Is there a reason I haven't seen any women players in professional sports?
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I always feel it's important to point out that the people that inhabit professional sports are already on the fringes of human physical ability most of the time. Generally in societies that discourage women from developing the same raw physicality that is encouraged in men. A lot of supposed "human nature" may not actually be. (An internet argument I got in recently tried to say that "interacting with people's poop is unhealthy" was basic human nature, but it wasn't something Europe figured out until the 1800s, sooo...)
It's just damn hard to test, given that we can't section off a portion of humanity as a control group. Not ethically, anyway.
There's significantly more overlap than sexists like to admit when you move inward from the outliers.
It's just damn hard to test, given that we can't section off a portion of humanity as a control group. Not ethically, anyway.
There's significantly more overlap than sexists like to admit when you move inward from the outliers.
Which really highlights the pay disparity that exists in those sports, despite similar coverage. (I only know about tennis, where men's prize money is typically higher: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/ng-interactive/2018/jul/14/tennis-pay-gap-shouldnt-be-gender-based)Gordon_4 said:
Almost definitely, but she'd still be flattened by the people who actually are in the NFL. Pretty sure you aren't allowed to use arm bars in football.Saelune said:
Why some teams don't play together, I might consider it dexual dymophism. Men tend to be bigger and stronger, and this only gets worse when steroids are added tot he mix. It would be a massacre for the average female athlete going against the average male football or rugby player.
Others, I don't see much a difference as skill and team work are a higher priority. I've seen this to be the case with my friend's Special Olympic Basketball where players are divided by skill level and NOT gender. I can attest to this with baseball and soccer as well, regular ed and otherwise.
I also think there needs to be more battle of the sexes matches. Seriously, who wouldn't want to see Ronda Rowsy pumme the male chamion in her weight class.
Speaking of which, I might be wrong but weight class might have more to do with martial arts type sports because someone built lean and mean vs a mighty glaciure is rather unfair. Or more to the point
Others, I don't see much a difference as skill and team work are a higher priority. I've seen this to be the case with my friend's Special Olympic Basketball where players are divided by skill level and NOT gender. I can attest to this with baseball and soccer as well, regular ed and otherwise.
I also think there needs to be more battle of the sexes matches. Seriously, who wouldn't want to see Ronda Rowsy pumme the male chamion in her weight class.
Speaking of which, I might be wrong but weight class might have more to do with martial arts type sports because someone built lean and mean vs a mighty glaciure is rather unfair. Or more to the point
I mean you're not wrong, but Rhonda Rousey wouldn't last 10seconds. She's an incredible female athlete, but as I pointed out based on world records, an incredible world class female athlete isn't as good as an incredible male highschool athlete. She'd probably struggle in High School football, let alone College or Professional.Saelune said:
She'd do miles better than most men, yes, but football players are an already elite class of men.
Oh for sure. I think you could really boost female training programs. But as you point out, it may not get them into the male leagues, simply improve the female leagues.trunkage said:
Baffle2 said:
Then let that be determined by giving her a chance to prove people wrong. Her genitals are not a fair judge of this.Silentpony said:
There are plenty of men who could never handle an NFL player either, why do they deserve more of a chance than stronger women?
Hay, Selune, and anyone else that is Trans, where would Trans players fit in this dichotomy because I know this has caused some controversy in the Olympics with one of the women's track and field participants a few years back.
Again, its me speaking from ignorance, but assuming the individual was taking the medications needed to increase/decrease the hormones in the body, wouldn't that offset the supposed advantages/deficiencies of the genders?
Again, its me speaking from ignorance, but assuming the individual was taking the medications needed to increase/decrease the hormones in the body, wouldn't that offset the supposed advantages/deficiencies of the genders?
I see no reason that darts would have separate competitions, as long as everyone can put their opponent off equally: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/nov/17/stink-hits-darts-grand-slam-as-match-features-flatulent-end
But, darts isn't really a sport.
But, darts isn't really a sport.
I think gender segregation should be removed and replaced with just flat out ability to perform, so it would absolve this issue.saint of m said:
But if people want to segregate on sex, then transwomen are going to be women, and so people will have to suck it up if a transwoman does better than a biological one.
Gender/sex segregation IS discrimination. People can try to say it is justified discrimination, but it still is what it is.
I mean, white people would hate if all white people were inherently barred from the NBA, wouldn't they? And there is the occasional Asian player, even though average height for Asians is typically very low for men and women.
People need to stop looking at sports as if it needs to be based on the average person. By definition professional athletes are the exception to typical humans, and we should judge them based on their actual abilities, not what we think their abilities should be based on average stats.
Given that many athletes earn a living through prize money, you're arguing for a pay cut for female athletes if it turns out they can't beat people who have a significant natural advantage.
I'd be quite happy to see mixed sports, but I think for athletes' sake I'd have it as a separate league that people could compete in (as well as competing in their non-mixed leagues). I feel the same about having a drug-user league where people can have as many steroids as they want, but they can only compete in the 'roid league.
I'd be quite happy to see mixed sports, but I think for athletes' sake I'd have it as a separate league that people could compete in (as well as competing in their non-mixed leagues). I feel the same about having a drug-user league where people can have as many steroids as they want, but they can only compete in the 'roid league.
they dont. Most men can't handle NFL players, yes, but most men arent recruited. Recruiters look for specific qualities, and genitals arent one of them. It just so happens men bilogocailly are larger and stronger so if you're looking for large strong players you're better off looking for male players. The average NFL player is 6"2 250lbs. Ronda Rousey is 5"6, 130lbs. She is simply out classed in size and weight. And at that differential level, skill doesn't matter. She could train her whole life to play football and she'd bounce off the average player. And that's not because of her vagina, its because of the physical characteristics of the female body vs the body of men chosen for above average size and weightSaelune said:
to my knowledge there are no rules in professional sports that mandate men only teams. If there was a woman who could hold her own in the NFL or NBA or FIFA in the men's league I'm sure teams would recruit her, or at least there would be a big PR push for her.Saelune said:
So, approaching this from a medical standpoint.
The reason male athletes can reach higher levels of physical performance than female athletics is because male bodies generally have higher levels of androgenic hormones, which are steroids. In fact, the drugs we call anabolic steroids are often just "synthetic" versions of androgenic hormones.
So sure, we couldn't take a female bodied person and train them and they probably wouldn't be able to match the performance of a male athlete. But if we took them at a young age, we could alter the balance of hormones in their body to correct for those differences. It would, from a medical standpoint, be trivial.
My point is, we have a weird set of arbitrary rules as to what is "fair" in sports.
* You are allowed to take a young child and train them to the point it physically deforms their body and will cause them permanent disability in later life in order to make them a better athlete in the short term.
* You are not allowed to use hormone therapy to masculinize a female body to make them a better athlete, because this will have permanent consequences for them.
* You are allowed to feed someone a specific diet and make them live their life in a particular way to maximize the ammount of androgenic hormones present in the body.
* You are not allowed to feed someone supplements which too closely mirror the effects of androgenic hormones, because this is cheating.
So, here's a controversial opinion. Professional sports are unfair by design. The typical male-bodied person could train their entire life, and would not be able to compete even against women athletes because they would not have the very specific combination of physical advantages required. Professional athletes are effectively human racehorses, they are carefully selected for their ability to perform particular physical tasks and then trained and conditioned for much of their early lives to enhance the physical characteristics which make them useful. They will often suffer permanent physical damage from this practice of pushing their bodies to the limit.
Part of the appeal of sports is that they purport to push the "natural" limits of human physiology, and yet somehow those natural limits keep getting pushed back. New records keep being broken, athletes keep getting better and better. No, it's not because people are training harder or are just generally getting stronger, it's because the ability to scientifically manipulate human bodies (in ways that professional sports don't recognize as cheating) keeps increasing. The idea that any of this is natural is a fiction. Human bodies are fundamentally not designed to do any of this.
And that doesn't mean we should stop doing professional sports, but we should probably stop assuming that anything which goes on in professional sports is "natural". We could turn AFAB people into 'roided up androgenes who could smash professional football players into the ground, but we don't. That distinction between men and women's athletic performance is a fiction which maintains the idea that sports are a fun celebratrion of natural human ability, but that fiction is not an description of reality, it hasn't been for a long time.
The reason male athletes can reach higher levels of physical performance than female athletics is because male bodies generally have higher levels of androgenic hormones, which are steroids. In fact, the drugs we call anabolic steroids are often just "synthetic" versions of androgenic hormones.
So sure, we couldn't take a female bodied person and train them and they probably wouldn't be able to match the performance of a male athlete. But if we took them at a young age, we could alter the balance of hormones in their body to correct for those differences. It would, from a medical standpoint, be trivial.
My point is, we have a weird set of arbitrary rules as to what is "fair" in sports.
* You are allowed to take a young child and train them to the point it physically deforms their body and will cause them permanent disability in later life in order to make them a better athlete in the short term.
* You are not allowed to use hormone therapy to masculinize a female body to make them a better athlete, because this will have permanent consequences for them.
* You are allowed to feed someone a specific diet and make them live their life in a particular way to maximize the ammount of androgenic hormones present in the body.
* You are not allowed to feed someone supplements which too closely mirror the effects of androgenic hormones, because this is cheating.
So, here's a controversial opinion. Professional sports are unfair by design. The typical male-bodied person could train their entire life, and would not be able to compete even against women athletes because they would not have the very specific combination of physical advantages required. Professional athletes are effectively human racehorses, they are carefully selected for their ability to perform particular physical tasks and then trained and conditioned for much of their early lives to enhance the physical characteristics which make them useful. They will often suffer permanent physical damage from this practice of pushing their bodies to the limit.
Part of the appeal of sports is that they purport to push the "natural" limits of human physiology, and yet somehow those natural limits keep getting pushed back. New records keep being broken, athletes keep getting better and better. No, it's not because people are training harder or are just generally getting stronger, it's because the ability to scientifically manipulate human bodies (in ways that professional sports don't recognize as cheating) keeps increasing. The idea that any of this is natural is a fiction. Human bodies are fundamentally not designed to do any of this.
And that doesn't mean we should stop doing professional sports, but we should probably stop assuming that anything which goes on in professional sports is "natural". We could turn AFAB people into 'roided up androgenes who could smash professional football players into the ground, but we don't. That distinction between men and women's athletic performance is a fiction which maintains the idea that sports are a fun celebratrion of natural human ability, but that fiction is not an description of reality, it hasn't been for a long time.
Interestingly, basically all US professional men's sports leagues technically admit women, if any tried out and could compete. Women's professional sports leagues (like the WNBA, for example) are the only one's that actually bar people on the basis of sex.Misterian said:
Last time a woman tried out in the NFL, she was injured early on and dropped out.
There was actually some talk back when that Brittney Griner might have considered trying to join an NBA team, as she played at a level on par with some of the second string NBA players. Instead she joined a WNBA team and set a league record (single game slam dunks) and tied another (career slam dunks) in her debut game.
The Williams sisters once claimed they could beat any man in pro tennis outside the top 200, and were proven badly wrong. The 203rd ranked male player (Karsten Braasch) played an exhibition game against each sister one right after the other, beating one 6-1 and the other 6-2. He'd claimed afterwards that he was not playing his best to keep things interesting and that in his opinion they had no chance against any man in the top 500.
Yes, and that exacerbates the gaps due to things like genetics and gender.altnameJag said:
Most human traits when compared by gender are mostly overlapping bell curves, often either with a similar distribution but noticeably different mean (such as height and upper body strength) or a similar mean but noticeably different variance, or both. Pointing this out is of course extremely sexist, especially if you suggest that in choosing persons for a certain task you might optimize for certain traits, and if you're able to be picky enough to be able target people far from the mean at some desirable traits...then you'll just fire James Damore again before I finish repeating the argument that got him fired from Google.altnameJag said:
Women are permitted to try out for any "men's" sports league in the US - they all specifically do not have a gender restriction on membership - only "women's" leagues restrict membership by gender. Occasionally a woman even tries for the NFL or NBA, though none have actually succeeded to date. The thing is, men in those leagues aren't chosen at random from the population, they're already nowhere near the mean. And as you go way above the mean for things like height and upper body strength, you end up with fewer and fewer women that can competeSaelune said:
Look at it from the other direction, imagine we wanted a group of people as tall as Brittney Griner or taller. We grab another 999 such people chosen at random from among the pool of people at that height. There's a pretty good chance she's the only woman in that group, and if not you could almost certainly count them on one hand. When you say that on average women are shorter than men, you aren't saying that all women are shorter than the shortest man, but that as you look at taller and taller groups you're going to have increasingly male results.
For a lot of traits, the distributions will look something like:
..or similar with the sexes reversed. What do you think happens if you only want people more than 1 standard deviations above the population mean in some trait (or even more extreme)? Do you expect that the resultant group is going to be equally distributed between men and women?
Agreed with most of that.evilthecat said:
I'd argue that the lines of what is and isn't allowed aren't entirely arbitrary though, aside from the question of where exactly the line between "food" and "drugs" falls.
Ultimately, aside from that one increasingly important distinction and the rampant cheating and pushing the line around that point it's broadly a matter of pushing the body however hard you can manage being OK, using chemical agents to meaningfully alter body chemistry beyond what you would consider "diet" not being OK.
The comparison to racehorses (or greyhounds for that matter) is spot on, though.
Caster Semenya the woman in question, was not trans. After the findings of her report were leaked, it was speculated she might be intersex.saint of m said:
I think the whole controversy around her is sort of indicative of what's been argued by some in this thread. There was this notion that she was too good, so we'd better check and see if she was born with a pee-pee. This controversy was well before her 2016 Olympic gold.
Ironically, in the wake of a 2018 ruling, she's now required to take the same sort of androgen-reducing program as a trans woman would. I find a certain level of amusement in the notion that not only are we segregating women, but we're artificially holding back certain women if they're too strong,
To more directly answer your question, two years of HRT was determined by the IOC to be sufficient to negate any advantage of testosterone, because you need the hormone in your system to continue to upkeep muscle and bone mass. Trans women have been competing in the Olympics and other sports since the early 2000s. The rules used to require bottom surgery, but this was deemed unnecessary because regulated hormone balance is sufficient. More sporting bodied are coming up with rules which are similar to these.
You can use hormone regulation to level the playing field, though there's the issue that hormone levels vary from person to person anyway. We can talk about typical ranges, but I'm betting Olympic athletes don't generally fall at the center of the bell curve. Which may have been what Semenya ran up against, since it took 9 years for them to maske an incredibly narrow ruling.
That is some rank bullshit too. Damn near everybody in the Olympic Village is a genetic freak of some kind. Comes with the territory of being the best.Something Amyss said: