Any sports where women have advantage over men? ... Any??

[WomanBornNotWorn]

Thinking about the repeated instances of biological men self identifying into women's teams and competitions, and how the simple fact that their being physically and socialised male gives them an unfair advantage. I think we're all on the same page here.

Does anyone have any links where trans men have competed against or in teams with men? (I've read about Patricio www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/21/patricio-manuel-trans-boxer-made-history )

I understand equestrian sports are mixed, and of course mixed doubles have always been a thing, say in tennis.

There are some moves I've seen in women's gymnastics I can't imagine a trans woman being able to achieve safely and without pain.

But I'm truly trying to think of any sports where being really female gives an unfair advantage over men.

Sadly men would probably dominate women’s gymnastics. Someone mentioned that young flexible women dominate the sport - it gets harder specifically for women because once they go through puberty, their centre of gravity changes and they have to re-learn their skills, plus the extra years of training take a toll on the body with most retiring due to injuries. Male gymnasts are typically a bit older (post university) because they need time to build their strength so they would be able to compete for much longer than most women.

In recent years the sport has been trending towards favouring gymnasts who can do more difficult skills, which is creating a slightly older group of successful gymnasts (18 - 21 as opposed to 15/16). Not many 16 year old women have developed enough power on the “leg” events to be competitive.

The skills women do (on average) have a lower difficulty than the men so I would expect that if a male gymnast decided to identify as female, it’s feasible that he could dominate the women’s sport. You don’t really need to be artistically expressive to be successful - Simone Biles isn’t especially artistic.

The same goes for figure skating. The women landing triple axels right now are very, very young (13 for the US girl) and it’s doubtful they’ll be able to keep the skill after puberty, whereas men can usually perform these in their 20s.

I disagree on the fencing thing. Was top 5 (UK) at my own weapon, regularly destroyed by top 50ish Men especially if tall, in training.

At a world level I would be surprised if any of the women could get to the L64 in the equivalent male event - the speed, power and height discrepancy would be too much. Fitness and athleticism is much more of a thing than it was even 15 years ago.

Stylistically the two sexes are quite different too - the men's game is a lot of explosive power, backing themselves to hit regardless of the opponent's plan while all 3 women's weapons have a lot more second (and third) intention setting up actions a lot more.

Ski-jumping seems to be a sport where women compete on par with the men, but has been fraught with politics and legal battles.

Going into the Sochi 2010 Olympic Games, women were not allowed to compete, despite being allowed to test the hill for the men in advance of the competition, and Lindsey Van holding the world record (for both sexes) for the longest jump on the hill.

Female jumpers sued and won their case for discrimination against the Vancouver Organising Committee, but there was no way to enforce this on the IOC, who refused to relent. It took another 4 years until female ski-jumpers were allowed to compete in the Olympics.

I'm not sure Jasmine Paris had a biological or physiological advantage, perhaps men and women are more evenly matched for endurance but you'd need differences in averages to say her female-ness helped at all. I think she's just amazing.

I saw her talk about it, she said having a baby and not sleeping was great training and it meant she could just not sleep the last night, but keep going. That's training men could have, if they got up with the baby! It's not a biological advantage!

Arnold - your point about some women feeling that to acknowledge discrepancies in physical strength is to undermine feminism is an interesting one (and I agree about action films, particularly superhero films, pushing this narrative - one explicitly tackled in a much more interesting way by Naomi Alderman's novel The Power).

It's so arse-about-face, isn't it? A certain type of third-wave lib fem seems to believe "acknowledge men are as a class physically stronger and faster than women = end of feminism as we know it; accept the concept of lady-brains to bolster genderist ideology = no problem at all." It is a strange, topsy turvy world they inhabit.

I wonder if you could possibly do it in reverse with racing. So a horse that should be carrying eg a minimum of 11 stone, if you could argue that the 5’ 6 stone female jockey shouldn’t need to carry lead. Just like the natural advantage of testosterone, strength etc are ignored when a trans woman wants to complete in other events.

Yes, I should say with the long swims it's not been my understanding that women are faster, but they are better at doing those kinds of swims compared to men, overall - more women can do long cold swims than men.

Over the last few decades we've had a steady stream of films and TV shows depicting 'kick ass' women who are not only intellectually equal to men (which we are) but physically so (which we're not). Women are frequently shown winning fights against men on our screens. That just isn't reality.

Fight scenes like this usually look so unbelievable to me, I can never quite fathom how people take them seriously, but some seem to.

I’m not sure Chilli Morning moving to WFP was because Mary King couldn’t hold him, his owner was notorious for moving the horse around (he was with Nick Gauntlett in his younger years).

Female jockeys struggle with equality of opportunity rather than physical differences. Rachael Blackmore almost became Irish champion jump jockey last season, and more female jockeys are riding out their claim these days. Generally speaking though, racing is 95% the horse and the most important thing the jockey has to do is not fuck it up (eg by having the horse in the right place during the race, not using up its energy too early etc). It’s questionable exactly how much the jockey’s strength has to do with how well any given horse performs in a race - being in balance and in rhythm with its stride pattern is far more important.

There are more top male showjumpers than female, but there have been female World Champions, Olympic medalists, World Cup winners. It’s mainly about the training, skill and athleticism of the horse and odd quirk aside, like those PPs have mentioned above, it’s unusual for a top horse not to be capable of being ridden competently by both sexes. The World Championship used to be decided by the top four placed riders all jumping four rounds, one on their own horse and the other three on each of the other riders’. At least one woman won it in this format, when she was the only one of her sex in the top four and rode the other three mens’ horses as well or better than they rode them themselves.

I’m pretty sure in the open era there have been more female Olympic gold medalists in dressage than male. Modern dressage horses are usually hotter than Hades so tact, sympathy and skill is more critical to success than strength.

Screen fights are utterly outlandish, as such they are male power fantasies anyway. I really don’t see it being a problem there being female power fantasies too.

Violence is an unpleasant thing in reality and often much smaller men can outclass much bigger ones simply by virtue of willing to be more vicious and brutal. I think women can and sometimes do the same it’s just you are all socialised not to.

Dressage, our best rider is female, and the team in Rotterdam this week Are two females and two males - very equal

I don't think I'd class it as a "problem" so much as something which seems to have added in some way to a rather odd phenomena of people not believing in real physical differences between men and women.

Sports involving climbing seem to be pretty accessible to both sexes. There have been some notable women rock climbers (and some deaths among them, too). It's not my game, but although I imagine long arms and legs are helpful, a lower body weight and centre of gravity might be an advantage too.

And among backpackers, there's a good percentage of women. I'd like to believe that loading a rucksack onto your back and heading off into the hills is socially a thing that more men than women are inclined to do, but if more women wanted to do it, they'd have just as much ability. Now if only the Girl Guides could solve their problems...

Backpacking, recommendation to carry say1/3 or 1/4 your body weight. So generally dh takes a lot more weight than me. Which means he can take more days food, because things like tents are fixed. I can barely lift his fully loaded backpacking sack. Men are on average stronger. Yes in mountaineering of any kind, some women can do as well or better than many men. But that’s an exception. Not a rule.

Yes, Midge, I used to reflect on this with my first serious boyfriend as I flogged my way uphill trailing by some considerable distance. An alpine pack for me (axes, crampons, one of the ropes, half the climbing rack, bivvy gear, water, food) was about 1/4 of my body weight and about 1/6 of his. Not surprising I went uphill at a snail's pace.

As for rock climbing - seriously, try it before you comment. Try it to the extent of getting to 6a overhangs indoors, preferably with a male partner. He'll climb them using arm strength alone, you will have to develop technique to manage the same moves. Then look at the history of climbing - notable first ascents. The first E whatever ascent in the UK, the first ascent at any given new technical grade in the US or in France - every single one of them will have been done by men.

The only really notable first ascent done by a woman that I can think of was (as I mentioned upthread) Lynn Hill freeing El Cap. One of the best pieces of climbing ever, but very much the exception rather than the rule.

As an aerialist, I wouldn't agree with the assertion that women are better than men at pole dance. Women are generally better at the aspects that require pain tolerance and leg strength, such as the pole seat, knee hang, etc. When it comes to moves like pencil, candlestick, and flag, the men have a huge advantage in their upper body strength. Same goes for the non-pole aerials: women rock the silks and corde lisse because we can endure all the squeezing (after all, we are used to wearing bras and spanx, I can endure the silk squeezing my foot in that footlock no probs because I'm used to wearing heels) and we rule hoop because we can tolerate straddling one inch diameter tubing that most men woild balk at putting their meat and veg near, but men rule the straps and the rings.

KNowing nothing about pole dancing or aerial things. However it seemed that there was a list of moves many of which women are better at , yet the sssertiom is women are not better.

Are you saying that here women are just different or do you think that people rate more highly the things that men are particularly good at?

Yes!! Article in BBC from last week
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-49284389

I think women can and sometimes do the same it’s just you are all socialised not to.

sigh

1. As a class, we are weaker.
2. As a class, our strength is in our legs.
3. All bar one fighting arts are designed for men by men:

• The fighting style assumes that the attacker and defender are both standing and have most strength in their upper body.
• In most fighting arts, being on the ground means you already lost.

For a woman being attacked by a would-be rapist, he starts by trying to get her on the ground to rape her and the fighting style for her needs to reflect that she may be surprise-attacked, knocked over, and have to start her fight from the ground. Her strength is in her legs, not her arms, and the fighting style needs to reflect that. One martial arts style has been developed for women that reflects these facts. ONE. All others are designed by and for men. And even if we learn that one style, we are weaker and lighter than men.

Are you saying that here women are just different

Yes, and a sensible aerialist performs to their strengths.

Women have to learn good technique to do things, whilst men can often just brute force their way into things. I took an ex-bf to a static trapeze class with a fairly low trapeze and he just grabbed the ropes and lifted himself onto the bar, whereas I was hock or straddle mounting. Yes, his mount looked impressive, but he didn't learn straddle or hock mount that day, which would get him onto a much higher trapeze than he could lift himself onto.

Just interrupting this conversation to point the Jasmin Paris fans amongst you to this amazing broadcast that I caught during a bout of insomnia last week on the World Service. She's talking with Natalie Spirig (Swiss triathlete and mother of three) about the challenges of combining motherhood and incredible athletic achievement. Awe inspiring!

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csynjl

Feature on local (Meridian) News tonight about the girl who is a junior Speedway champion. Speedway does not recognise gender.

WHAT about sex mockers?

Climbing is going into the olympics in 2020. It definitely won’t be done as a mixed sport!

Climbers climb in mixed groups socially but they don’t compete in mixed categories.

It’s true that power to weight ratio is important in climbing and you do see the situation where talented young kids can climb things more easily than average adult social climbers (I’ve seen grown men look most forlorn when a 10 year old girl sends the climb they are struggling on). But it not the only thing that helps and general strength and core strength are important.

WHAT about sex mockers?

Flippant reply would be to ask where you live.

Serious answer is that the Speedway Man said gender.