[quote greasyshoes]@Midlifemusings
Better funding for sport for men and boys, more men and boys participating in sport.
If you have lots of men and boys competing in sport, and being encouraged to do so, and less women competing in sport, then of course you're going to see men and boys having better running times because the pool of men and boys is bigger to begin with.
The question is a bit like asking "Why are Americans bad at football?" It's not as if Americans have some genetic or biological factor which means they can't play football. You have less Americans playing football to begin with, it's not as well funded, hence, Americans don't perform as well as Europeans.[/quote]
Part of the issue may be that apparently @greasyshoes quite literally doesn’t believe women’s sport is really sport.
Because asserting “Americans don’t perform as well as Europeans [at football]” is patently untrue: the Stars & Stripes are an absolute force of nature. They’re also a perfect example of how socialisation & gender stereotyping impacts on sporting participation, given in the US “soccer” is seen as a girls’ game AND it is the preserve of the middle classes (as in “soccer moms”); but (although it’s a fast-growing field [pun shamelessly retained]) there are still almost no opportunities for girls & women to participate in American Football.
One might almost think that greasy hasn’t the faintest idea about what he’s so keen to lecture all of us on. I know, it’s a shocking thought, a man just barrelling in here to make nonsense pronouncements. A first for MN.
Such a waste not to at least try to use this particular feature of US life to illustrate that coherent argument for the primacy of socialisation (& utter insignificance of biology) that definitely absolutely totally exists & is real. Compounding that Americans can’t football analogy with a complete failure to attempt even a basic analysis of funding structures; grass-roots soccer & football; demographics (including axes of oppression); & the all-important College [sports’] scholarship system (& the pecuniary peculiarities thereof)… it all just highlights greasy’s utter lack of argument, & by extension, that those who would argue this in good faith can make interesting points about about sex-based socialisation, gender roles & participation in sport - but that’s as far as it goes. If he was hoping to look like he has pwnd the denizens of FWR by deliberately wasting our time with his nonsense, he’s just managed a fairly epic self-own.
greasy, if, contrary to all appearances, you actually DID want to engage in good faith but were somehow unable to contain the urge to contradict women at every turn, please at least read the masses of information you’ve been provided with. Make the most of @SamphiretheStickerist being so generous as to share her expertise.
Finally, the Stars & Stripes serve to demonstrate the differences between male & female bodies are key in sport: teenage boys can beat absolute world-class female players by virtue of male puberty. (And remember boys’ football in the US is, as per greasy’s assertion, lacking in investment: the women’s team have had every advantage & were still beaten. Because reality is unbending like that.) The Matildas have endured the same fate as have the Canarinhas & Sweden’s Blågult. Indeed, this is the outcome any time a women’s national team play a team of teenage boys. Biology is a constant, the consistent unifying shared reality of women. Imposed on that are culturally-mediated constructions of gender which dictate how the sexes are socialised. So socialisation somehow accounting for the losses would be remarkable…