Women in sport

[PurplePidjin]

Dp and I had an interesting discussion this evening, and I'm curious as to whether there's a definitive answer or not.

I said that i thought the standard of women's sport had increased significantly more over the past 30-40 years, coinciding with the rise in equality, increased funding and greater encouragement of young players. I think that women's sports will eventually become as watchable as men's although maybe in different ways, eg football played more tactically and less "hoofing the ball up the field" (dp's description)

He thinks that women's sport has improved at the same rate as men's in that time. He maintains that women will never be better than men because most popular sports are designed to test those physical attributes that men are genetically predisposed towards. Women are better dancers, gymnasts etc, men are better athletes, for example.

We both agree that sport in general has improved, due to investment, equipment and nutrition.

Neither of us holds the view that Men are better than Women full stop. Just that the most popular sports eg: football, rugby, athletics were designed by men to test male strength using muscles evolved to be assisted by testosterone.

If i had the software, I'd plot a graph showing Olympic Records for 100m over the last 30 years and hopefully prove that, despite an upward trend by both genders, the women are narrowing the gap.

Opinions, please!

If i had the software, I'd plot a graph showing Olympic Records for 100m over the last 30 years and hopefully prove that, despite an upward trend by both genders, the women are narrowing the gap.

Hmmmm. The women's World Record in the 100m was set over 20 years ago so actually there would be very little progress shown by women.

I honestly don't know whether the standard of women's sport has improved or not. Or actually whether men's has. Are you talking about the UK, or worldwide? I'd be interested to see what other people say.

Dammit, that proves me wrong

Oh, and i meant generally but it'd be interesting to see if countries with higher standards of education and nutrition fared better than those with less access, or if in the case of somewhere like America the obesity of the general population is impacting on sportspeople...

"Hmmmm. The women's World Record in the 100m was set over 20 years ago so actually there would be very little progress shown by women."

My suspicion is that there might be less doping in female athletics, as the changes to the physique become more obvious in women?

The 100m probably isn't the best example. If you looked at the marathon you would see a huge improvement. I've just looked and in 1970, the women's world record was 3 hours 2 minutes whilst the men's was 2 hours 8 minutes. Now the records are 2 hours 3 and 2 hours 15 respectively. I would guess that improvement is due in part to the popularity of marathon running in general (that men's record stood for 20 years and it was in the 1980s that marathon running became popular) and the fact that it's more acceptable for women to run long distances. I think women weren't allowed to even compete in a marathon at the Olympic Games until the 1980s so I owuld imagine fewer women would have bothered doing it in general.

I think also the major improvements have been in tennis and football. Unfortunately the results of those matches aren't quantifiable like athletics.

It could be any sport that is measured against a control - running, jumping, throwing...

"Hmmmm. The women's World Record in the 100m was set over 20 years ago so actually there would be very little progress shown by women."

My suspicion is that there might be less doping in female athletics, as the changes to the physique become more obvious in women?

Absolutely. But it still means that progress would be hard to measure.

Whoops! The men's record stood for 12 years, not 12.

Yay for Rosy!! That's exactly the kind of stats I'm interested in :o

I would say that that shows a clear link between the rise in gender ewuality in sport and an improvement in the quality of competition between women.

Are we really now faster than them???

Whoops no! I have put them the wrong way round - sorry. Men's is 2 hours 3 and women's 2 hours 15. I'm obviously still half asleep!

Women are better dancers, gymnasts

I would dispute this. Men's dance and gymnastics is different in style due to the differences in body build, but mens' gymnastics is equally as challenging, and mens' dance equally artistic to womens.

I had my suspicions - i know we're good but it's still ultimately a competition designed to test genetically-male attributes :)

Thank you for not bashing dp, by the way. He's a traditionalist, but a firm believer that we're all as good as each other just at different things thank you MIL

for Rosy

Men's dance and gymnastics is different in style due to the differences in body build,

Good point, and other sports haven't evolved to take account of physiological differences in the same way. I wonder why

I would agree that the standard of women's sport has increased hugely over the past 2-3 decades as there is a much larger pool of participants, better training, understanding of nutrition etc. You only have to look at the physiques of modern athletes compared to ones of the sixties to see the difference.

However, finding some numbers to back this up is hard (other than the distance running examples given above). I thought that the Heptathlon would be a really good measure as it has an easily quantifiable scoring system and covers a wide range of disciplines but looking at the historical scores, the highest scores were mostly achieved in the 80s and early 90s - coincidently when doping was absolutely rife in athletics

Maybe we need another 10 years of stats to prove the throry?

Depends on the sport.
England vs The Netherlands is on TV this afternoon. The women's teams. Men are faster, stronger and more powerful. They are also more skillful, probably due to the fact the men are full time professionals who can practise all day and women aren't. They also play on the same size pitch as men. If you compare the women's game to the men's game at the moment you would have to say the men's is far better.
Tennis a few years ago was bloody boring if you watched the men's. Ace after ace with no rallys. The women's game was far more entertaining to watch. (I think they changed the balls a bit to get more rallys now though. Could be wrong!)

Dance and gymnastics are a weird one anyway, as there's so much subjectivity in judging, it's not as factual as "x ran/swam/cycled faster than y"

I don't know about records, but I do know that DD2, who's 11 would really like to see more women's sport on TV. Having women teachers, dentists, doctor etc. Etc she can't see why she only gets to watch men's football.

Tennis is an odd one. There isn't the depth in the woman's game there is in the men's.

Even the best women blow so hot and cold that there can be brilliant matches, but there are still too many 6-1 6-0 results.

This is why I love equestrian sport so much (apart from the fact that I'm nuts about horses) because men and women participate on equal terms, and it's not just for young athletes. (Mark Todd's well into his 50s and still winning)

If you watch BBC Breakfast or listen to the news, you'd seem to think that the only sport women play is tennis at Wimbledon and a bit of show jumping. It's so male dominated - but to be fair, BBC do have a female sports presenter.

OP - you can tell your DH that the fastest horse in the world is a mare!

She's hitting the headlines at the moment as she has been flown over from Australia to compete at Ascot and is the only horse in that country ever to have run 200 metres in under 10 seconds (and be unbeaten by any other horse - male or female - in her 21 outings).

www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jun/16/black-caviar-ascot-jubilee-stakes?newsfeed=true

Of course I understand that women are not horses but let's not allow a little fact like that to get in the way...

BuntingBunny DP reckons there's more depth to the female tennis rather than less, because there's a greater range of players capable of winning a Grand Slam there are only 2 men - Nadal and Djokovic

HotheadPaisan that's because there wasn't any men's football!

Dictated by DP because i sent him a link

Very much so, and it also shows how much sport is driven by the media perception of what the public wants to watch Big Brother being an excellent example of how wrong they can be