This year, women’s weight lifting was added as a medal sport to the Olympics.
This got me to thinking. Weight lifting divides its participants into “weight categories” like boxing and wrestling do: you’ve got your lightweights, your middleweights, your heavyweights, et cetera… An athlete only has to compete against opponents in his or her own weight category.
So, then, why not allow men and women in the same weight category to compete against <I>each other</I>? Is there really that much of a difference in strength between a 140-pound male weightlifter and a 140-pound female weightlifter?
And for that matter, why bother having men’s-only sports at all? There is no such thing, thus far, as Olympic Women’s Baseball, for example. (There is Olympic Women’s Softball, but Softball and Baseball ain’t the same thing.) Why not allow women, who are good enough, to be on the “men’s” Olympic Baseball team? I’m sure there’s some top-notch talent on the Colorado Silver Bullets that could give some of the minor-leaguers on the U.S. Olympic Baseball team a run for their money. And boxing! Why not allow women to box against men, if they’re good enough?
Are there any good reasons to keep women out of “men’s” Olympic sports?
Yes. Genetically, men have considerably stronger upper bodies than women. There are, of course, women who are stronger than really strong men, but given a similar training regimen, and similar talent, the man will almost ALWAYS win.
Sorry if this is somewhat of a hijack, but are there any sports where women can compete evenly with men? How about the shooting and archery events? Equestrian? (I know it requires strength. Does men’s greater strength allow them to control better horses?) Table tennis? Certain martial arts? Diving? (Yes, men are stronger, but perhaps women have some other advantage.) Do any women compete in pro fishing?
Taking it down to games, why are men’s and women’s categories needed in chess? I have to assume tournaments in games as bridge, monopoly, and scrabble aren’t segregated by gender. How bout darts?
Then again, people only watch curling to laugh at it.
An acquaintance of mine once described going up against a female chess player known as “The Dragon Lady.” Officially, she was called that because she relied on a well-documented set of opening moves called the Dragon Opening. Unofficially, she was called that because she wore these incredibly revealing dresses, and whenever she went up against a male player she would lean waaaaaaaay forward whenever she made a move to best display her cleavage.
She won most of her chess games against men by distracting them. The only male player that beat her in that tournament did so by shielding his eyes so that he couldn’t see anything but the chessboard.
There was a thread about this in GQ. The only Olympic sports where men and women compete in the same categories are in equestrian and some classes of sailing.
If you had men and women competing together in the same events, it would be a great disservice to women athletes as they would be eclipsed by the men in nearly every event.
Unless we hang around enough to see some big changes in human development, men and women will always have some differences in athletic competitions. I think it is better that we appreciate each gender for its own accomplishments.
Chess has women-only competitions because of the historical and current prevalence of boys in early training. Having a separate women’s competitions help draw women to the game by providing them opportunity to compete in a field equally “handicapped” by history and culture.
IIRC, the highest levels of chess are open to men and women and dominated (again, probably for cultural reasons of differentials in early training and accessibility) by men.
(Im guessing on all of this… It’s late, I’m tired, and too lazy to look up cites. So sue me.)
Dinsdale:I have to assume tournaments in games as bridge, monopoly, and scrabble aren’t segregated by gender.
You’re wrong about bridge, at least: or at least, the open categories are technically open to both sexes but in practice are overwhelmingly dominated by men, and there are separate women’s categories. The reasons for this are probably much the same as what Joe Malik described in the case of chess.
In many physical areas there is just too much differential between men and women. Consider the 200m event. The men’s world record time is about 2 seconds faster than the women’s. The Greek sprinter who won the gold in the men’s 200m didn’t set a world record but he was faster than the women’s world record, as were most of the runners after him. A coed competition in the 200m would be inherently unfair to the women compettitors.
Now in events that do not rely on physical prowess there should not be any segregation.
maybe that’s because only women are crazy enough to try and swim the English Channel? I dont think that distance swimming is a good indicator as how many distance swimmers are there anyway? I don’t think many people have even tried to cross the Channel so you can’t really compair men in women in that just cause one person had the best time. Also I don’t think they even have a 1500 meter even for women swimmers do they? I don’t remember seeing it. Hell I can’t even remember if we had a womens 500 in High School swimming. I think we did but I’m not sure.
I think I said this in the olympic thread that women just aren’t as strong as men in general. However, women probably do just as well in chess and other mental games but I can see why they have the different classes because men start out earlier.
Well, in the words of Homer Simpson -
“If the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn’t, it’s that girls should stick to girls’ sports, such as hot oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such and such.”
Okay, I can see why we need separate “women only” divisions in sports that demand physical prowess. But then, why have the other division be “men only”? Why not make one division “women only” and the other division “both men and women”?
This is especially telling in sports that are currently only open to men in the Olympics, such as baseball, gymnastics rings, and the even parallel bars. Heck, even the “floor routines” in men’s and women’s gymnastics are judged differently (men’s floor routines focus on displaying upper-body strength, while women’s floor routines focus on displaying agility).
Then again, I don’t think too many people would tune in to watch men’s synchronized swimming…
Look in the Guiness book of world’s records and you can pretty much see the answer to this.
The fastest man is faster than the fastest woman. The strongest man is stronger than the strongest woman. The male javelin thrower throws farther than the farthest female javelin thrower. It goes on and on and on like this. It’s not sexist, it’s a fact.
This isn’t to say women are inferior. Many many many (many many many…) women could completely destroy me in any physical activity out there. But line up the top male and female atheletes in the world and the men will come out on top almost every time. That’s why there are seperate events for each gender.
Now, why shouldn’t we have a womens only division and an open division? Because that would be biasing against the man and demeaning the women, IMO.
Why don’t non-atheletic events become co-ed? I dunno. In high school, chess and debate were co-ed and I had no problems with it. Maybe it’s just the insecurity of others.
You mean why can’t we have women’s baseball? No reason.
Why can’t we have men’s sychro swimming? Again, no reason.
But consider that,
It has to be desired by the participants
It has to have enough participants to be viable
It can’t steal talent from other events.
For example, can you have someone be on a softball team and a baseball team simultaneously? Are there enough women atheletes to support both of them if they can’t? And, if there aren’t, which event goes?
Finally, with these questions answered, will the results actually point to softball being the best option in the first place?
Now I agree that sports like swimming and running and polevaulting should be separated by gender. But what about shooting and archery? Is there any phsical reason men and women cannot compete against each other?
IIRC, women are better with handguns than men; perhaps the boys are scared?
Up until 1980, men and women competed against one another in shooting sports at the Olympics. IIRC, in 1972, two Americans tied for first place in one of the shooting sports, but the gold was awarded to one of them, simply because he was a man.
