact criteria were (and my memory of the exact details of her story is hazy enough that I'm wondering if she was talking about being named her class's valedictorian). For the school's entire history, only boys won the award. Until my mom came along. She qualified for the award based on the objective criteria by a decent margin. And so, beginning with that year, her school decided to start issuing two awards: one to the top-performing girl and one to the top-performing boy.
So even though she won, she still had to share the award because the school suddenly changed the rules in response to a girl finally winning.
There was an academic achievement award at her school, given based on objective criteria. I don't remember exactly what this award was called or what the exact criteria were (and my memory of the exact details of her story is hazy enough that I'm wondering if she was talking about being named her class's valedictorian). For the school's entire history, only boys won the award. Until my mom came along. She qualified for the award based on the objective criteria by a decent margin. And so, beginning with that year, her school decided to start issuing two awards: one to the top-performing girl and one to the top-performing boy.
So even though she won, she still had to share the award because the school suddenly changed the rules in response to a girl finally winning.