Mixed gender race at sports day

[littlegreydevil]

Hi, long time lurker but first post and I’m aware I am stepping in with a particularly hot topic but here goes…
Our primary school organised its annual sports day this week and for unknown reasons, decided to mix boys and girls for the sprints. Teams are usually mixed genders for the less competitive activities like the sack race, egg and spoon race, etc. but this is the first time they’ve mixed genders for the competitive races. Of course this has resulted in only 2 girls making the podium across all the year groups and both “only” hitting third place.
I’m really bothered by this as I thought sports day was about celebrating sporting achievements and encouraging kids to enjoy sports (I know this can be disputed but that’s a whole other debate) and today, I have watched a ream of very sporty, very talented female runners lose to their male counterparts and I can’t see how that fits in the ethos of sports day.
I am planning to speak to the head to question their motives in making this odd decision.
imo sport is gendered for a reason and it should be about equity rather than equality. You might be able to argue that younger age groups could be mixed as supposedly their physical ability is the same up to age 7 or 8 (need to find the references for this) but from year 2 onwards, it doesn’t work anymore. Girls start going through puberty from as young as 9 so by that point, it should be gendered.
For full transparency, I have 2 children, a boy and a girl, neither of which is talented in athletics (they are very good in other sports) and usually come in at a solid bottom 3rd place so this is not about my kids being slighted.
If you were me, what questions would you ask from the head and, seeing as they have a track record of being quite obstinate, what arguments would you produce?

The nearby juniors does separate sex races iirr.
At infants we don't as we;ve not felt the need to separate - the results are very balanced.

As if school sports day wasn’t awful enough for lots of kids… 🙄

Male advantage of a similar magnitude was detected in a study of Greek children, where, compared with 6-year-old females, 6-year-old males completed 16.6% more shuttle runs in a given time and could jump 9.7% further from a standing position. In terms of aerobic capacity, 6- to 7-year-old males have been shown to have a higher absolute and relative (to body mass) O2max than 6- to 7-year-old females .

Just in case you missed this.

So, also even 6 year old boys have better aerobic capacity than girls.

Your arguments don't stand up to the evidence that is coming through.

Women tend to have stronger lower bodies than men and men tend to have stronger upper bodies compared to women.

If you think about how many men can easily do a pull up vs leg presses or squats.

Of course his strong their bodies are depends on other factors as well as just muscle mass or strength.

But the reality is is that boys/men are more able at sports that use upper body strength and I personally feel it’s unfair to have mixed sexed groups in these events.

So surely that’s even more a reason to have single sexed groups then?

Like I suggested 🤔

Sorry, to clarify, do you mean that the males hang and cross using only arms and that females using legs for stability? Him? did you mean the pole?

Sorry, ignore my thing about Q angles I thought you meant walking across a pole.

Sure, that test shows that males can use their arms to get them across (they also have incredible grip strength vs females) whereas female people need their legs to take the weight to support their arms.

That exercise doesn't show that 'women have superior' leg strength. That exercise shows that the military fully understand that women cannot support their bodies with their arms only for as long as men can.

I suggest you watch male gymnastics vs female gymnastics.

It needs to be all activities mixed or all single or both.

This was your suggestion.

You were still advocating "mixed" sex for all as an alternative, or did you mean something else?

Mixed girl and boy relay races or swimming medley races I'd support, otherwise it should be all boys or all girls.

I previously said they could do either single sexed races and a mixed sexed race so 3 races each or just single sexed but I don’t think it’s fair that this should just be in running, as females have more chance at winning/coming close at running races than they do other events which use more upper body strength.

You seem to misunderstand what feminists were aiming for. Or is it that you are just being snide and showing your lack of understanding?

The goal was to end negative sexist discrimination due to our sexed bodies. Not by ignoring that we had those sexed bodies and ignoring those bodies needs and limitations, but by showing that with certain accommodations women shouldn’t be excluded from job roles and opportunities.

You must have missed it. But many industries started to hire women by lowering the minimums they needed to lift for example. Knowing that women could do the job but that injuring that woman would mean they are off work and not productive. However, they can still lift lighter loads and contribute other skills and attributes too.

Please show me where feminists literally meant that their bodies were exactly the same as male bodies?

And the ‘spaces’ women sought to access was the boardrooms and the clubs where business was being done and they were excluded. Excluded by the men who thought that those women’s contributions were worthless and not worthy of promotion on business.

You really don’t seem to understand much about the history of women’s employment.

Do you really believe what you just wrote? Accepting the need for women's sports means a woman can't be as good a brain surgeon or prime minister as a man? Seriously? you must find navigating through the world very difficult if you are incapable of even the most minute nuanced thought.

It totally exclusive., it is discriminating against half of the school.

I think your comparisons between proportional upper and lower body strength is not relevant. Even in sports with upper body strength, boys will have an advantage.

But I agree it shouldn’t be just separate running, it should be all athletics and most sports. Unless it is equal numbers of male and female on each side and no danger of injury. (Such as the teenaged girl who had her skull fractured in a volley ball game that was supposed to be all girls and they included a male who spiked the ball so hard it broke her bones).

I suspect they are either not in good faith or they are misinformed about how equality in the workplace was achieved and why.

I sorted the groups for races for my year 6 sports day. Having led PE all year, I knew who my most athletic children were. My top group contained 5 boys and 1 girls. The second group was all boys. The next 3 groups were a mixture. Grouped on ability, girls raced with boys and boys raced with girls. All races were close, they raced against the same 5 for all races. The same person didn't win every race. If I had have separated them on gender/sex then the same girl would have won every single race by a landslide which would have been disappointing for the other girls. If you're going to group them in primary school then group them on ability, not gender/sex.

Thank you, I really appreciate the links and will be using them to make my point

No nuance in your post.

Just misinformation.

We had sports day as well today for the juniors. There were mixed team races in their houses and then girl / boy races.

There is a child who identifies as a girl in year 5 “sally”

You get picked for the various running races by being in the top 4 in your house. Sally was entered in all the races and won by a significant amount in all of them against the other girls.

My son was also in all the races (so it is not uncommon for this to happen) as he was top in his house, not because he is especially good at athletics but because the others in his house are not very ‘sporty’.

in the mixed races my son was much faster than Sally.

Sorry that was for @Helleofabore !

My son does a mixed sex sport and the boys are faster and stronger than the girls, even though the girls are themselves at elite competitive level. It makes a difference.

insisting that there are inherent sex differences between women and men that don't just influence, but determine, performance difference between women and men to such a degree that it is a great injustice to even imagine a level playing field.

Observation of reality isn't 'insisting'. Sex differences aren't all one way, of course - men are 100% rubbish at the physically demanding task of bearing and birthing babies.

"well, I can't compete fairly if I'm thrown in to a setting where I'm outnumbered by people with inherent sex-based advantages ... isn't that what I learned in the year 4 sports day and from reading all those article @Helleofaboreposted?"

Have a bit of faith in girls. Most of them are perfectly capable of realising males have sex-based advantages in some (not all) sports but that doesn't mean they have sex-based advantages in all other areas. I'm sorry if that concept is hard for you to hold but most girls will be perfectly capable of understanding the difference and making their career and academic choices on that basis.

Also, do you worry that 19 boys getting medals at sports day and 3 girls getting three third place medals might have an effect on girls? "there is no sex-based advantage but we still lose - better not compete - that's what I learned in year 4 sports day"