Are women-only bridge tournaments discriminatory?

[septimus]

I got some clarification on this matter. The ACBL abandoned Men’s Pairs events in response to a lawsuit. 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:

@septimus

Not the kind of thing OP intended, but what popped into my mind is The Vanderbilt Trophy, 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 reminds me of John Hadreas: I think I even saw him pull an old schedule of trains from his pocket once!