Woke DD and women in sports

[ElfrideSwancourt]

My eldest DD has recently finished at a woker than woke uni and is terribly woke now. She would consider herself a feminist but just doesn't get the issues with self ID and sport.

I usually avoid the subject because her attitude is one of the few things that we disagree on, but I did bring up women's sports today.

She tried all the usual 'but aren't they entitled to do sport' arguments but I just kept centering the women and how massively unfair it is and she just had no answers .

I'm really hoping that I have sowed some seeds, and now she is not at uni she will start to see the light.

God that's depressing.

They are entitled to compete with their own sex class.

I hope you reassured her that you would be more than happy for them to compete in sport. Either as their own sex, or in some tailored competition

Does she know about Fallon Fox (MMA fighter) breaking Tamika Brent's skull?
And Hannah wotsisface breaking a woman's femur during an Australian Football game?

I'm a rugby player. I'm 6' and when I was playing I was overweight so I'm no teeny tiny fragile little woman...
But if I had a 6' male bodied person ready to smash into me for a full contact tackle, I'd shit myself and leave the team (and probably the sport) for good.

Ask her if that's fair!

If she tries the 'aren't TW entitled to do sport' argument you should say Yes ofc they should be able to participate in sport, but not to chose their opponents.

Hope she sees sense soon.

Just tell her that the best option is to have unisex sport and that all categories are hateful because what about non-binary people? Obviously it will only be males who win but that’s okay in the name of stamping out hate. Play her at her own woke game. Maybe she will get it in 10 years, though from the looks of it, maybe she won’t.

Thought the latest Karolinska Institutet (Sweden) research was a great start. “Our study supports a causal effect of testosterone on physical performance, as measured by running time to exhaustion, in young healthy women,”

I think future research will continue to clarify the situation. It is a problem of trying to make significant decisions that effect sport when there is just not enough longitudinal research.

Does your DD play any sports herself? (Not that that's any guarantee - I know a woker-than-woke cyclist who is very pro McK. She's one of these young libfems totally mired in confusion and cognitive dissonance: for some reason "ladybrains" and all sorts of associated beliefs about hard-wired femininity pose no threat to women being taken seriously, but in her muddled mind if one admits that women can run faster/throw further, somehow this will lead to the whole edifice of feminism collapsing.

This isn't about anyone's entitlement to do sport. This is about everyone's entitlement to do sport. And that's why we have categories. For age, for sex, for disabilities. Everyone is entitled to participate. Safely. Fairly.

The categories are based on (mostly) objective (mostly) observable biological criteria.

What no-one is entitled to do is pick their own category, according to some abstract idea about their own identity.

Except increasingly it's an option to select your own category for sex. Patently this confers an advantage to one group.

I think the thing to ask young women thinking this way is, why do we have separate women's events? Normally excluding one sex would be sexism and even illegal, so why is it considered necessary to do it in this case - why not simply have all mixed sex teams?

Even if she comes to the conclusion that it would be best to have totally mixed sex teams, it would probably be a temporary situation until the realities of what that would mean become clear to her through experience.

She must really, genuinely think that TWAW. If so, there'll be no getting through to her.

I suspect a lot of young women don't realise the real physical differences between men and women. Which seems odd, but many people don't really need to use their bodies that way any more.

Why does she think sports are divided into male and female in the first place?

Can she work out which one of these ladies is a male?

I know its quite hard to tell. You have to look really, really closely.

What i dont get with some of the youngsters and the sports issue...when it comes to self ID at least is , these young woman are walking around with their eyes open yeah?

They can see that young men their age are generally talker....and bigger...and stronger. It must be fucking obvious that if they ran a race against these men that they would lose, or in a fight ...lose, or weightlifting...lose

I mean there is level playing field, being ‘fair’ and being fucking stupid

Or do they think that with a bit if training that they would stand a chance

Might check with dd , she is nearly 18 and a bit dippy but even she would be able to see the problem with this...well i hope so, I’m a bit afraid to ask now

Obviously not talker...taller

Why is the k so close to the L?

Nobody really believes it.

They can see that young men their age are generally talker....and bigger...and stronger. It must be fucking obvious that if they ran a race against these men that they would lose, or in a fight ...lose, or weightlifting...lose

I wonder about this as well, but my observation has been that many don't see it. When I was in my 20s I joined the military, and it was interesting to see that some of the young women did not expect to struggle so much to meet the same expectations as the males - or in fact lower ones in some cases. I would have said that I knew men had an advantage but even so, at that age, as someone who wasn't really into sports or anything like that, I was surprised at the difference, that a quite fit young woman might well be less strong than a less fit, middle aged man.

When I was in school there seemed to be a lot of emphasis placed on the idea that women had no real differences compared to men, including in jobs that were very demanding of strength. I remember hearing an interview with an older male firefighter, saying that one issue with female firefighters was that even if they were quite strong when they joined, they tended to lose their muscular strength at an earlier age and found it difficult to get back to the same level. This was considered some beyond the pale sexism, it didn't even occur to us that it might just be true.

I think it's easier not to see the issues if you've never done much sport, so a. you've never competed with boys growing up and seen the way their advantages go into overdrive after puberty, so you go from basically being on the same level to them being able to beat you without even trying and b. it's not directly inconveniencing you anyway so maybe you just don't care.

It's the injuries that even those who aren't invested in sport tend to care about, so I'd start with Fallon Fox breaking Tamika Brent's orbital bone.

Can you ask your DD if she’s seen much evidence of transmen taking part in men’s sporting events, gaining places in men’s teams?

Maxine Blethyn, a 6ft 4inch transwoman, has been playing for Kent women’s county cricket. Ask if your DD knows of any transmen playing in men’s teams.

Were there any at her uni, do you know? My sons have played football and rugby at their universities. There are no transmen playing in any of the men’s teams at either of their unis - for obvious reasons of size, speed and strength. But a number of transwomen are now playing in the women’s teams, taking the place of young women who previously had a place on those teams. Oh, and they’re smashing it.

So if your DD’s argument is based on trans people being entitled to do sport (which, of course, they are!) ask her if it’s actually just transwomen that she’s considering.

Because transmen, who are also surely entitled to do sport, have absolutely no incentive to do so if they know they won’t ever win a place on a men’s team, or win any race against a man.

It seems like which ever way you look at it, women lose out.

There's a difference between professions where strength is a factor, and sports. For a strength based profession you can set a minimum level and anyone who can reach it should be able to do the job. Skills such as cooperation and equipment may be helpful too. Of course, you get rumours/complaints about where that level is set or how well it's policed, which may or may not be accurate.

For sports, the whole point is that the upper level is open. Yes, raw strength is not the only consideration, mental strength, recovery speed, stamina, courage, physical configuration, practice etc are all important. You cant just line people up, get them to bench press a weight and the strongest will win all sports. But overall, strength and physical configuration will give huge advantages in a self selecting group of trained sportspeople.

My question would be if she's ever actually played sport...

I'm dreading my daughter being brought up in this world

There's a difference between professions where strength is a factor, and sports.

Yes, but the point is that a lot of young women don't realise there is a strength difference at all, in part perhaps because they've been encouraged to think there isn't in terms of professions. I agree with you that in jobs there are the factors you mention, but it's also true that in those professions having women can make a difference to the way the work is managed or there may be some jobs where the number of women remains low. If you can't even allow for discussing those possibilities, you also aren't going to be able to talk about the sports issue sensibly.

You might well find that her views evolve.

I'm at the very mild end of the gender critical spectrum, but nevertheless my teenage daughter practically accused me of being a terf after a discussion about women's sport.

6 months later she apologised (we had no discussions in between)... what did it for her was the idea that as a lesbian woman she should be cool about having sex involving a penis. But she agrees about the sport issue now too

My dds are a similar age and are not woke. Lots of young people don't think TWAW at all.

OneTerrificMouse

Thanks for posting that image of the volleyball player - Tiffany Abreu, because that really highlights the insanity of what is happening to women's sport.
The net in volleyball is lower for women (for obvious reasons) and so are the hurdles in women's track events.
Therefore Abreu is being encouraged to cheat by the sports authorities.