Crufts and Physical 100 - unlikely "gender critical" programmes

[OhWhatMerryHellIsThis]

Watching the TV in the last week I've pondered the following.

Crufts - it was mentioned more than once that there are more male winners of dog shows than female. The reason given is that bitches have to miss shows when on heat, and also are withdrawn from showing at a younger age in order to breed. Presumably identifying as male wouldn't negate this issue .

More importantly, if anyone has watched Physical 100 it's scary how the women competitors genuinely believe they are strong, that they will be able to compete with the men, that they can be faster and compete on a level playing field. But in fact, women only made the semi final because of the team challenges, no women made the final.

Interestingly, when asked to choose competitors for the 1-on-1 physical challenge almost all the men chose male opponents - many said it wasn't a challenge to beat a woman. So the only women who went through had beaten another woman.

Finally, when it came to the semi-final two of the women deliberately chose competitions they couldn't win at in order to give their male team mates a better chance. Something that obviously never occurred to any of the men

It was an eye-opener. Anyone with teenage daughters (or sons, but watch it with them) should encourage them to watch it.

Yes Physical 100 really starkly showed the difference in strength and physicality between men and women and was a great example of why men and women cannot compete head to head in the same competition and have it be remotely fair.

The challenge where they had to lift the huge concrete ball onto their backs was impossible for the female competitor to do. She was so strong, but she was too small to even pick it up. They didn’t give her a proportionally smaller ball.

Crufts - it was mentioned more than once that there are more male winners of dog shows than female. The reason given is that bitches have to miss shows when on heat, and also are withdrawn from showing at a younger age in order to breed. Presumably identifying as male wouldn't negate this issue.

🤣

The concrete ball one was interesting, because in the previous "saving" round they had weighted the busts at a proportion of their actual weights. So one woman got through only because she lifted a much smaller weight than the men.

Had the entire programme been done fairly (men choosing women for combat, and no percentage weights being used) no women would have gone past the first "hanging from a beam" stage.

It was a stark reminder of how even the strongest of women can't compete with men.

Horse racing has been organised into "open" and "female only" categories for about 250 years. So The Derby (first run in 1780) is technically open to fillies, but in practice they nearly always line up for the female equivalent (The Oaks). There are also strict rules about weight relating to sex and age. As racing is so closely linked to betting, cold hard cash and reality rule.

Time for a remake of Gladiators on a Saturday night? Or would it be awfully bigotted and old fashioned to split the competition into male/female?

With physical competitions, don't The Righteous usually say that it's all because women-gendered humans just aren't trying hard enough? Same presumably goes for filly-gendered horses?

I only saw a bit of Physical 100 - DP was watching it and I sat down with him for some of it - but I did see a woman who selected a man to fight in a kind of wrestling game trying to get and keep possession of a ball. Obviously she lost. I felt sorry for the man who was awkwardly holding back but still ended up hurting her because he wasn't going to take it so far as to let her win. And I felt sorry for the woman because it seemed she was genuinely fully expecting to have a reasonable chance. Then afterwards she was upset and saying how she wasn't strong and she needed to train harder. She was incredibly strong! But all the training in the world couldn't have made her strong enough to beat that man. It was like making one of the massive men wrestle a bear and then drawing the conclusion that actually he wasn't strong at all when the bear won.

Crufts - it was mentioned more than once that there are more male winners of dog shows than female.

And Tyson Beefy Killer has already won her obedience trial, now she's going great guns through the chicane! Isn't she stunning and brave?!