Oh Fuck Off, Claire Balding

[Igneococcus]

Because the way to advance women's sport is to have mixed teams, it seems:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/ec86fbbb-d2df-447e-b597-269bc8970097?shareToken=f639188b858cc1b676e48c918f8bc94a

But even if we agree that mixed sex sports is great, the same problem will still exist if the ‘mixed sex’ is actually just the one sex.

Much harder to get away with sneaking an extra man on when there's men's results on the line too.

What was the sport whose recent rules barred men from taking a women's place in a mixed team, but permitted it in a women's team? Rowing?

10 years ago, we knew that in order to encourage women and girls to participate and excel in sport, we needed to give them female only spaces, female role models, female focussed coaching so they look around and feel like they belonged there and were not measured against men, either by men, by the coaches or by themselves.

There are many situations where mixed sports, mixed activities and mixed trainings are great.. but to encourage more women and girls to take part in sport, to stay in sport and to believe in themselves, women only spaces help.

I live in Switzerland. Junior football has always been a mixed sport. 10 years ago, when asked if girls could play, the answer from all clubs near me, was yes.. girls are very welcome, and if they wish, they can play in the age group below... we do not have enough girls for their own teams / leagues.

The result was a very small number of incredibly motivated girls who endured being ignored at training by their team mates and subjected to physical abuse on the pitch by players and verbal abuse from opposition parents, they were often scattered between teams because no one wanted more than one girl on their team.

It took some very determined parents and coaches to push hard for all girls teams, often falling out with club management, moving between clubs, gathering momemtum, carving out time on pitches, registration in leagues, often getting beaten every week, and now girls / women's football is growing.

Yes, US Rowing.

Congratulations CB, yet another way to damage women's sports, privacy, dignity and safety. And also my first facepalm of the day 🤦‍♀️

Excellent points. Girls and non-elite women need SS sports.

No. Mixed sex sports are not the way forward especially for our girls. They need space away from boys to build confidence and skills away from the male ‘gaze’. We have huge problems with girls dropping out of sport in secondary school and mixed sports will not help. I’ll bet Clare’s never had to coax a bunch of 14-year-old girls to get moving in a wet PE lesson!

This doesn't fly outside of the gender debate though because they'll still need to ensure they have the same number of (real) women and men on each team to make sure it's fair. If one team is men + transwomen and the other is transmen + women then it's obvious who'd win 😏

I used to think she was cleverer than this. I wonder what Alice, her wife thinks of the idea.

Some of them do, but plenty don't. I've stopped going to mixed sessions at my gym and just organise with a group of women as I've been hurt a couple of times by competitive, aggressive men firing balls at me as if they're at Wimbledon. The coaches don't seem to care about ensuring people are in the right skill level. Other times I just repeatedly lose as the men win though "brute force" as one of my friends commented, which is disheartening. Some sessions are fine but you don't know what you're going to get, which is why I don't bother anymore. It's a common complaint among the women I know.

Not keen on mixed sex teams in contact sports, even limited contact sports. But mixed relays in swimming, triathlon and track sprints are here to stay, not least because the athletes seem to love them.
Not just the athletes, I love them too @Snowypeaks and the other advantage is that it shows the significant difference in the strength and capacity of men vs women. Mixed sex teams do not support trans identified men in women's sport, they do the opposite.

I agree about horse-riding being one of a tiny minority of sports where there can be true equality. To suggest that power and strength do not play a part in football is madness imho!

It might be useful to draw experience from Ultimate (ultimate frisbee), as there's been mixed teams competing at world championship level since 1999.

Not saying it's a utopian example but as it's been around for some time there's bound to be some learnings.

I've played it at club level, my husband at international level (club and country) and I think it does offer an inclusiveness that I haven't seen elsewhere.

Mixed sits along side open and women's teams and so people can play the version they want at club level, some play both when schedules allow (UK open & women's tour is held at a different time to mixed, for example)

Of course there's been the 'men don't pass to women' issue, but I think that's partly addressed by continuing to establish the division and it's existence as a variation of the game, with its own strengths and highlights.The more it is played and seen, the more normalized it will become.

Ultimate is non-contact, and games are governed by the spirit of the game rather than a referee, which encourages self control, courtesy and fair-minded competitiveness. Both of these things help lend Ultimate to mixed sex sports.

I've no skin in the political game, I'm just here to give an example of a sport that is successfully incorporating the mixed game into it's offering, and as it is doing it alongside open and women's, together they are all making the sport stronger.

(Also it's lovely to play and I wish my knees would let me these days!)

They say that men and women are equally matched in croquet.

I like the mixed relays in the Olympics but they highlight the differences in strength and power of the sexes rather than showing how the women are just as good as the men. The women are top of their fields but they are smoked by the male athletes they are competing beside.

Mixed golf alongside sex separated golf sounds fine but I think football there is too much of a risk of a rough tackle and a woman getting severely injured. Also in mixed football, I think it would end up a game of the men just playing with each other and the women getting token passes but not really getting to play.

Men's football is absolutely about power and strength. Of course skill and football intelligence are required too.

Golf maybe but not football. Any sport that involves any kind of physical contact should be kept separate.

I like the mixed relays in the Olympics but they highlight the differences in strength and power of the sexes rather than showing how the women are just as good as the men. The women are top of their fields but they are smoked by the male athletes they are competing beside.

That's one way to look at it, but the way I see it, mixed track or swimming relays are not supposed to show that women are just as fast as the men - baldly, we're not - but for reasons. The mixed sex element just adds another layer of interest and certainly in swimming, it makes the race less predictable. And I would argue that it's good to show the strength differences because it fatally undermines the argument that there's no difference and no need for women's sport.

What they do show is that women have all the same levels of dedication, determination etc as men. I remember a British woman swimmer (name escapes me) who swam an absolutely heroic leg of a medley relay against male competitors which ensured a GB medal in the event. I also love to see men and women working together as equals with mutual respect.

With that said, of course women's SS competitions should be the norm.

Evidence Claire...evidence.. football is not down to skill alone..

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6465549/

Stand all the male and female goal keepers from the top 10 UK teams and see how equal that would look!!

Take two male bodies, put them in the international team... and see them rise to the top.. the record for the highest transfer fees in the history of female soccer are held by two players who failed to pass sex verification tests before FIFA, the IOC and the US football verification rule deemed this not to be necessary..

I always wonder, whenever people insist that we still need to do much more research about how men's and women's bodies differ and the different biological (dis)advantages in sport, whether they're agenda-driven, agitators/trolling or just really, really thick.

There seems to be a drive to make all sports the same as men's sports.
Men's football and women's football is almost a different game.
Men's tennis and women's tennis used to be a lot different with women putting together much more skilled rallies and men's being the power game, this changed with the William's sisters and we started the hear the much hated "grunt" from other players.
Volleyball has different net heights, so how would that work.
Darts and golf have different starting points.
In Snooker and pool men have greater reach, more power and bigger hands so they can bridge for more difficult shots.

I can see the point in some mixed sports, but anything with contact in it is just asking for trouble.

I wonder what changed?

Clare Balding calls for British horse racing to do more to tackle gender inequality January 11, 2018

Clare Balding has revealed she believes there is an “underlying sexual discrimination” in horse racing.
“I would like to see moves being made that actively promote professional female jockeys, and also reward yards that have women in senior roles.
''I can’t see anything controversial about that, but that’s because I believe in equality, and you’d only think that was controversial if you didn’t.”
'' I do think giving female jockeys an [weight] allowance would change everything.”
archive.fo/xC92X

That seems surprising. The courts aren't that small and male upper-body strength, for starters, would give you an advantage to start with as you'd stay longer within your controllable range for accuracy.

Riding - women and men compete on equal terms and that's great. Yes, it's a partnership/"it's the horse doing it"/etc. But if you think about how very many girls start out riding compared to boys, that much, much bigger original pool of female talent still only ends up producing competitors similar in number to men at the top levels.

I think that's more or less congruent with what she's saying now - she likes the idea of (some? More?) mixed sports but it need attention to differences between men and women as in her example of foootball boots.

I think this is really an interesting point. Because it relies on balance for these to work competitively.

Social sports like touch rugby have been around for decades and are a version of rugby that works very well mixed sex. But I cannot conceive of how you balance a football team for mixed sex competition for safety and fairness.

Mixed sports can be good, especially if it encourages more female participation. But it would never work for certain sports, especially the contact ones like Rugby. Even soccer which is non contact wouldn't work. Men would just pass to the men and they would be faster so it makes sense to do passing that way.

I've played mixed sports in school (indoor hockey, basketball etc) . It's hard to compete with boys who are taller and faster. I'm very short so I ducked underneath them in the basketball lol.

I don't think this has anything to do with the trans debate.