Dutch Olympic committee doesn't know why women's sport exists

[NoBinturongsHereMate]

“The tradition in sport to separate women and men is based mainly on beliefs and ideologies about what it means to be a man or a woman, not on scientifically peer-reviewed research.”

https://x.com/BevJacksonAuth/status/1849701316605419721?

They seem to be basing this on 'research' by a philosopher and a social scientist.

Are they serious, do they really think that?

Well, there is some truth in it.. women were only admitted to ski jumping at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
https://www.outsideonline.com/health/wellness/myth-falling-uterus/

Thankfully, it has been proven that uterune prolapse is unlikely to be cause by exercise.

And thankfully, there is a wealth of scientifically peer reviewed research on the anatomical differences between men and women and their impact on speed and strength.

They've got it ass backwards.

Ass backwards accidentally on purpose

I blame Buffy.

I’m not completely serious, but this narrative that we’re only worse at sports because of a lack of investment. That all we need to do is throw money at it and work harder and we’ll be just as strong and fast as men. That having separate categories is disempowering somehow.

I agree that there may be some sports where we could compete on an equal plain but not many. Even ones where it doesn’t seem like strength differences would weigh in much, they do. I’ve read even in snooker strength plays into getting a good break, which then impacts the rest of the game.

It’s all infuriating and ignores biological differences. It’s okay to be different. It doesn’t disempower me to acknowledge that I’m physiologically different to my male counter parts. Surely it would be worse to pretend I’m not and constantly not meet male-based standards and think I’m just not working hard enough?!

I get so fed up of this tosh that sometimes I think we'd be better off just saying 'ok yes, lets not distinguish between men and women. Lets have a lovely free for all'. Then we could sit back and watch all the men win at everything and have the crackpots try to explain what happened.

Any ideas on what their explanations might be?
Top of my list would be 'ah well, it'll all adjust in a year or two' or 'equality is more important than fairness'.

Do they even hear themselves?

"Any idea what their explanations might be?"

Not as talented, need to train harder. More effort required.

What research suggests there's no physical difference between men and women?

Buffy didn't just train harder. She was supernaturally fused with an ancient demon. Not really a feasible solution for most athletes.

I’ve read even in snooker strength plays into getting a good break, which then impacts the rest of the game.

I hadn't realised that until recently, but I've always thought that height and reach must play an important part. I can't find it now, but I read just this week that the women's final of a snooker/pool tournament was played by two transwomen. I will keep looking for it.

Maybe the Committee should tell this to the Dutch team that won the Olympic mixed 4 x 400m relay in Paris earlier this year. I mean, it’s great that they won, but as you can see from these split times, the women could have run quicker if only they believed in themselves a bit more.

Eugene Omalla 45.26
Lieke Klaver 49.26
Isay Klien Ikkink 44.91
Femke Bol 48.00

Ultimate pool - I think it was the semifinal that had 2 men.

Clearly the women had not trained as much as the men. Probably spent too much time doing their nails.

Ion't know if anyone will remember, but early on with GI there was a comedian, I think a Swedish guy maybe, who did a series on what you might call "woke" hot topics. Basically exposing a very extreme tendency to social constructionist in academia and other areas.

There was one episode per issue, one on gender, one on homosexuality, one on sex differences, etc.

I wish I could remember what it was called, it was serious, but did have some comedic elements, a bit like a Matt Walsh, except totally real - the comedy came from these people saying this batshit stuff very seriously. But there were some parts that were actually a little disturbing, it wasn't light-hearted.

Anyway - I think that there are some countries in Europe, and I wouldn't be shocked if the Netherlands was one of them, where there is this strong belief that all of these categories are socially constructed and could be done away with - and indeed that we should push people in that direction for their own good.

(Notably it wasn't regular people on the street in these places that believed this stuff - it was the university types in sociology, anthropology, women's studies, etc.)

Transwomen would complain that's unfair, because they would be competing with men who aren't blocking their endogenous T. We can't win against this madness. 😡

Given the Dutch OC's attitude towards having a convicted child rapist in their volleyball team, I'm not surprised at this.

Well, I support separating the sports based on my belief that it’s right women get to participate and excel in competitive sport. So, I guess they aren’t wrong.

The sentence is meaningless since almost every way we organise society is going to be down to belief and ideology. Are they seriously saying the current drive towards downplaying the benefits of separate categories for the sexes in sport is anything other than ideologically driven?

highame · Today 09:05
“I get so fed up of this tosh that sometimes I think we'd be better off just saying 'ok yes, lets not distinguish between men and women. Let’s have a lovely free for all'. Then we could sit back and watch all the men win at everything and have the crackpots try to explain what happened.
Any ideas on what their explanations might be?
Top of my list would be 'ah well, it'll all adjust in a year or two' or 'equality is more important than fairness'.”

“Do they even hear themselves?
Transwomen would complain that's unfair, because they would be competing with men who aren't blocking their endogenous T. We can't win against this madness. 😡”

God they so would. Within a couple of years they’d be insisting that ‘cis’ men should be forced to take hormones to make it fair - anything else would be transphobic.

Anyway - I think that there are some countries in Europe, and I wouldn't be shocked if the Netherlands was one of them, where there is this strong belief that all of these categories are socially constructed and could be done away with - and indeed that we should push people in that direction for their own good.

I genuinely did believe this. I'm not sporty, I have no brothers and I went to an all girls' school. I literally had no concept of how much more powerful the male body is.

My male friends were geeks not jocks, and when we did stuff together it would no more have occured to them to carry some of my load than it would have occured to me that they should. I was sort-of aware men are usually taller, but I'm pretty short so the height and performance gap between the taller-than-me sporty women and the taller-than-me sporty men didn't really register.

Even when I took up some physical hobbies as an adult, I assumed my relative lack of performance was just a combination of height, low fitness and lack of training/confidence.

I honestly thought the reason men were typically seen as stronger, faster etc was a combination of people seeing what they expected to see and ignoring examples that didn't fit the mould, and society encouraging boys to be physical, compete and not give up but not girls, meaning boys fulfilled their physical potential and girls didn't.

It wasn't until I saw the boys vs women stats that I really understood just how marked the innate sex difference is.

Helen Joyce is good on this (and many other issues of course). As she puts it, if there were no categories in sport, absolutely everything would be dominated by able-bodied men between the ages of 18 to about 35. No women, no kids, no under age categories, no para-athletes.

I don't want to see that become a reality and not just a dystopian thought experiment.

absolutely everything would be dominated by able-bodied men between the ages of 18 to about 35.

Only if you were being non-inclusive and limiting it to humans, mind. It would be more entertaining if that restriction was lifted.

Yeah, Buffy isn't the fairest target. (Though to be fair most episodes don't actually go into the source of her powers, so it might not be clear to a more casual viewer.) But she is representative of a wider class of female action heroes, most of whom don't have the same sort of excuse.

“I have no brothers“

Interesting. I wonder how many of the women who roll out the twaw slogan don’t have brothers.

Not just action heroes.

Have a look at the 90s movie Girl Fight, or even G.I. Jane.

In the former the female protagonist ends up matched against her more experienced boxer boyfriend, telling him that if he really respected her, he would accept the bout. Then she wins.

It's a great little film right up to the end, but this idea was really very common in the 90s. People would claim that the reason women didn't pass firefighter tests was sexism. Men who thought otherwise learned to shut up because they were accused of sexism.