Snooker

@Helleofabore that is one heck of a ramble I offered facts about attendance. You simply trot out the same line with no actual evidence. You dismiss my experience outside of the Mumsnet bubble but you expect yours to be valid. You may well watch women's sports but the vast majority don't from Wimbledon to the world cup from athletics to rugby the women's game is has fewer spectators and fewer revenue (spectators X price they are willing to pay to watch) than open category. I'm not saying women's sports isn't serious for the participants but it isn't the best. We judge the best by competition in sport. the best is the one who wins the league beats the opposition the best women's team isnt the most skillful one but the one that wins the league best means beating the others in competition. Let women compete with men and you will see what is the best and in some sports this is eminently possible.

Teencat

I think we are seeing someone who lives in that particular fallacy!!

I don't understand except for political or feminist reasons why people on here don't agree.

‘Only people with a political agenda actually like watching or participating in women’s sport!!! No one else is interested. Just get rid of it completely. It is useless. It doesn’t earn anything near the amount of the most amazing, ever so brilliant men’s sport.’

’Women should just work harder to be as good as the mens. I mean, they wanted equality. Amirite!!!’

When discussed at length this lunchtime outside of the Mumsnet bubble it was apparently "obvious" that there is a difference in interest.

’Me and my sexist buddies all decided that since WE are not interested, and the past sexist attitudes of centuries did not change like, in the time WE decided it should have to show that those pesky women and girls deserve to be recognised for their unique and outstanding achievement, that it must only be idiots (cos they can’t see the obvious, obvs!) who think those useless pathetic women should be supported in having their own sports.’

’Cos we are the intellectual giants of the world and it is you on Mumsnet that are in a bubble! I mean, the Mumsnet bubble are the only ones who are stupid enough to not recognize that only the best of the best should survive, and if females cannot compete against males because they simply don’t have the advantages granted by that amazing hormone cocktail they can never have, too bad. They don’t deserve to play, be recognised, whatevs.’

’I mean, everyone has some advantage or other. Look at Phelps! Female athletes should just suck it up and admit they are crap compared to the male-sports-gods that we worship’

(My paraphrasing, of course)

But who watches the Paralympics? Go on show me a time when they even got close to Olympic viewing figures in terms of viewing hours consumed. Likewise women's football or women open or even the women's cricket world cup

Okay. Fewer people is not equivalent to no people. A 'smaller number' doesn't mean 'zero'.

See?

My dh really rates the woman's football
Great skill in football rather than amateur dramatics

( although he thinks the goal should be a big smaller for the goalie to cover )

Again Fish you seem to exist in a strange bubble of extreme capitalist individualism.

I know many people, both men and women, who watch women’s sports. And who watch the paralympics on TV. I, personally, pay to watch womens sports and so do my friends and work colleagues.

yes. The price of the tickets are often cheaper, and the crowd is smaller. But it takes time. And it is changing.

@DomesticatedZombie But who watches the Paralympics? Go on show me a time when they even got close to Olympic viewing figures in terms of viewing hours consumed. Likewise women's football or women open or even the women's cricket world cup. People want to see the best physical human acheivements. Look at the difference in price between a arsenal ladies match day ticket and an arsenal men's match day ticket then add in the number of people prepared to pay for each (the ladies got a grand total of just over 2k average attendance last season the men nearly 60k). Society isn't as PC as mumsnetters want it to be (although not too pc because that wouldn't be compatible with GC beliefs).

I don't understand except for political or feminist reasons why people on here don't agree. When discussed at length this lunchtime outside of the Mumsnet bubble it was apparently "obvious" that there is a difference in interest.

I disagree with Fish about the population not wanting to watch women's events.
There is much less opportunity though.
Maybe we should all try and grab it while we can - my kids saw an England Women's football match at our local stadium (it may have been u21s).
It was great.

Yep! Same for the women's rugby too, but the rules changes in the men's games brought that back to skill not slamming your oponents senseless, so now, not so much.

You are right that some womens sports are more interesting because they are different and not reliant on power serves or kicks etc.

Just like field hockey too. I find women’s hockey better to watch.

I have watched Martina play doubles as a maturer player. She was grace personified. I then watched a men’s game and it was much less interesting as a spectator.

Girls are taught from a young age that their activities are lesser, given less time, money and focus. It goes right down to playground politics...at 8 my daughter raged that boys took over the basketball courts at break and wouldn't let girls join
in. Any boy was allowed play and they eventually let her play when she was persistent and proved her ability. But a girl with a casual interest, who wanted to give it a try wouldn't have made it. (We discussed how to deal with this but then lockdown happened and normal playground use has not been reinstated so one to watch for the future).
Fishywishy is very determined to say lack of funding/investment is due to lack of spectator interest but that's a chicken and egg situation. When women's sports are more popular than mens, women get banned and sidelined again e.g. women's football post ww2. Women's sports are chronically underfunded with lack of investment right from grassroots to elite sport ergo they cannot develop at the same rate.
In addition, even if none of that was true (if there were equal opportunities, socialisation etc) men's sport is not better than women's sport its just different -performance and the skills required due to the physical differences between the sexes mean they are not comparable in that way. Individuals may have a preference for which they like to watch and that's fine it doesn't mean the other is lesser. We don't say that classical music is crap/not worth listening and should be abandoned in favour of pop etc because currently orchestras are supported by government grants and not ad profitable as other genres

Grumblemonster

Thanks for that. I am confusing my floor routines obviously.

And I have watched that video a few times now. The look on the women’s faces is very memorable.

Yeah, I dunno. As you say, it'd be a big challenge for a male bodied person to outdo 4'8" etc Simon Biles on a 4-inch wide balance beam etc. But as I think you are also saying, it seems sensible to assume that men would be better overall at most formulations of a hypothetical mixed sex gymnastics event.

Fish's argument is risible. Given around ten seconds of consideration. The very existence of the Paralympics should be enough to show that, really.

You are wrong about men having an advantage in rhythmic gymnastics, but only because the rules of artistic gymnastics don't permit tumbling skills, e.g airtime. I think there was some big brouhaha about someone putting an aerial in a routine once. Somersaults and flips/flics are not permitted. The type of acro skills that are awarded in rhythmic rely heavily on flexibility so the advantage is with women, specifically underweight women with a gracile build. The Ballanchine body is very much the ideal. Programmes that excel at an international level select for hypotonia and hypermobility at a young age. This is why

The video you are referring to shows an Olympic level male artistic gymnast and his friend, who really is excellent but suffered an injury that prevented a similar career path, doing women's artistic gymnastics. They aren't that great but they are just mucking about really. If a male artistic gymnasts actually wanted to switch to WAG and put the time in to creating, learning, and polishing code compliant routines they would certainly have a physical advantage. But rhythmic is a totally different discipline. In fact WAG is really a different discipline than MAG, which is the only reason a male gymnast switching wouldn't have a completely overwhelming advantage.

Nile Wilson and Ashley Watson actually did a video where they tried rhythmic once and Ash has really nice apparatus handling skills for someone with no training in that. However, nice apparatus handling skills aren't enough to compensate for flexibility at a high level.

Yes, Stef Barrett, a mature beginner, started Archery and ended up representing Canada within 18-24 months I think. And they say males don’t have any advantage in archery….

And of course, no one at all knows the names of Paula Radcliffe, Sharron Davies, or Billie Jean King or Martina Navratilova, or Nicola Adams, Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Ash Barty, Megan Rapinoe, Sam Kerr, Simone Biles, Emma McKeon, Katie Ledecky … I mean the list is endless.

But no… no one knows their names according to Fish. They are not the best of the best at all. Worthless women all of them. They would all lose against males, so therefore they are inferior goods apparently.

Truly, some people must live in a bubble where only the extremes of capitalistic individualism is worshipped. Or they have a very narrow engagement with the world. Or they are not engaging in good faith.

You know, sports does exist outside TV viewing figures and ticket sales. I know it must be a shock to discover.

Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrince Naseem!

She's certainly a big lass. Also by the looks of her easily old enough to be the father of most of the other competitors. Seems perfectly legit.

Last try

Sorry link not working but google Stephanie Barrett archery and there are pictures with their male teammate who we can still call male