Women's Sports

[Augustus]

I have never said otherwise.

But if you have 100 elite basketball players and 1 has been through male puberty, you know which one is the best by far every time.

Hence they are not remotely comparable.

Great, so you agree that if all competitors don't have a solid chance at winning because some of them have a huge physical advantage that it is not a fair competition, right?

No, I don't agree that is the only definition of fairness for elite (or other) sports.

 

[Augustus]

I have been thinking on this a lot recently and I believe since sports is entertainment and only highlighting our physical capabilities, they should all be combined.

You really think combined sex American football is a good idea?

Even in the sports where women only face a moderately higher chance of serious injury, extreme ability mismatches tend not to produce interesting spectacle.

In football/soccer if you had 5 men and 6 women, the tactics would just adapt to engineer male/female mismatches.

It might be fun as a gimmick in the Olympics (if we ignore the increased risk to women), people would get fed up of it pretty quickly though as the standard would be so much lower.

 

[Koldo]

But if you have 100 elite basketball players and 1 has been through male puberty, you know which one is the best by far every time.

Hence they are not remotely comparable.

You are missing that what makes an athlete become elite in the first place can create the problem.

Consider, for example, when there was no elite women's category in any given sport. It would entail that in most sports women wouldn't qualify to play at elite level. Was that fair?

No, I don't agree that is the only definition of fairness for elite (or other) sports.

Can you elaborate why you don't agree?

 

[SomeRandom]

AFAIk there is no real evidence on those who avoided puberty as almost all transwomen went through male puberty.

Could it be definitively shown that such people had no advantage then there would be no reason to limit them to open categories. I guess such definitive evidence will take a decade or more to establish though.

The evidence is pretty clear on those who went through male puberty that many retain a significant advantage in strength, explosiveness, etc.

Ahh, this is true. Alas.

 

[bobhikes]

You really think combined sex American football is a good idea?

Even in the sports where women only face a moderately higher chance of serious injury, extreme ability mismatches tend not to produce interesting spectacle.

In football/soccer if you had 5 men and 6 women, the tactics would just adapt to engineer male/female mismatches.

It might be fun as a gimmick in the Olympics (if we ignore the increased risk to women), people would get fed up of it pretty quickly though as the standard would be so much lower.

Has I said its entertainment for the FANS. If the FANS want it and the players are willing to do it for the money then why deny it. Most sports players but male and female live short lives. Over working their bodies taking enhancement drugs doing experimental surgeries and experimental training to play one more day. I don't think it would matter more than likely the women will play dirty to get an advantage.

 

[Debater Slayer]

There was a split between Marx and Engles on this, and it was that Marx believed that a strong-armed policy might be necessary to create a fully socialistic world, but Engles didn't as he saw it as a betrayal of all people being equally important. They actually became bitter enemies over this point.

Marx's recorded opinions from later periods in his life were against an authoritarian state and sometimes hinted at being against the existence of a state to begin with. There are also Marxists who diverge quite a bit from the original writings of Marx while borrowing some elements from them, so you won't find a uniform position among Marxists on this (or almost any other issue, really).

Edit: I can't add much else about this here, though, since the focus of this thread is a different topic.

 

[Augustus]

Has I said its entertainment for the FANS. If the FANS want it and the players are willing to do it for the money then why deny it. Most sports players but male and female live short lives. Over working their bodies taking enhancement drugs doing experimental surgeries and experimental training to play one more day. I don't think it would matter more than likely the women will play dirty to get an advantage.

People would watch gladiators killing each other but we don’t think it’s a good idea to actually provide this.

Seeing several women getting killed or maimed every week doesn’t seem so great to me.

Even without this, I’m pretty sure the fans don’t want it though as it will be less entertaining.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

It ends elite and professional women's sports as the best women will be forced to compete against sub-elite males.

At amateur level, many women would prefer to compete against skilful and proficient women, rather than mediocre males with physical advantages. It will almost certainly reduce female participation imo. For me, female sport participation is something to be encouraged.

In contact/collision sports it doesn't mitigate increased injury risk to females.

Any formalised "skill level" divisions are either logistically impossible, or prone to manipulation, sandbagging, etc. Many people would prefer to be the best in a lower skill division than the worst in a better one and will manipulate test results to do this.

Mixed sports can work, but only in a limited number of sports or on a voluntary basis.

As a forced "solution" it has no real merits other than hypothetically being more inclusive (but at the expense of actual inclusion), and many serious problems.

It ends elite and professional women's sports as the best women will be forced to compete against sub-elite males.

Possibly, but competing with and ranking are two different things. Likely, people would still be ranked based on various statistics despite who they compete against.

At amateur level, many women would prefer to compete against skilful and proficient women, rather than mediocre males with physical advantages. It will almost certainly reduce female participation imo. For me, female sport participation is something to be encouraged.

Maybe. My guess is that both the mediocre males and proficient women may have qualms. I am not sure that it would reduce participation, though. Love of a sport invites participation, and for the amateurs, I am sure there would be various opportunities to compete against who they wish, since there would be no need to regulate grassroots organizations that aren't affiliated with professional sports.

In contact/collision sports it doesn't mitigate increased injury risk to females.

I concede that some sports may likely have to remain separated by sex. Do you have examples?

Any formalised "skill level" divisions are either logistically impossible, or prone to manipulation, sandbagging, etc. Many people would prefer to be the best in a lower skill division than the worst in a better one and will manipulate test results to do this.

True. But this is already a problem, right? The true competitors are going to continue to push themselves.

Mixed sports can work, but only in a limited number of sports or on a voluntary basis.

I concede that for now this is likely.

As a forced "solution" it has no real merits other than hypothetically being more inclusive (but at the expense of actual inclusion), and many serious problems.

My suspicion is that if medical science and culture continue to develop in a way that further decreases the bridge between "sex" and "gender," it is inevitable that sports will be divided less by gender and more by physical characteristics of individuals and their willingness to compete, improve, and take risks.

 

[Augustus]

Possibly, but competing with and ranking are two different things. Likely, people would still be ranked based on various statistics despite who they compete against.

I don’t really see making it impossible for women to be elite/professional athletes as being a progressive move.

However you slice it, men will dominate.

Maybe. My guess is that both the mediocre males and proficient women may have qualms. I am not sure that it would reduce participation, though. Love of a sport invites participation, and for the amateurs, I am sure there would be various opportunities to compete against who they wish, since there would be no need to regulate grassroots organizations that aren't affiliated with professional sports.

I think the fact that sports are generally sex based shows what people think about mixed teams in general.

We’re there more demand, there would be more of it. It’s not like there are no opportunities now.

I disagree that it wouldn’t reduce participation. Women’s elite sport is aspirational, playing high level sport is aspirational, playing lowish level mixed sport is far less aspirational.

Also being bullied by bigger, stronger and quicker but less skilful men will put many girls and women off imo. It’s just less enjoyable.

concede that some sports may likely have to remain separated by sex. Do you have examples?

Rugby, American Football, etc.

True. But this is already a problem, right? The true competitors are going to continue to push themselves

True competitors cheat all the time, hence the popularity of PEDs and even things like motors in cycling races.

My suspicion is that if medical science and culture continue to develop in a way that further decreases the bridge between "sex" and "gender," it is inevitable that sports will be divided less by gender and more by physical characteristics of individuals and their willingness to compete, improve, and take risks.

I think they will just move to open and female categories as the science is pretty clear on performance advantages that derive from male puberty and there is no desire to implement some new “fairness category” system.

 

[bobhikes]

People would watch gladiators killing each other but we don’t think it’s a good idea to actually provide this.

Seeing several women getting killed or maimed every week doesn’t seem so great to me.

Even without this, I’m pretty sure the fans don’t want it though as it will be less entertaining.

Gladiators were forced to fight. Today's gladiators choose to fight for money. Boxing is to tame for today's masses that's why MMA expanded so fast and the Women's division does pretty well. I'll admit its not my taste to see women brutally beat each other but apparently there is a big market for it today.

 

[wellwisher]

Sports has one set of rules for all; in any given sport at any given level. It does not allow dual standards, as does Liberalism. Dual standards is called cheating in sports.

Drugs are not allowed in sports. Even I you have hay fever and cannot effectively breathe through your nose, you cannot use over the counter drugs. The reason is others will use this as an excuse to cheat. Trans gender is full of drugs. Those who push this, want to introduce dual standards into sports to make sports more like Liberalism. But sports is about being natural, so we have a standard to compare sports history, and a way improve the single set of rules within sports, for fun and profit.

If you look at fighting sports like MMA, the MMA started out without any weight categories. It was more about fighting styles with smaller guys doing Brazilian Jujitsu, dominating larger fighters at the very beginning. But as fighters learned different styles and counter moves, it became obvious that the larger man had an advantage over the smaller man. The sport evolved to make it fair, by introducing weight divisions. The same rules apply to each division; besides weight, but now there are more titles based on similar physical attributes. Men and women sports to the same thing to protect the athletes and allow sports to be fair. Different leagues is an extrapolation of weight divisions in MMA.

In the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, when goldilocks tried food that was too hot or too cold or a bed that was too hard or too soft, she was not optimized. Instead, when she found the right food temperature and right bed softness, she was optimized. This is the purpose of leagues.

The political Left can see optimization, but they do it backwards. They want to soften the league to accommodate a few. But this makes the league too soft for the many. In a Democracy, the majority is supposed to rule. We do not live in a monarchy; minority rule.

 

[wellwisher]

This idea just came me and it offer perspective for the present.

Many years ago, using government to accommodate a small group of people, began with the handicapped. There were handicapped people, who did not want sympathy. Instead they wanted to be part of a productive life, like everyone else; human spirit.

However, their handicaps created a large number of obstacles in culture, which created sympathy, causing good people to want to help them, by containing and protecting them. This was sort of connected to maternal instinct in culture, caring for the baby who cannot walk. But the baby was growing and wanted to be part of life, and not forever under dependent care.

This is when people began to lobby for changes, such as handicap parking, and handicap ramps, handicap restrooms, etc, so the handicapped could be an independent part of culture.

Unfortunately, this inclusion for independence morphed into otherwise healthy people, becoming handicapped to get special treatments; back to the sympathy for the baby; victim mentality. People became mentally and emotional handicapped seeking preferential containment.

Interestingly, part of the improvements for the handicapped came from high tech. For example, voice commands for a computer interface, was create to help the blind people, so they could use the internet and computers. Now what was designed for the handicap, to become more independent, is used for otherwise healthy people. I am not sure is this is connected, but the political landscape is connected.

If you look at the new fad of gender, this forced fixation makes many people feel handicapped, by not being their biological sex. They feel they need to change to feel whole; handicapped by proxy. This psychology game has a lot to do with money and growing government. This is why parents are outraged; mess up otherwise healthy children to be pawns in a become medically dependent handicap scam.

 

[metis]

Marx's recorded opinions from later periods in his life were against an authoritarian state and sometimes hinted at being against the existence of a state to begin with.

That was to be the end goal, but he believed that if all countries did not convert to Marxism that the rest would have to brought in by force, and only then could the state be dissolved.

There are also Marxists who diverge quite a bit from the original writings of Marx while borrowing some elements from them, so you won't find a uniform position among Marxists on this (or almost any other issue, really).

100% agree.

 

[metis]

Sports has one set of rules for all; in any given sport at any given level. It does not allow dual standards, as does Liberalism. Dual standards is called cheating in sports.

I don't see anyone here arguing that all sports organizations need to ignore sexual differences and possibly size differences.

The political Left can see optimization, but they do it backwards. They want to soften the league to accommodate a few. But this makes the league too soft for the many. In a Democracy, the majority is supposed to rule.

Maybe get off the nonsensical stereotyping for starters.

Secondly, as it has been explained to you before, your position would dismiss even the possibility that trans could even compete in many venues because there are so few of them proportionally.

Thirdly, you claim to be a conservative, if I remember correctly, but why is it that you can't allow local school districts, college conferences, and even professional sports leagues to make their own decisions? Your pledging acting more like the Gestapo than someone who reflects conservative values.

If you look at the new fad of gender, this forced fixation makes many people feel handicapped, by not being their biological sex. They feel they need to change to feel whole; handicapped by proxy. This psychology game has a lot to do with money and growing government. This is why parents are outraged; mess up otherwise healthy children to be pawns in a become medically dependent handicap scam.

Many parents are "outraged" because Pubs are agitating in their "culture wars" scheme because they have little else to offer. A couple of years ago, how many people would even have a clue as to what the word "woke" actually means and implies?

 

[Callisto]

Gladiators were forced to fight. Today's gladiators choose to fight for money. Boxing is to tame for today's masses that's why MMA expanded so fast and the Women's division does pretty well. I'll admit its not my taste to see women brutally beat each other but apparently there is a big market for it today.

Most gladiators were the professional athletes of the time. While there were prisoners and slaves condemned to fight, professional gladiators were highly trained in a ludus ("school", pl. ludi) and maintained a regimented diet and life sequestered at the schools. It was preferable not to fight to the death because a popular gladiator would continue attracting crowds.

 

[Unfettered]

Sports, in general, is unique in modern culture. Everyone gets to play, with everyone is expected to play by one set of rules, often with referees to impose those rules. Sports also breaks down into individuals, teams and leagues, based on one's level of ability in that sport. Sports does not assume we are all equal, since that is a myth. It has objective criteria such a points scored, or seconds to run 100 meter, to objectively separate talent into leagues. It does not try to cloud reason with sentiment.

Sports acknowledges and takes into account various levels of ability; we are not all equal in sports. It tries to place people with equal ability in the same leagues, so the competition is always fair, allowing everyone at that level, to play at their full potential.

In sports, men and women all play by the same rules, but since men and women are not physically the same, having two leagues; men and women, allows the games to be fair and allows everyone to play at their full potential; for the glory of sports and yourself. If you try to force all levels of ability to play together, the best players get bored, and the worse player get frustrated, since the idea that we are all equal is an illusion. Sports is objective reality in a microcosm.

In the news, the Liberal created biological males doped up to look like women, are wanting to play in women's sports based on the shallow Liberal philosophy that what counts is on the surface; if it looks like a girl it must be a girl, but not what is deep down like in sports; biology, physicality, talent and skill level.

Ironically, women; feminists movement, once benefitted by the faulty premise; superficial criteria before talent, i.e, quota system to make it equal? However, women in sports have awaken to the benefits that objective segregation by ability brings via sports; glory of sports. I think the pendulum is about to swing the other way, away from dual standards caused by shallow thinking, back to common sense culture, that can teach everyone to play the sports of life, by one set of rules, with each in our own leagues, pushing our individual ability.

Our law asserts, establishes and commits to protect its citizens' right to liberty. So if some citizens agree that men and women may compete with one another and form a private league whose rules are so defined, government cannot impede them. Those who do not agree to those rules are free to not support the league.

The only reason this issue is an issue at all is that government has improperly injected itself into our lives through state-run sports leagues. Of the latter there should be none. Government has no authority to impose sports leagues onto society. But since our current reality is that government does imposed sports leagues onto society, the rules of those sports leagues are subject to public debate. And that because the rules of participation in public sports leagues are subject to the equal protection amendment of the US Constitution.

Get rid of government-imposed sports leagues and this problem goes away immediately.

 

[exchemist]

Our law asserts, establishes and commits to protect its citizens' right to liberty. So if some citizens agree that men and women may compete with one another and form a private league whose rules are so defined, government cannot impede them. Those who do not agree to those rules are free to not support the league.

The only reason this issue is an issue at all is that government has improperly injected itself into our lives through state-run sports leagues. Of the latter there should be none. Government has no authority to impose sports leagues onto society. But since our current reality is that government does imposed sports leagues onto society, the rules of those sports leagues are subject to public debate. And that because the rules of participation in public sports leagues are subject to the equal protection amendment of the US Constitution.

Get rid of government-imposed sports leagues and this problem goes away immediately.

Imposed? Is it compulsory to join them, or something?

Or are they imposed in the sense that a government-funded library is imposed, i.e. an amenity that people can choose to make use of?

 

[Unfettered]

Imposed? Is it compulsory to join them, or something?

Or are they imposed in the sense that a government-funded library is imposed, i.e. an amenity that people can choose to make use of?

The latter. And the "make use of" question is immaterial in terms of the law; government's purpose is not one of providing amenities, but of protecting the rights of the people. Confining government to its lawful purposes is not our practice, of course (more and more we utilize government to provide services and amenities), but the law definitely precludes government being a service provider.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Some sports have weight and age categories especially where size and strength makes an obvious difference. Some like horse racing have handicap for weight and past performance, but allow either sex to compete against each other.

Other sports like rugby union allow various shapes and sizes to take part, but they tend to fill specialist roles depending an their body type. At the top level of women's rugby union they now play at a power and ability that would have defeated many men's sides twenty years ago, and most lower league and youth sides today. Only in the youngest age groups do\ the sexes play together.

These advances in recent years would also apply to many other professional sports.

However the various categories and groups are the way they are because they add to the fairness and safety of competition. It would be stupid to change them to align with some political correct idea of non existent equality.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

The latter. And the "make use of" question is immaterial in terms of the law; government's purpose is not one of providing amenities, but of protecting the rights of the people. Confining government to its lawful purposes is not our practice, of course (more and more we utilize government to provide services and amenities), but the law definitely precludes government being a service provider.

That might be a self imposed legal restriction in the USA, but it is not so everywhere.or even " most places"
Where competition is no advantage, and cooperative effort is called for, centralised provision is often the best and fairest solution.