Current Events > Separating sports by sex doesn't make sense.

(+) Yeah! (+)

School sports are typically sex-segregated, and in America some of them have even come to be seen as either traditionally for boys or traditionally for girls: Think football, wrestling, field hockey, volleyball. However, its becoming more common for these lines to blur, especially as Gen Zers are more likely than members of previous generations to reject a strict gender binary altogether. Maintaining this binary in youth sports reinforces the idea that boys are inherently bigger, faster, and stronger than girls in a competitive settinga notion thats been challenged by scientists for years.

Decades of research have shown that sex is far more complex than we may think. And though sex differences in sports show advantages for men, researchers today still dont know how much of this to attribute to biological difference versus the lack of support provided to women athletes to reach their highest potential. Science is increasingly showing how sex is dynamic; it has multiple aspects and also shifts; for example, social experiences can actually change levels of sex-related hormones like testosterone in our bodies in a second-to-second and month-to-month way! Sari van Anders, the research chair in social neuroendocrinology at Queens University, in Ontario, told me by email.

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/09/sports-gender-sex-segregation-coed/671460/

What say you, CE? Should sports be segregated by sex? Or is there a better way?

What is generation zer?

AloneIBreak posted...

And though sex differences in sports show advantages for men, researchers today still dont know how much of this to attribute to biological difference versus the lack of support provided to women athletes to reach their highest potential.

If I die before society reforms and allows girls to grow into amazonian super women then my existence will have been completely worthless (as opposed to only mostly worthless)

Men are physically stronger than women. A woman will never compete with men in pro sports ever. It will never happen. If you stop separating it by sex all it will do is make sure women never get to play again

AloneIBreak posted...

boys are inherently bigger, faster, and stronger than girls in a competitive settinga notion thats been challenged by scientists for years.

Which ones?

I agree that women are much better than people generally give them credit for. The elite girls can beat the average guys, but if you match percentiles, they're gonna get clobbered.

There are valid points to be made about when and where girls can and should be able to compete on boys teams (or vice versa for smaller boys), but that just seems to be mostly advocating for fantasy, feel-good nonsense.

We definitely need to open our minds (and hierarchies and sports organizations) up to the fact that sex is a lot more complex than a simple binary easily defined by genitalia.

However, I don't expect many elite women will ever be able to compete with elite men. Though I do find it quite credible women are likely not reaching their full athletic potential due to the fact that they generally have worse access to training and equipment at all stages of their careers.

football, wrestling, field hockey, volleyball.

Of those, the only one I haven't seen boys and girls in is field hockey.

I don't see it going well for the woman that would have to guard a player like Lebron/Kawhi/Giannis/Jokic/Embiid/etc. in basketball or that has to take a hit from some 250 lb linebacker in American football. Maybe in something like baseball it could work, but even then I'm skeptical of it until proven otherwise (specifically at a professional level).

Volleyball might benefit from being coed and would be less dangerous than any contact sports.

Bigpapaplut posted...

Men are physically stronger than women. A woman will never compete with men in pro sports ever. It will never happen. If you stop separating it by sex all it will do is make sure women never get to play again

Archery. Hell, shooting.

School sports teams are separated by sex, but if you're in a regular gym class, it's co-ed. I enjoyed those gym classes :D

They should have a basketball league for guys under 5 foot tall. They have as much of a right to compete as anyone else

The only sport that realistically you can convince me men and women can be on equal footing is something like chess or poker, mental stuff

Anything involving strength and speed, the advantage will always go to one gender

People who say otherwise have to know deep down they're either arguing in bad faith or have never watched much sport

Sure, throw all the kids together and see how that turns out
lmao

Many school sports teams actually aren't separated by gender. HS football, hockey and wrestling in particular have quite a few girls on teams.

Once puberty is reached in any sports where strength, speed, and power are beneficial its a wrap.

The most elite WNBA dream team would lose to a pretty good boys high school basketball team.

One of the things brought up in the article was segregation based on ability instead of gender. The article doesn't do great on it, but the implication is that there wouldn't be just one group, but multiple in different factors, instead of the gender binary.

Still, it seems the only place such a thing will really work is at the young levels. The group they cite at the end of the article is a group of 8-10 year olds and swimming.

Also I get the feeling that title wasn't what the article's author initially wrote and they clickbait'd it up for her.

Swimming makes some sense. I know women are better at synchronized swimming than men.

I'm okay with not segregating through middle school but clearly there is a physical difference in HS and beyond. Just basic physiology.

i always wondered about chess, can women compete with men in chess?

I'm on my way home from red deer right now
Yesterday I was at my nephews football game and there were 2 girls on his team
And one of them wasn't awful

Well combat sports separate men into weight classes to keep things fair.

Imo I think tennis should separate men into height classes also because those 6'3" and above players abuse the shit out of their serves. The net is only so high, their ground strokes would also be more comfortable with higher bouncing balls.

accord posted...

i always wondered about chess, can women compete with men in chess?

Dunno about chess but I think youtube spammed a video sometime ago with a woman beating a man winning the tournament in darts.

https://youtu.be/qsvba2au6B8

I don't think it has to be completely separated across the board. Professional sports like Basketball and American Football should definitely be separated, but I think other sports wouldn't be as bad.

Lol topic

Id like to see a competitive eating woman go up against Matt stonie

NoxObscuras posted...

I don't think it has to be completely separated across the board. Professional sports like Basketball and American Football should definitely be separated, but I think other sports wouldn't be as bad.

Even swimming has a different bar for men and women. People need to get over themselves and accept reality. It doesn't make women's sports bad because they aren't. The problem is the people who can't help but to compare them to men on both the liberal and conservative side in order to diminish their Sports

NoxObscuras posted...

I don't think it has to be completely separated across the board. Professional sports like Basketball and American Football should definitely be separated, but I think other sports wouldn't be as bad.

A few weeks ago, the Arsenal women's club got completely rekt by the their under 15 boys team.

I cannot be more certain that people who advocate for this hate women deep down.

ElatedVenusaur posted...

Though I do find it quite credible women are likely not reaching their full athletic potential due to the fact that they generally have worse access to training and equipment at all stages of their careers.

Yeah wasnt there some stir up a couple of years ago? I forget what it was, but someone compared womens facilities with mens in some elite sport and it was just a complete joke.

Squall28 posted...

Which ones?

I always hate when an article says scientists say because you never know if its a majority of scientists or just two scientists out of like a thousand.

Evening_Dragon posted...

Swimming makes some sense. I know women are better at synchronized swimming than men.

One of those is basically dancing. The other is s grueling sport where those with great strength and stamina prevail.

Didn't the top female tennis player lose repeatedly to a male tennis played that didnt even hit top 50?

if "lose repeatedly" = played 1 exhibition and lost, then sure

whoever wrote this article is just high-key anti-woman. for some reason, women having their own sports category offends him.

refmon posted...

Didn't the top female tennis player lose repeatedly to a male tennis played that didnt even hit top 50?

Assuming you are talking about Karsten Braasch vs. the Williams sisters. He wasn't even in the top 200, just finished golfing, and had some alcohol in his system.

boys will be horny

AloneIBreak posted...

What say you, CE? Should sports be segregated by sex? Or is there a better way?

Pro/rel

Let the talent segregate itself.

YellowSUV posted...

Assuming you are talking about Karsten Braasch vs. the Williams sisters. He wasn't even in the top 200, just finished golfing, and had some alcohol in his system.

His lifetime high was 57 I think. He used to be a pretty good tennis player, he'd just started getting past his prime

This guy recently disguised himself as a girl and played in a dominated in an all girls basketball tournament.

https://youtu.be/MCpvFWAfTsU

ViewtifulGrave posted...

This guy recently disguised himself as a girl and played in a dominated in an all girls basketball tournament.

https://youtu.be/MCpvFWAfTsU

Ngl, it was funny seeing everyone not even batting an eye while he was completely dominating them.

accord posted...

i always wondered about chess, can women compete with men in chess?

They probably could while talking on a phone. They stereotypically are better multi taskers

perhaps they should have qualifying periods, which they then separate players into leagues based on performance

Not as much as it is now. I feel that if someone wanting to play is better than someone who is playing, they should be allowed to play.

However, that typically isn't going to be the case, as anatomy is.

ShineboxPhil posted...

A few weeks ago, the Arsenal women's club got completely rekt by the their under 15 boys team.

I'd read that most of the better players on the women's team weren't playing in that game. I'm sure some women lost to some boys, but your statement is pretty disingenuous.

I agree with you. I understand separating it by age and levels of talent, but gender? That's dumb. My relatives have been playing on mixed soccer teams for years, just as an example.

ViewtifulGrave posted...

This guy recently disguised himself as a girl and played in a dominated in an all girls basketball tournament.

I'm not surprised you'd share this vid with all the transphobic implications AND transphobic comments. :l