# Are women-only bridge tournaments discriminatory? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 29, 2016, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866 "2016-12-29T21:39:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/21 "2017-01-01T18:06:40Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I believe his/her point was not that men’s pairs meant they both had to be men. But rather that for “men’s pairs” the genders were unspecified and as a result of the scarcity of high-end women’s players every team ended up with two men. > > IOW “men’s pairs” don’t exist as an actual defined competitive class; it’s simply the universal outcome of any pairing where the rules don’t limit the gender makeup. > > I know squat about competitive bridge, so I have no idea if **Xema** ’s contention is valid. But I’m pretty sure I understand what it was. Yes, that’s _exactly_ what I understood his/her point to be. (My Mixed Pairs counterexample was simply the only thing that turned up for my Googling.) IOW, she suggests that in the regulations of the ACBL, “Women’s Pairs” events are defined to exclude males, but “Men’s Pairs” events (which IIRC are held at the same time as Women’s Pairs) do NOT have a females-excluded definition. Regardless of which side of the PC-divide one is on, _ **I would find this asymmetry very bizarre.** _ Even if you impute the worst misogyny to bridge players/organizers, such an asymmetric regulation would have a “Nanner nanner in your face” character. My Google-fu is weak, so I’ve submitted a query to a bridge player’s message board. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/22 "2017-01-01T18:37:01Z")
Ahhh, sorry to have misunderstood you. I agree wholeheartedly that, if analyzed from first principles 2017-style, such men-are-the-default rules would be as you say: unacceptably misogynist and in-her-face. OTOH, I \*could \*see such rules appearing by gradual accretion. e.g. In (WAG) 1936 when ACBL was formed \*of course \*all competition at this high level is men’s competition. Any other thought would never have occurred to those guys. Then in 1960 they added a women’s division and in 1975 the mixed pairs division. Never going back to update the rules for the original division. It’s just one of those things everyone knows. I will be curious to see what you/we learn about the reality of the current rules. And ref the above, when they were last updated whether in just wording or in intent. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/23 "2017-01-02T05:13:52Z")
An expert American bridge player (and programmer of the BBO on-line bridge site) responded: > [@](#): > > Men’s Pairs have not existed for years. All the Men’s events have become open events. > > \> In a thread titled “Are women-only bridge tournaments discriminatory?” > \> > \> Me: “They had Women’s Pairs, Mixed Pairs, and Men’s Pairs.” > \> Response: “Isn’t this actually: no men allowed, one man allowed, two men > allowed?” > > No. They were no men allowed, man+woman, no women allowed. > > We still have Women’s and Mixed, but Men’s went away because of threats of lawsuits. > > IANAL, but I suspect a man could have a legitimate case against Women’s Pairs. But men have never been an oppressed class, and have never wanted to get into the bridge events that they’re excluded from. So it was Men’s Pairs, not Women’s Pairs, that led to lawsuit threats! > [@LSLGuy](#): > > … e.g. In (WAG) 1936 when ACBL was formed \*of course \*all competition at this high level is men’s competition. Any other thought would never have occurred to those guys… Yours was just hypothetical, but seems almost backwards. **Josephine Culbertson** (née Murphy), co-founded modern Contract Bridge with her husband Ely, won several major chanpionships with him and was IIRC regarded as definitely the better player of the two. **Helen Sobel Smith** (Charles Goren’s partner) played in the 1930’s and 40’s and “may well have been the most brilliant card player of all time.” **Rixi Markus** had a very long career, winning several world titles, and was even made MBE by Q.E. II, but, although Captain of Britain’s team, she was (inexplicably?) removed from that team before the European championships. Yet, despite that they were at least as good as the men, Sobel-Smith and Markus did mostly play in women’s events. Since then, while a few women play at the very highest levels, few have won an open world championship. An exception is Rose Meltzer who (partnered with Kyle Larson) won two world championships in the 2000’s. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/24 "2017-01-02T10:56:20Z")
> [@Busy\_Scissors](#): > > It’s down to what MichaelEMouse says above - young women are less likely than young men in putting the 10,000 hours in to master a sport / game, so the talent pools are much smaller. Why they’re less likely to do this has been discussed here in past threads quite a bit IIRC. Links to those threads? What are the reasons? ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/25 "2017-01-02T15:11:33Z")
Bottom line: YES, women-only events ARE discriminatory, and IF there were any men who felt that being excluded was injurious to them, they’d sue to be included and would win. BUT… as a practical matter, men rarely feel they’re being injured by being excluded from ANY all-female club, social group, or athletic association. When women are excluded from a group, they often think, “AHA! THAT group is where the Old Boy Network congregates! If I’m shut out of that group, I am missing out on something important and valuable!” Hence, women will fight tooth and nail to get into all-male settings. But men almost never think they’re missing out on anything interesting (let alone valuable) when an all-female group gathers. Now, IF there were a lot of money at stake in all-female bridge tournaments, it would be different. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/26 "2017-01-02T15:44:53Z")
@ **MichealEMouse** : The threads are a bitch to search for since they don’t have any magic keywords. Generally the reasons line up like this in rough order of preponderance: 1. Men’s _potential_ ability and women’s _potential_ ability in anything is bell-curve shaped. In most cases the women’s curve is peakier while the men’s curve has longer fatter tails on both sides. In cases where the high point = center of the two curves exactly coincides, that still means the sub-population at 2, 3, and 4 standard deviations from the mean is largely to overwhelmingly male. That’s where your champions (and your homeless) come from. If the curves’ centers are offset in favor of the men (e.g. most things based on physical size) the effect is magnified even farther in favor of the extreme men. Note this says almost nothing about how ordinary schlubs like you and me perform. For most attributes the area within one standard deviation of the mean overlaps greatly between men and women. Individual variation overcomes the different male/female bell curves for most people. This is a fact the gender-warriors on both sides are at pains to ignore. 2) Achieving top level performance comes from maximizing your potential from 1) above. Which requires great single-minded dedication. Just as autistic males outnumber autistic females something like 4 or 5 to one, the less severe but structurally similar single-mindedness is overwhelmingly a male trait. 3) Males also seem more hard-wired towards competition in general and a linear hierarchical approach to organizing relationships. Women are more group-oriented. As such we tend to see representation in individual performance competitions skews strongly male and representation in team sports skews less strongly male. 4) Social conditioning runs on top of all these innate biological traits. Both at the base level that boys are encouraged to be competitive while girls are less so. And at the second order effect level where the rewards to becoming, say, a PGA-level pro far exceed the rewards to becoming an LPGA-pro. Ditto NBA vs. WNBA. A woman climbing to the top of the LPGA is about has hard as is a man climbing to the top of the PGA. For 1/4th the reward. Rationally, fewer women choose to work that hard. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/27 "2017-01-02T18:37:23Z")
I think that if we are really going to parse so deeply as to say that women and men should compete separately because of cognitive differences, that that’s really overanalyzing too deeply. We might as well begin “Asian-only” or “Hispanic-only” bridge tournaments and cite studies that people of different cultures or races think differently. In physical sports, sure, the differences between men and women are great enough that it makes sense that women would be at a significant disadvantage. But in mental/cerebral competitions, this is really going too far. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/28 "2017-01-02T18:39:02Z")
Finally, should men and women compete separately in international piano competitions such as the van Cliburn, for instance? One poster above mentioned that men are more likely to pursue a goal with single-minded obsessive focus than women - does this give men an unfair advantage in their drive to be a concert pianist? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2017, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/29 "2017-01-08T12:20:14Z")
I got some clarification on this matter. [The ACBL abandoned Men’s Pairs events in response to a lawsuit](http://articles.latimes.com/1985-02-26/local/me-25028_1_suit-claims). The plaintiffs weren’t objecting to sexism in the abstract, but for practical reasons: they were husband-wife professional-bridge pairs who could not maximize their income or qualification chances if forced to sit out during the Men’s/Women’s events. > [@](#): > > No woman, the suit noted on behalf of Jillian Blanchard, has ever represented [as of 1985 – it is no longer true] the United States in the open pair events of the world bridge championships, partly because of the difficulty in winning enough available events to qualify. The current system, the suit claims, discriminates against male-female teams by limiting them to fewer events than their same-sex competitors. > > In addition to $1 million for the five players’ “humiliation, mental anguish, insult to dignity and emotional distress,” the action seeks court orders prohibiting the league from conducting tournament events segregated by sex or from selecting United States teams for world championships based on segregated tournaments. I didn’t Google for disposition of the case, but plaintiffs were apparently happy to get rid of the Men’s events, leaving Women’s and Mixed intact. Checking the schedule for the ACBL’s upcoming Spring Nationals, I see that Women’s Life Master Pairs Championship is played at the same time as an Open Pairs Championship, and Women’s Swiss Team Championship is concurrent with an Open Swiss Teams Championship. There is a Mixed Pairs event at the Spring Nationals but its qualifying sessions are held the same day as Round Two of the Vanderbilt Knockout Teams event, one of the most prestigious championships on North America. BTW, I mentioned the Vanderbilt in a previous SDMB post: > [@Strangest things people have stolen](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/105): > > Not the kind of thing OP intended, but what popped into my mind is [The Vanderbilt Trophy](http://acblstory.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/vanderbilt-3_jan5.jpg), awarded to the team which wins a prestigious contract bridge championship. > > > [@](#): > > > > On June 4, 1964 the Vanderbilt was stolen from a display at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It was recovered the following month when the thief tried to sell the 11 lb. trophy to the Newman Silver Shop in Reno NV. The man, John Hadreas, an Ambassador employee, was arrested and charged with possession of stolen property. His bail was set at $2,500.00. > > > > After that incident, the trophy continued to travel to the Spring NABCs, but was kept tucked away until presentation to the winning team. > > I don’t recall ever having a conversation with that thief, but he and I misspent part of our misspent youths together. [This song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3HTvlDFbm4) reminds me of John Hadreas: I think I even saw him pull an old schedule of trains from his pocket once! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2017, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/30 "2017-01-08T13:44:51Z")
My mother used to have girls Bridge night on Wednesday, once a month. My father was banned to the basement and me to my bedroom. Woe unto the man that crossed any of those women on their one night playing cards and sipping Martinis. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2017, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/31 "2017-01-08T13:49:07Z")
A good question to ask is, “is the ‘discrimination’ in question cutting anyone out of the real action, so to speak?” The color line that used to exist in major-league sports cut black ballplayers out of the real action. The days of separate classifieds for men’s and women’s jobs kept women out of the real action. Having a women-only bridge or chess competition doesn’t do that. Men don’t need to fight their way into the women’s competition to test themselves against the best players. If you had men-only bridge or chess tournaments, women _would_ need to fight their way into the men’s tournaments to play against the best competition. There’s your difference. And that’s why men aren’t being harmed by this ‘discrimination.’ ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2017, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/32 "2017-01-09T05:33:16Z")
In a couple months, there’s going to be a huge Women’s Bowling Tournament in my city. I don’t think that’s discriminatory either; it’s the group that’s competing, period. I wouldn’t find a Men’s Bowling Tournament discriminatory either MHO. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2017, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/33 "2017-01-09T05:56:29Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I think that if we are really going to parse so deeply as to say that women and men should compete separately because of cognitive differences, that that’s really overanalyzing too deeply. We might as well begin “Asian-only” or “Hispanic-only” bridge tournaments and cite studies that people of different cultures or races think differently. > > In physical sports, sure, the differences between men and women are great enough that it makes sense that women would be at a significant disadvantage. But in mental/cerebral competitions, this is really going too far. I don’t it’s discriminatory. It’s descriptive rather than prescriptive. What I mean is, a women’s chess tournament isn’t meant as some statement of women’s ability. It’s just a recognition that women are poorly represented among the world’s top players right now. Perhaps women’s tournaments will raise the profile of women in the game and help them earn more money, and so inspire more women to play the game. Over time, who knows what the gender ratio at the top levels may be? Also it’s just a public interest thing. When you have an African chess tournament, it’s partly due to the convenience of playing people who are geographically closer. But it’s also because people are interested in who are the best players, or which is the best country, in Africa right now. Similarly people are interested to know who the best female players are. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2017, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866/34 "2017-01-09T06:02:02Z")
It’s reverse discrimination, often used to balance out natural discrimination where such is undesirable. Having it be separate is one of the ways that we tend to accept it, unlike stuff that artificially promotes people who aren’t as good. When it’s something that could eventually be corrected, then the reverse discrimination goes away. When it can’t, like in sports, it doesn’t. The question is whether this leans more towards sports, where the outliers are more numerous in men (in both directions–athletic gods and athletic dunces). The jury is still out there, but the increasing number of women in math-related fields suggest to me that the natural discrimination is at least mostly cultural. Natural here meaning: occurs without deliberate discrimination. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-only-bridge-tournaments-discriminatory/775866.md?page=1)