Nic Williams on Woman's Hour (Tuesday) talking about sport and gender identity

As a teen I competed at junior international level in a very physical sport. Men and women competed separately but at my club we trained together and the physical difference between my body and the bodies of the boys my age that I trained against was clear - particularly in the gym and in weight training. They had much more muscle, bigger hands, bigger shoulders, bigger thighs. If one of them transitioned, those features wouldn't change and that would have given them a distinct advantage over us girls. To suggest otherwise feels like gaslighting.

Just catching up.

Love how Nic gets little bits of biology in.

"Subset of male people" - direct quote.

Not read the full thread but the bit that got me was when she said women might not be pushing themselves as hard as men and that’s why they don’t perform as well. How patronising can one person be?

Yes men absolutely could flatten a woman, I think with martial arts it's the respect thing why they don't. In competition amongst older children where they've had to compete mixed I've always seen the refs decide that some moves are not allowed beforehand because it's mixed or if say a higher belt ends up fighting a lower belt as there's not enough in the catagory otherwise

Respect is the alpha and omega of martial arts, and it's why me and my daughters train in karate (where else can teen girls get respect from boys?). But I know my limit - as soon as the junior boys hit 14 or so, they wipe the floor with me. Their height, reach and speed is too much for my older body. It's fun - it trains your brain in tactics - but I know if those kids, or any of the men, didn't respect me I'd be seriously injured. Men who join our club and aren't respectful to everyone during sparring don't last long. I've seen two thugs pretty much drummed out. And one was partly my fault - my female sensei paired me with a new starter who had complained about mixed sparring, claiming "women don't hit, it'll be boring". Ahem. He was...surprised.

But training sparring is different to competition - that does need to be matched carefully, using sex, experience and in some sports, weight categories. I saw the BJJ thread briefly and I could understand the mum's concerns about possible abuse, although i think it showed a lack of trust in the club more than anything else, and that in itself is concerning.

Thanks to everyone for commenting on these WH sessions - I always miss them due to work or classes.

I've just looked up Rebecca Adlington's training regime. Despite winning Olympic gold in swimming events, Adlington's times were still way behind the men. Disappointing, Adlington - clearly not trying hard enough. Perhaps Beth Jones could explain to Adlington where she was going wrong - my guess it was those lazy Sundays:

Monday: From 6am to 8am, swimming about 7,000-8,000 metres per two-hour session in the Olympic pool at Nottingham Uni. After the morning swim, she goes home to have breakfast and rest. She would then go running or circuit training for an hour at around 3pm, before returning to the pool around 5pm for another two-hour training session, and then another gym session before bed.

Tuesday: Up at 5am for a high intensity session. In the afternoon it is an aerobic session, involving steady swimming for endurance training. These sessions are repeated on Thursday and Friday evening.

Wednesday: Just one 2 hour session in a 50m pool in the afternoon, followed by an hour of weights in the gym, which is next to the pool. Total training session is about 4 hours.

Thursday and Friday: Another 5am start, with both morning and evening sessions in the pool morning and evening.

Saturday: 7am start for one session in the pool. She says that “by the end of the week I’ve swum 65,000-70,000m. For the rest of the day, I get to indulge my passion for shopping. I am into shoes in a big way. I have dozens of pairs.”

Sunday – Rest Day: Sleep until 10am and then just relax for the day.

www.motleyhealth.com/fitness/rebecca-adlington-olympic-gold-medal-her-swimming-workout

Likedust - you made me chuckle! 👍

that's great.

Snigger

meg, kat and lang

I worried I was lowering the tone x

Apologies for my low brow contributions

I am a big fan of your low brow contributions!

I feel bad for Beth's students. I hope she doesn't teach feminism. In fact,I hope she doesn't teach full stop. I'd want a refund!

likedust your comment was perfect.

I'm busy laughing at them getting hopelessly triggered by the lack of gap between trans and woman.

Burn women's hour. Burn them all.

There was a good cartoon on that theme...I shall search

like

@BettyDuMonde,

A few women have entered F1 in the past the best known being Desire Wilson (has a grandstand named after her at Brands Hatch) and Lella Lombardi. More recently, Suzi Wolf the wife of Toto Wolf (the team manager of Mercedes) was a chief test driver for Williams.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_Formula_One_drivers

To be an F1 driver, you need to have low bodyweight combined with extreme strength in the neck and shoulder muscles, most drivers cycle a lot to keep fit and Jensen Button used to be a serious triathlon competitor.

Apologies for my low brow contributions and thank you to the posters with your great posts.

Maybe men just need to try a bit harder at getting pregnant and giving birth. Lazy self-limiting fuckers.

There have been F1 women drivers (only one of whom scored points) but I'm very attached to this woman's story (Women's Grand Prix):

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/45796892

However, for me, a lot of this comes down to equipment and coaching. It's only comparatively recently that there has been decent money on the equipment and different training that women need.

A family friend is an Olympian and World Medallist. She competed in the first women's rowing events in the Olympics and took a silver. They were competing in a men's boat that was far too heavy for them and had had negligible access to the training facilities at their university. But, after they took the Silver, suddenly, they were given a boat of the right weight (and oars of an appropriate size) and they had someone who understood female physiology to train them. They won the World Championships.

In sport, we're nowhere near equality of opportunity in access to equipment and/or training. And we'll never get anywhere if all of the new female athletes respond well to the current coaching etc. - there'll be no incentive to research the actual needs of females and their specific problems (e.g., the female athlete triad that involves amenorrhoea), specific pattern of ligament injuries and micro fractures.

Can I just say - no time to post extensively this morning but thank you all for doing such a sterling job!

And welcome newbies.

If all that is needed is for women to try harder then how about mens sports are opened to both sexes?

(Oh wait, that already happens in lots of sports...)

I have just noted that I am absolutely fucking furious. This is an absolute fucking outrage and I have done so much intellectualising about it I didn't notice this great lava flow of fury raging beneath my surface calm...
Arggggghhhhh!!!!!

andy, well, thanks for having the conversation! it really feels like very few men give a shit. Which supports the gender critical argument that they're not forced to take an interest because their dominant position in sports is in no way threatened.

Ok then. I wonder if somebody would like to tweet the likes of Paula Radcliffe, or Serena Williams, or Jessica Ennis Hill, and ask them if they tried hard enough? Or maybe they just trained in between doing their hair and cooking the tea and weren’t really trying at all?

I'm not on Twitter. I would love it if someone could tweet these women to say that Beth Jones, an academic at Nottingham Trent has just been on national radio to claim that women really aren't trying hard enough, and if men competed against them, they might be able to improve enough to beat them.

Equestrian sports are mixed sex, btw.
And female jockeys ride against male jockeys.

Theoretically women compete against the men in all levels of motorsport, but none have actually made it to formula 1, as far as I am aware (not my bag though).

None of the above sports are powered by the human body, of course.

As well as a longer reach men's wider shoulders raises their centre of gravity and gives them a very big advantage over women when it comes to upper body strength
That is an advantage in addition to greater muscle mass, tendon and bone strength, higher blood oxygenation levels greater cardiovascular capacity.