try being a Canadian soccer fan. Our women just won the gold medal. The men are… uhhh… not going to win a gold medal.
See, this is another aspect of the men/women sports thing I find fascinating; why is that? Why is Canada really, really, really good at women’s soccer, but just grotesque at men’s soccer? Isn’t that weird? Like, we’re amazingly good at both men’s and women’s hockey, and okay but not great at men’s baseball and women’s softball - like, not the best, but medal contenders. But in soccer, specifically, there’s just a huge gulf in their relative rankings. I don’t know why that is.
Personally, I think that unless the topic is something like Which do you like better, men’s or women’s sports?, adding “I don’t like women’s sports” is a little bit sexist.
A bit of tangent, but well, one of the differences is that for the men, the Olympics are a U-23 tournament. Canada is getting much better on the men’s side! They made the semi-finals of the CONCACAF Gold Cup and that was without their 3 best players (who play in Europe). I think they’ll make the 2022 World Cup.
As for differences in soccer… well, one of the reasons I’d wager is that the rest of the world didn’t give a crap about women’s soccer until fairly recently. And, at least in the US, soccer is considered an equal of basketball or any other sports for young women to dedicate their training for. Not so much on the men’s side.
So the poster above me can list several “hot button” topics that have been discussed a hundred times over the last few years. But if I agree with him, and add a topic that has only been discussed over the last two months, I’m over the line? I was replying directly to his post, which you seem to think is fine.
Maybe you can give me a list of subjects that I am allowed to bring up about moderating and how many times I’m allowed to bring them up.
I would guess that most of the people in this thread, me included, have posted more about sexism than I have about pitting posters. I don’t remember any mod notes about “hot topic” for anyone from that,
I think the point is that the definition he gave (“the ability to excel in a given sport or athletic endeavor”) was specific to the context of professional sports. He might have a different definition for a charity marathon or similar event where the two people you described might be compared directly.
60-some-odd posts in, and finally we get to talk about what’s really important: sexism against men!
On a more serious note, I’m voting the first option, under the following logic. The comment made by dale that started this whole thing should have, by itself, been modable. I understand it wasn’t. Therefore, the rule should change to make this modable.
I agree both with @MrDibble’s caveat that there’s no reason this rule change should be specific to the Game Room, but also with the concern that we should be just a little more specific about what the contours of the rule should be beyond “no sexism!” I think forbidding the showing of contempt for any group of people based on sex or gender identity with respect to any of their activities of life (including, in this example, sports) would rule out comments like Dale’s while allowing respectful discussion of why the NBA’s ratings are so much higher than the WNBA’s. But other formulations of the rule may be superior.
No, that’s not how that definition works. There’s no context-dependent variant of athleticism. If someone displays athleticism, it’s a physical property of them, not whatever sport they happen to be engaging in.
And my point is that he should reasonably expect people reading his posts to see a definition he apparently uses himself in other contexts. There’s nothing about the word in general use that indicates ‘This word means something different if you’re specifically discussing professional sports’.
“Everyone” isn’t doing so. Most people seem to be able to discuss sports without getting into this tangle.
I think we’re mostly in broad agreement that sexist talk (i.e., “she should get into the kitchen and make me a sandwich”) is off-limits and reality-based or opinion-based talk ("the WNBA is less popular so it’s right that their players should be paid less than the NBA’s) isn’t.
Unless someone disagrees, it sounds mostly like we are talking past each other.
And this is why it is not simple and obvious what counts as sexism. When someone writes a comment, they have some idea in their head that they are trying to convey. But most comments can be interpreted in several different ways, from the absurd:
To the reasonable but not intended:
Anticipating all the different interpretations that a variety of people might come up with, and trying to avoid them takes effort and time. Maybe it’s necessary in GB to avoid misunderstandings, but I would hope that in forums like the Games Room, people would be able to relax and have a conversation without second guessing everything they say, or feeling like they have to avoid certain topics entirely.
It opens up a massive can of worms about equal pay for equal work, that’s for sure. No sensible person thinks women should be paid less in a regular office/retail/hospitality etc job when they’re doing the same work as everyone else - but how does that translate to something like professional sports? Both men’s and women’s teams are incredibly talented and athletic, performing at top levels and even on the world stage - but when the men’s league brings in ultramegabucks and the women’s league is “only” bringing in superbucks by comparison (through no fault of the athletes themselves), should they be getting the same financial reward as the ultramegabucks earning teams? Isn’t that devaluing the ‘work’ of the ultramegabucks teams, who might ask “Why do we get paid the same as the teams that make way, way less for the industry?”
Even I’m thoroughly ambivalent about the whole thing, because I think both points of view on that issue have valid points.
I didn’t say sexism only goes one way. I said this:
… Explicitly ban sexism from ALL threads, ALL forums, ALL the time, from ALL posters.…
In fact, I led with that. I take offense at your selective cropping and it’s inference.
Sexism is sexism. Misandry is sexism. Misogyny is sexism. The sexism we are addressing in this instance is misogyny, “women’s sports are unwatchable”. [paraphrased].
Unless we look at soccer where the women’s team are stars, international celebrities. And nobody can name one male US soccer player. Yet the men get paid better.
I don’t follow sports so couldn’t name a US female soccer player, but will take your word for it that they’re international celebrities. If they’re the franchise leaders I don’t think it’s unreasonable they should get more than the people from the ‘unknowns’ - but I simply don’t know enough (anything) about the situation to have any insights as to why the imbalance exists in the first place or what factors have been used in deciding who gets paid what.
None of this is true. Go to any country except the USA and no one can name a single USA womans player while players like Gio Reyna (Dortmund) and Christian Pulisic (Chelsea) and Weston McKennie (Juventus) are playing at the top clubs in the world.
The average attendance of the MSL was in 2019 12297 for 27 teams while it was 7337 for 10 teams in the NWSL.