Sports and sex segregation

[Ennuid]

The Roland Garros and the women's football WC this week reminded me again what I hate about sports : sex segregation. It simply reinforces the idea that men's sports are the real deal, while women's sports are a second-class. What we need to do it stop segregating boys and girls at young ages, just let them play in the same teams or events as they do before the teenage years. This way society won't see women as ''physically inferior'' and a sort of sub-par version of men. No team should be called the male or female this or that and not allowing the other sex to join, if good enough, should be illegal. Something similar happened in the US around the middle of the last century : black athletes were not allowed to compete against whites not only because of pure racism, but also because blacks were considered inferior athletes. The moment they were allowed to compete against whites was the moment they started taking over US sports and these days they almost completely dominate the most popular sports across the pond.

Women are not inferior, sub-par or a lesser version of men. They shouldn't be forced to compete in their own leagues and events. Sports are a huge part of our society and great for building confidence and teaching structure to young people. What kind of message do girls get so early in life when they are told that they should go play in a league of their own because boys are better? No wonder women grow up believing they can't go for a STEM degree or negotiate their salary ''like a man''!

Do you think it's an advantage to be taller in snooker, given the length of the table?

I wouldn't call Reanne's results "very poor"

Also there have been many reasons put forward why women are not competing at the same level as men in things like snooker, darts, are you going to consider those, address them at all?

It's surely cultural Ennuid. To be great, or even very good, at a sport - at least one with a technical aspect - you need start really early and obsessively spend hours and hours and hours practicing, whether that be potting balls in your local club or kicking a ball against a wall. Pop down to your local snooker hall now and see how many girls are playing.

Do you think there were as many parents 10 years ago encouraging their teen daughters to pick up a snooker cue as there were doing so for their teen sons?

Do you think said teen daughters could easily play with a few equally interested friends and learn they had a knack for it?

And that they could as easily find support, a local business to sponsor them, a trainer? Local competitions where other players took them seriously and were pleased to see new talent emerging?

And you can substitute "darts" into all of the above too.

blackrider that's absolutely my point. it's a cultural, not a physical or technical thing. Pool and snooker halls are horrible places.

Fair enough blackrider, I think on balance I actually agree, and as I suggested upthread, there was an element of devil's advocate about my posting (which I hope you appreciate is different from trolling) - I think it's an interesting question.

To come back to the cricket point however, the opening batsmen, wickie and spinners represent four or five out of eleven positions on the pitch, so it's hardly niche positions. There are many men who the 'athlete' slots wouldn't be available to - for example I'm way to short and bottom heavy ever to be even a moderate fast bowler.

I don't know if height is an issue but the snooker players I've seen don't seem that tall. I'm sure there is a cultural factor and the ratio is not good but I don't feel like that's all there is to it. Take black and mixed race football players for example : any european country that has a black population, even a few %, will have a huge overrepresentation of black players even though far more white boys grow up dreaming to be footballers and join junior teams . England is only 4% or so black or mixed but if you look at the top teams or the national team their % is 5-10 times than that of their general population %. Many of the top athletes from poor countries grew up playing with balls made of fuck knows what on a ''pitch'' that was basically dirt with a couple of rocks as posts while their white counterparts had the best training and facilities money could buy. Talent finds a way.

"Do you see the issue? That doesn't represent equality. The team will end up being male dominated by default."

Unless it is a "mandated" mix eg at least 5 female players.

Eh? How many snooker players from rural Senegal do you see? Or are they just shit at snooker?

Do you think black people all have the same attributes, then? How's their dancing?

Finally, just out of curiosity, what's your greatest sporting achievement?

football has extended the age that girls and boys can play together and i agree with them. in fact at primary, girls can have a physical advantage over boys. so mixed sex competitive sport up til puberty sounds fine. after that, weight/height/sex segregation is useful to even out the playing field, depending on the sport.

Got it

I think a mixed cricket/football/volleyball team would be a third sport, tbh, like mixed doubles in tennis.

Yep, fair points blackrider, I just thought the idea was worth exploring. Of course if you accept that women could compete in other positions then it's arguably a different discussion. This is probably hopelessly out on a limb but something that would make cricket less physical and more technical would be restricting batsmen to more traditional bats with a smaller sweet spot and thus rewarded timing more and brute strength less. As a cricket fan, I find the sight of a muscle bound slogger mishitting the ball for six depressing

Yes that is a good point.

OP, is your name Franglais for "bored" or "boredom"?

I think it goes

1. "Blacks"
2. Men

...

...

...

8,375. Birds

Or something.

will those roles be respected if women are always put into them to fulfil a minimum quota

It depends if they are any good or not. I absolutely maintain that a woman could do what Alastair Cook or Shane Warne does/has done. Arguably the best wicketkeeper in England at the moment is female.

This thread sounds a bit like the Oxford/Cambridge rowing one

Womans sports would just disappear from view if women had to compete against men all the time, boys at primary schools seem to dominate football when you would think that the physical differences would not be so apparent

That might just be football though