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?

god forbid sports day turns into a fun day and not a competitive overkill 😂

You know they have plenty of matches, tournaments, sport festivals focusing on winners and losers don't you? Let's make sure sports day is all about winning and put off as many non-competitive children as you can 😂

Next on the agenda: banning any expensive trainers that would give an unfair advantage to the ones who can afford them (or just.. care)

I thought most primary school sports days were mixed gender.
Interesting OP says the boys seem to be advantaged by that. In my experience girls at primary school age are often taller and stronger than the boys who often take longer to mature

we are talking about primary school children.

Not grown-up men "self-identifying" as women and joining female teams. Did you miss that bit?

Wtf are you on about? I'm very clearly talking about primary aged boys and girls. Did you miss the bits about the studies showing primary school aged boys are statistically at an advantage over girls?

If there was shown to be an age when the advantage reversed, that would still mean that there should be separate events, to be fair to the immature boys.

Mixed sex sports days at primary school really are nothing new (in fact it sounds, from the thread, as if it always been the norm).

I don’t remember most of the events at our sports days being particularly athletics-focussed. Yes there might be a sprint, but for the most part it was egg and spoon races, sack races, wheelbarrow races, slow-bike races, egg-throwing (as in, you and a team mate throwing an egg back and forth to each other and hoping it didn’t comedically break over you) and other activities that.

A primary school sports day should just be fun. If you want to get your girls involved in competitive sport at a young age, take them to a weekly club. A once-per-year event isn’t going to do much for them anyway.

Who makes these decisions?

The majority of teachers in primary are female.

So, is there an inherent bias that this sort of thing just 'doesn't matter'?

I wonder, if it was swimming, where girls are generally faster in primary, would mixed races be a thing? As most of the medals would be won by girls. Would that be noticed and a change be made cause they wouldn't want to disadvantage boys? Is that it? The expectation that boys will generally always win, so it's only noticed if they don't? But if girls don't win it's brushed over as making an unnecessary fuss?

If it was 'just for fun'- great- then no medals or places. But that's not what this school did.

Imagine a world where @AuntieHippy had her way ...

Employment would be as we're getting to now - people hired if they can do the job. Which does mean that in the relatively few roles where strength and size still matter and aren't mechanised, there will be more eligible men than women. But there will be some women at the upper end of our bimodal curve who can do those things if they want. (There won't be any men in the essential and physically demanding role of manufacturing children of course. Completely beyond their capability)

But there would be virtually no elite women athletes. Only the people at the top of the male curve will have a realistic chance in most disciplines. No big prizes, no role models for girls who could have been Olympians. How the heck is that supposed to be better than having male and female events?

You cannot be serious? I have a background in industrial relations and I have implemented the policies where females have lighter lift loads. I have also worked labouring jobs. The world exists where girls and women do a huge range of career paths and the huge range those paths take are not necessarily direct.

Hilariously, I even have DUG HOLES for a living! I know! Hilarious right that such a poster would choose such a task for me to comment on! Mumsnet, eh!

You, Hippy obviously don’t have a fucking clue though.

From bank tellers to landscape gardeners to military personnel, accommodations have been made for the female body’s requirements. Many of these came in during the 1980s.

I can even post a study that discusses the difference in requirements in male and female fitness standards for the USAF.

Female military personnel have lighter pack requirements to carry. They are still carrying a load on their pack but they don’t carry as much. Why? Because it means a female military person doesn’t carry the risk of being slower in the group or need medical aid from carrying a too heavy pack.

Do female military personnel contribute as a whole as much as male personnel? Of course, they fucking do. They bring other skills to round out the team. including looking at alternative ways to do tasks that on the surface require brute strength but when looked at with a different view alternative solutions are found. They bring just as much intellectual contribution and can do everything else physical, even firing weapons with accuracy, just with lighter loads.

Does it mean that the female personnel are less fit because they don’t bench press as much, or run as fast? No it doesn’t.

They are just as fit.

Their body’s are working at optimum.

A woman lifting the same load repetitively as a male will have greater risk of injury requiring time off work. Therefore, it is not in anyone’s interest to have that.

So many packaged goods, such as bank coin direct from the mint, were changed to be within female lifting capacity.

And digging holes? If it takes a little more time, that is fine. It is usually not the only requirement for the role. And when I was fit and young, I could dig holes in the dirt and swing a mattock as well as an older man with injuries, it might just take a small fraction more. But not usually. And no, I didn’t need ‘more breaks’ and it was just a part of what we did in the day.

“Then tell me why employment law should require employers to pay men and women equally?”

It is highly unusual that a job role is fully about lifting capacity. Even in warehouse jobs, many heavy goods will come in multiple packs. Because it is also not good for ANY staff to be lifting items that are too heavy repeatedly all day long because otherwise it would only ever suit males within a certain age group and / or with no previous injuries.

Outside of the very rare jobs where it ONLY requires lifting the heaviest weights unassisted all day and nothing else, the vast majority of jobs have plenty of other key performance indicators that are related to only lifting the heaviest of weights and that is all they do in a shift.

And you know, forklifts and trolleys exist, don’t you? So too very compact mobile diggers all the way up to draglines!! It is almost like hardly any jobs in Western Society depend solely on lifting full capacity every hour in every shift.

So, to answer your question, in all but the rare jobs where the maximum weight has to be lifted repeatedly over the entire shift - manually and unassisted with modern technology, women can perform all but a miniscule number of tasks just as well as men. Hence they get equal pay.

“Or even offer them comparable terms and conditions?”

Of course women get comparable terms and conditions! You think because a male bank teller can lift slightly more coin in one lift that they should get greater pay and better conditions when lifting maximum capacity for male coin lifts is but part of their role? Even as a ‘coin teller’?

What world do you live in?

Very informative post @Helleofabore Thank you!

”My daughters don't need to see equal numbers of boys and girls standing on different podiums to notice who the real fastest runner is - whatever the age group.”

What a bizarre take that you have here? So if the boys and girls spent the same amount of time training and received the same amount and quality of training, from an early age the results will show that it is highly like that male athletes will win athletic events.

Sure one female athlete may be currently better trained, fitter or whatever the case may be and might win in a mixed sex race from say 7 onwards. Great to recognise that girl’s immense effort. It might even be just natural, who knows without seeing those runner’s backgrounds.

But that girl will be exceptional and will be the exception. She might even be beating boys who come in second who have never trained or is not as fit. Again, who knows without seeing any background.

It is not about rewarding equal ‘numbers’ it is about rewarding girls in fair competition.

“We don't have 'boys' GCSEs and 'girls' GCSEs, despite their being statistically significant and oft-replicated studies showing there are sex differences in academic aptitudes.”

Please post some of these so we can see what you mean.

As far as I have read due to issues such as volume capacity of brains with male human brains being slightly larger due to the size of skulls and shape (female brains have a different shape to fit skulls), human males may have 1 IQ point higher as maximum IQ.

So, I am very interested to see what studies you refer to and what they discuss.

”And we shouldn't create an environment in which girls are discouraged from taking part in sports because they feel they are a class apart, or a sub-category of the other children who just happen to perform well in that sport in greater numbers.”

Blimey! This argument lacks logic.

So, knowing that boys have now known physical advantages from
the age of six, we shouldn’t create an environment where they compete with people with the same physiology because that might what? Remind them that they are female humans with bodies designed around different parameters that male humans?

That their pelvises, their q-angles their skeletal proportions, the higher proportion of slow twitch muscles vs fast twitch muscles and so on mean nothing and that they still should believe they should be able to win against boys? Do you believe that girls should grow up to believe the movies where female superheroes constantly defeat men and male aliens?

Do you believe that boys cannot overpower a girl, even a tall girl, of the same age?

I think your approach is harmful for girls and women. Under your approach girls and women will be oppressed through your beliefs.

In sport an equity solution is required not a strict ‘equality’.

”the vast majority of jobs have plenty of other key performance indicators that are related to only lifting the heaviest of weights and that is all they do in a shift.”

should be

the vast majority of jobs have plenty of other key performance indicators that are not related to only lifting the heaviest of weights and that is all they do in a shift.

here we go 🙄

Making up nonsense and your clear hatred of male (little boys in this case) is not helping your argument.

I won't bother discussing your nonsensical and completely wrong points about women in the army, you are missing the point spectacularly. Go and speak with army professional, actually don't, they don't need you to waste their time.

Have we all become one poster then? I don’t recall errol discussing military. Apologies if I missed it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8997774/

Notice they make the point that military personnel carry ‘absolute’ weighted packs rather than ‘relative’ weighted packs. If you have a recent policy change that shows that pack sizes are now judged by relative weight and is somehow planned before deployment in war time, I would like to see that please.

I know the basic training tests for fitness in the British Army have changed to a ‘gender neutral’ one and is very basic. Would you care to show me the fitness tests for active duty personnel so I can see if that has changed?

I also have a fitness standards study from USAF. Would you like me to post it. It has nothing to do with primary school sports though.

I don’t need to go and talk to a professional’. I have friends in active serving member capacities in other parts of the world. But not the British Army, you are right. But thanks for the recommendations, please post the policy changes so I can read them for the Army. Sounds like they are trying to make interesting changes.

By the way, this is part pertinent to my point.

“However, setting a load limit for soldiers based on body mass is not practical, as operational requirements (e.g., mission duration, threat level, role) will dictate the load-carriage requirements. Recent operational data demonstrates that soldiers carry loads considerably heavier than this proposed load limit 1,2].
Load carriage has been repeatedly associated with musculoskeletal injury risk 5,6,7,8]. Recent evidence from deployed U.S. Army soldiers showed that ~10% of all musculoskeletal injuries were sustained during dismounted patrolling 9]. This is consistent with evidence from Australian Army soldiers, which demonstrated that 8% of reported injuries were sustained during load carriage 10]. The literature also consistently demonstrates that women have a higher risk of musculoskeletal injury compared with men during both training and operations 9,11,12,13]. However, when aerobic fitness is accounted for, these differences in injury rates between women and men reduce considerably 14,15], except for stress fractures 16,17]. Given sex restrictions in direct combat roles are progressively being removed 6,18], women are increasingly being exposed to injury and health risks from heavy load carriage. An increased understanding of the biomechanical responses to load carriage between sexes may facilitate improved task management, reduce injury incidence 14,15,19,20] and decrease the number of lost working days.”

specifically

”The literature also consistently demonstrates that women have a higher risk of musculoskeletal injury compared with men during both training and operations”

and

“Given sex restrictions in direct combat roles are progressively being removed 6,18], women are increasingly being exposed to injury and health risks from heavy load carriage.An increased understanding of the biomechanical responses to load carriage between sexes may facilitate improved task management, reduce injury incidence 14,15,19,20] and decrease the number of lost working days.”

HTH

Huh? I didn't mention the army, and that point was because I most certainly don't hate boys, I'd want to be fair to them if they were at a disadvantage.

So now I have posted some information about a military study, would you like to tell us why you would insist that your daughters should insist on carrying the same pack weight as the male personnel if they were in the military?

Who would that benefit exactly?

Do you understand yet how this works?

You and I have been melded together errol. Sorry. we seem to have become errolhelleofabore.

Maybe that should be errolhelle? Or dragonhelle? What do you think?

Mind you “Making up nonsense and your clear hatred of male (little boys in this case) is not helping your argument.” is some excellent hyperbole.

Has any posters on this thread shown any hatred for male people? or even little boys?

And drurylane, would you like to post your ‘arguments’ as I am not sure that I have seen anything beyond ‘it should all be fun’ and a whole heap of bizarre statements that have little resemblance to reality. That reality being what has been posted by people who disagree with some of your statements.

Oh. And yes. I did have a job that involved warehouse picking as well. And another unpacking pallets and restocking stock rooms and store shelves. I have had many jobs to pay for my education and to get me between roles. It isn’t uncommon. Particularly growing up in a ‘blue collar’ family.

Some really bizarre statements in that post hippy.

What strikes me most though is that you seem to have a very misogynistic view of women and girl’s lived realities. The way you portray the biological realities of their bodies has no resemblance to feminist thought at all. Like this :

“Shouldn't all the women hod-carriers be consigned to work only in women's communes, carrying teensy little bricks up titchy little ladders with longer rest breaks between loads and generally under conditions more 'accommodating' of their weaker, feeble bodies (ah, bless). Then at least the best of them could call herself "champion", and all would be fair.”

You really don’t seem to understand much about feminism or about current employment policies.

Do you say this about other groups requiring some accommodations in the workplace?

Primary school has always mixed the sexes for sports day. Both in my day and in my son's. It gets separated at secondary (and even then not for everything).

No, they haven't. Not at my school, not at my DDs, but the one that matters here is, not at the OPs 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.

The school her kids go to has made an unnecessary deleterious change from a previous sensible approach.

And in my experience and others on this thread they have always been mixed. We could do this all day if you like.

And in my experience and others on this thread they have always been mixed. We could do this all day if you like.

Why? There's clearly 'always' been a mix of approaches, but in the case of the OP we know which applied in the past.