Oh Fuck Off, Claire Balding

I agree @Cailin66 and @Helleofabore it is sport specific. It could provide a much better debate on inclusion, for women. I would be surprised if men would tolerate the TWAW mantra

There is a discussion to be had about this, but it must be in addition to single sex teams without any males of any gender identity.

My daughter is an aspiring cricketer.

She plays in women's county teams and women's single sex leagues. Her county is one of the ones that the ECB has deemed 'high enough' to exclude trans women (I thoroughly disagree with their decision on this) but her club team could be compelled to include males under the recent decision.

In addition to this the best girls, aspiring to professional, also play weekly in men's leagues. It is widely recognised that this is desirable for the girls to develop to the best of their ability. They enjoy being able to do this and are generally welcomed into the teams based on the fact that they are technically competent to be there. The only time my daughter has faced any real sexism was when her men's team played a team largely made up of Afghan refugees, they weren't keen on getting bowled by a 15 year old girl! But the men on her team won't put up with any sexism and defend her right to be there fiercely.

If we say that we only want single sex sport then these opportunities are lost to them.

I have to agree though that more studies into the differences between male and female bodies for sport are needed. The full effects of menstrual cycles, pregnancy, equipment etc, there is so much to cover for female athletes yet.

For too long female athletes were treated like small male athletes, and this needs to be unpicked.

I think the headline somewhat takes out of context what she actually says. I disagree with her on football, but there could be more mixed medleys in sports that are essentially individual, if there's spectator appetite for them, and I think that's her main argument. I'm not sure it would really have a bearing on funding though because they'd always be additive- it's unlikely the mixed team would comprise athletes who weren't already at the event doing individual or men's/women's relay.

In 2017 she was asking men to accept a weight handicap so that women could compete on an equal footing. Its really not the same as redesigning football boots so they don't injure women.

Mixed sports can be good, especially if it encourages more female participation. But it would never work for certain sports, especially the contact ones like Rugby. Even soccer which is non contact wouldn't work. Men would just pass to the men and they would be faster so it makes sense to do passing that way.

I've played mixed sports in school (indoor hockey, basketball etc) . It's hard to compete with boys who are taller and faster. I'm very short so I ducked underneath them in the basketball lol.

I don't think this has anything to do with the trans debate.

I think this is really an interesting point. Because it relies on balance for these to work competitively.

Social sports like touch rugby have been around for decades and are a version of rugby that works very well mixed sex. But I cannot conceive of how you balance a football team for mixed sex competition for safety and fairness.

I think that's more or less congruent with what she's saying now - she likes the idea of (some? More?) mixed sports but it need attention to differences between men and women as in her example of foootball boots.

That seems surprising. The courts aren't that small and male upper-body strength, for starters, would give you an advantage to start with as you'd stay longer within your controllable range for accuracy.

Riding - women and men compete on equal terms and that's great. Yes, it's a partnership/"it's the horse doing it"/etc. But if you think about how very many girls start out riding compared to boys, that much, much bigger original pool of female talent still only ends up producing competitors similar in number to men at the top levels.

I wonder what changed?

Clare Balding calls for British horse racing to do more to tackle gender inequality January 11, 2018

Clare Balding has revealed she believes there is an “underlying sexual discrimination” in horse racing.
“I would like to see moves being made that actively promote professional female jockeys, and also reward yards that have women in senior roles.
''I can’t see anything controversial about that, but that’s because I believe in equality, and you’d only think that was controversial if you didn’t.”
'' I do think giving female jockeys an [weight] allowance would change everything.”
archive.fo/xC92X

There seems to be a drive to make all sports the same as men's sports.
Men's football and women's football is almost a different game.
Men's tennis and women's tennis used to be a lot different with women putting together much more skilled rallies and men's being the power game, this changed with the William's sisters and we started the hear the much hated "grunt" from other players.
Volleyball has different net heights, so how would that work.
Darts and golf have different starting points.
In Snooker and pool men have greater reach, more power and bigger hands so they can bridge for more difficult shots.

I can see the point in some mixed sports, but anything with contact in it is just asking for trouble.

I always wonder, whenever people insist that we still need to do much more research about how men's and women's bodies differ and the different biological (dis)advantages in sport, whether they're agenda-driven, agitators/trolling or just really, really thick.

Evidence Claire...evidence.. football is not down to skill alone..

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6465549/

Stand all the male and female goal keepers from the top 10 UK teams and see how equal that would look!!

Take two male bodies, put them in the international team... and see them rise to the top.. the record for the highest transfer fees in the history of female soccer are held by two players who failed to pass sex verification tests before FIFA, the IOC and the US football verification rule deemed this not to be necessary..

I like the mixed relays in the Olympics but they highlight the differences in strength and power of the sexes rather than showing how the women are just as good as the men. The women are top of their fields but they are smoked by the male athletes they are competing beside.

That's one way to look at it, but the way I see it, mixed track or swimming relays are not supposed to show that women are just as fast as the men - baldly, we're not - but for reasons. The mixed sex element just adds another layer of interest and certainly in swimming, it makes the race less predictable. And I would argue that it's good to show the strength differences because it fatally undermines the argument that there's no difference and no need for women's sport.

What they do show is that women have all the same levels of dedication, determination etc as men. I remember a British woman swimmer (name escapes me) who swam an absolutely heroic leg of a medley relay against male competitors which ensured a GB medal in the event. I also love to see men and women working together as equals with mutual respect.

With that said, of course women's SS competitions should be the norm.

Golf maybe but not football. Any sport that involves any kind of physical contact should be kept separate.

Men's football is absolutely about power and strength. Of course skill and football intelligence are required too.

I like the mixed relays in the Olympics but they highlight the differences in strength and power of the sexes rather than showing how the women are just as good as the men. The women are top of their fields but they are smoked by the male athletes they are competing beside.

Mixed golf alongside sex separated golf sounds fine but I think football there is too much of a risk of a rough tackle and a woman getting severely injured. Also in mixed football, I think it would end up a game of the men just playing with each other and the women getting token passes but not really getting to play.

They say that men and women are equally matched in croquet.

It might be useful to draw experience from Ultimate (ultimate frisbee), as there's been mixed teams competing at world championship level since 1999.

Not saying it's a utopian example but as it's been around for some time there's bound to be some learnings.

I've played it at club level, my husband at international level (club and country) and I think it does offer an inclusiveness that I haven't seen elsewhere.

Mixed sits along side open and women's teams and so people can play the version they want at club level, some play both when schedules allow (UK open & women's tour is held at a different time to mixed, for example)

Of course there's been the 'men don't pass to women' issue, but I think that's partly addressed by continuing to establish the division and it's existence as a variation of the game, with its own strengths and highlights.The more it is played and seen, the more normalized it will become.

Ultimate is non-contact, and games are governed by the spirit of the game rather than a referee, which encourages self control, courtesy and fair-minded competitiveness. Both of these things help lend Ultimate to mixed sex sports.

I've no skin in the political game, I'm just here to give an example of a sport that is successfully incorporating the mixed game into it's offering, and as it is doing it alongside open and women's, together they are all making the sport stronger.

(Also it's lovely to play and I wish my knees would let me these days!)

I agree about horse-riding being one of a tiny minority of sports where there can be true equality. To suggest that power and strength do not play a part in football is madness imho!

Not keen on mixed sex teams in contact sports, even limited contact sports. But mixed relays in swimming, triathlon and track sprints are here to stay, not least because the athletes seem to love them.
Not just the athletes, I love them too @Snowypeaks and the other advantage is that it shows the significant difference in the strength and capacity of men vs women. Mixed sex teams do not support trans identified men in women's sport, they do the opposite.

Some of them do, but plenty don't. I've stopped going to mixed sessions at my gym and just organise with a group of women as I've been hurt a couple of times by competitive, aggressive men firing balls at me as if they're at Wimbledon. The coaches don't seem to care about ensuring people are in the right skill level. Other times I just repeatedly lose as the men win though "brute force" as one of my friends commented, which is disheartening. Some sessions are fine but you don't know what you're going to get, which is why I don't bother anymore. It's a common complaint among the women I know.

I used to think she was cleverer than this. I wonder what Alice, her wife thinks of the idea.

This doesn't fly outside of the gender debate though because they'll still need to ensure they have the same number of (real) women and men on each team to make sure it's fair. If one team is men + transwomen and the other is transmen + women then it's obvious who'd win 😏

No. Mixed sex sports are not the way forward especially for our girls. They need space away from boys to build confidence and skills away from the male ‘gaze’. We have huge problems with girls dropping out of sport in secondary school and mixed sports will not help. I’ll bet Clare’s never had to coax a bunch of 14-year-old girls to get moving in a wet PE lesson!