Why don't more sports have men and women competing equally

ahnowbrowncow

Alanhooly wrote: »

Women do compete in snooker. Ken Doherty was given a big scare in a qualifying round for the World Championships this year by a female.

Yeah some woman jumped out from behind a door and give him quite the fright.

raze_them_all_

Alanhooly wrote: »

Women do compete in snooker. Ken Doherty was given a big scare in a qualifying round for the World Championships this year by a female.

Also, there are female dart players. Anatasia Dobromyslova has played in the World Championships.

If a female is good enough, they are welcome to compete in some of those sports you've originally mentioned.

The thing here though is she gave a scare and competed, they've won **** all so never really competed tbh.
It's like the token white guy in the 100m sprint, sure he's there but he isn't really competition

Darpa

Omackeral wrote: »

Saying she'd punch any male pro fighter around is silly though.

Now now we know your struggling badly, but tell the truth there's a good boy, or we'll send Katie around to you again. Anyone her weight.

Omackeral

Darpa wrote: »

Now now we know your struggling badly, but tell the truth there's a good boy, or we'll send Katie around to you again. Anyone her weight.

You sound like you've received one to many hard shots the head there yourself, champ.

raze_them_all_

Omackeral wrote: »

You sound like you've received one to many hard shots the head there yourself, champ.

A quote comes to mind

"don't argue with an idiot, they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience"

Darpa

raze_them_all_ wrote: »

A quote comes to mind

"don't argue with an idiot, they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience"

Leave poor Omackeral alone, I think Katie has knocked him out.

Alanhooly

raze_them_all_ wrote:

The thing here though is she gave a scare and competed, they've won **** all so never really competed tbh. It's like the token white guy in the 100m sprint, sure he's there but he isn't really competition

But the question posed by the OP is 'is it time they competed together'. The answer is they can & occasionally do compete in some sports mentioned. It is then a question if they are good enough or not.

Omackeral

Darpa wrote: »

Leave poor Omackeral alone, I think Katie has knocked him out.

She did. She sent me to sleep with this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH5C_shkwtE

Darpa

Omackeral wrote: »

She did. She sent me to sleep with this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH5C_shkwtE

my you are sore

raze_them_all_

Alanhooly wrote: »

But the question posed by the OP is 'is it time they competed together'. The answer is they can & occasionally do compete in some sports mentioned. It is then a question if they are good enough or not.

the thread title says compete equally in that case

mzungu

enfant terrible wrote: »

Venus and Serena Williams, aged 17 and 16 respectively, had claimed that they could beat any male player ranked below 200, so Braasch, then ranked 203rd, challenged them both. The matches took place on court number 12 in Melbourne Park.[30] Braasch first took on Serena and beat her 6–1. He then played Venus and won 6–2.[31] Braasch said afterwards, "500 and above, no chance." He added that he had played like someone ranked 600th in order to keep the game "fun.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1298&dat=19980127&id=kqJjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mggGAAAAIBAJ&pg=3506,5011601&hl=en

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

In fairnes, he was 29 when these matches took place, the sisters were 18 and 20.Three years later, I think you;d have gottne a different result.

Braasch was a very heavy smoker to boot. But I agree that in their twenties both sisters would have made more of a match out of it.

Sever Tomorrow

mzungu wrote: »

Braasch was a very heavy smoker to boot. But I agree that in their twenties both sisters would have made more of a match out of it.

I read about this match a few weeks ago. IIRC he had a few gargles before the sets as well.

diomed

In 1967 the cyclist Beryl Burton she set a new 12-hour time trial record of 277.25 miles – a mark that surpassed the men’s record of the time by 0.73 miles and was not superseded by a man until 1969.

Burton was probably one of the best sportswomen ever, along with tennis player Steffi Graf.

jank

But but but... I thought gender was a social construct! (Said by people who ignore the science)

Jakey Rolling

Surely they could compete equally in diving? Not much strength involved, just falling through the air with a bit of gymnastic contortion thrown in. True, men might be distracted by all the well toned skimpily clad females on view (Tom Daly excepted).

Pam Reed won the Badwater Ultra outright over a top class field, 135 miles uphill in searing heat. Theres a groundswell of women taking up running at the moment, at some point we'll see more of these elite performers outperform the men over longer distances. I compete against a couple regularly - their advantage is they weigh about 50kg compared to my 80kg!

stefanovich

jank wrote: »

But but but... I thought gender was a social construct! (Said by people who ignore the science)

If you have gender reassignment do you suddenly become worse at sport?

professore

Apparently women are better at long distance endurance events like ultra marathons. Can't be bothered to find the link but there are far less of them in that sport but they are already near the top of it.

bucketybuck

professore wrote: »

Apparently women are better at long distance endurance events like ultra marathons. Can't be bothered to find the link but there are far less of them in that sport but they are already near the top of it.

Hasn't that claim been debunked about 47 times in this thread alone? According to the earlier links women compete in the ultra marathons and some do well, but currently the leaderboards and records are all dominated by men?

threeball

AnLonDubh wrote: »

Men don't have better reaction times and don't have better spatial awareness. This has become more apparent in recent studies that take neuroplasticity (ability of the brain to physically rewire itself in response to its environment) into account, which wasn't controlled for in most studies before the 2000s.

Also those saying that men "evolved" to compete for resources or die, all animals must compete for resources or die and the Y-chromosome doesn't contain any genes related to neural structure that would affect these things. Humans were in fact evolving toward total gender isomorphism, men being physically faster and stronger is a legacy of early primates that was being evolved away in hominids, like the appendix.

Men and women even generate the same force per kilogram of muscle and the muscles are physically identical. Men simply have more muscle as a legacy feature because early primate males did.

Of course this makes a large difference in sports and means male athletes are often significantly better, but all these supposed mental differences don't conform with how brain structure is carried genetically or hominid evolution.

What a load of absolute twaddle regarding muscle output. Go to the Olympic weightlifting record stats and check out the men's record for an average woman's size of 56kg. Now go and see how far up the woman's list you must go in order to match the records for the 56kg man. FWIW the highest weight of 75kg plus is only just matching part of the 3 main lifts. That's a woman with an almost 50% advantage in body mass and is just about matching the males output. These are the highest trained athletes in the world in their chosen discipline. To even claim that males and females muscle outputs are similar is ridiculous

valoren

Definitely can co-compete in Golf.

The handicap system and teeing set up allows for this. It levels the playing field.

Any golfer (man or woman) with a handicap could theoretically beat world number 1 Rory McIlroy under that system.

raze_them_all_

valoren wrote: »

Definitely can co-compete in Golf.

The handicap system and teeing set up allows for this. It levels the playing field.

Any golfer (man or woman) with a handicap could theoretically beat world number 1 Rory McIlroy under that system.

and yet the title says equally, the teeing system doesn't make it equal, teeing off at the same spot would be starting equal

Kenny B

Mens sports are better attended events and everyone knows if a woman sees a baby or small child in the crowd they will lose focus of what they are doing. They need to be kept separate and poorly supported to have any chance.

Wibbs

AnLonDubh wrote: »

Perhaps you are right, I was mainly looking at the mental differences for which there isn't strong scientific evidence and refuting that claim that men are stronger because they evolved to be, when in fact they were becoming weaker as sexual isomorphism increased. Hominids did not evolve stronger males, but were de-evolving it from previous primates.

Yes modern humans have become more gracile in both genders, but pretty much at an equal rate. Men today are on average weaker than anatomically modern humans 40,000 years ago yes, but so are women compared to women from 40,000 years ago. The sexual dimorphism has remained pretty steady. If anything humans are much more dimorphic than earlier versions of us. Take something like the pelvis. A really obvious one and one that can affect athletic prowess. The female pelvis has become much wider as humans evolved and brains got bigger. The gender differences of the homo erectus pelvis were much less marked. Look at top female runners, they're built more like men with narrower hips than average. They're also more male in being less "knock kneed". Essentially the male body type is the superior for running, so fast runners of either gender look more "male" in build, not the other way around. That's before we get to tendon strength. Men have much stronger and stiffer tendons on average. Less prone to injury. Women on average are more flexible, which has advantages, but not in many sports.

Never mind that the relative physical strengths of different hominids hasn't shown a decrease, certainly not a consistent one. If anything it has shown an increase in the middle phase. As hominids evolved they tended to get taller and larger(floresiensis notwithstanding). A more recent Neandertal would utterly destroy the much older line Homo erectus on the strength front. I'd be willing to bet even an anatomically modern human would put the hurt on an erectus. The latter were narrower of frame and on average your human today has a foot or more in height advantage. They do look like they were built to be fantastic runners though.

OneOfThem

It wasn't me! wrote: »

It used to be the case that men and women competed side by side in Olympic shooting. I'm still not sure why this hasn't continued. Part of me thinks that guys wouldn't take so kindly to being beaten by women... Realistically it's probably to retain the maximum number of events at an Olympic games though for exposure purposes, but still, the cynic in me wonders...

In 24 years out of almost a hundred possible medals they managed to win two and more commonly clustered around the bottom positions. It was segregated the reason other sports are. To give them a chance of winning. They couldn't realistically compete.

AnLonDubh

threeball wrote: »

To even claim that males and females muscle outputs are similar is ridiculous

I didnt say the output (Watts) was the same, I said the force per kilogram is the same relating to an earlier post. I dont know about power, but you are certainly right about it.

Im sticking to the accurate scientific terms because people tend to be specific in these debates. Im well aware equal mass female athletes are outperformed it can be checked in seconds.

AnLonDubh

Wibbs wrote: »

The sexual dimorphism has remained pretty steady

Do you have a reference for this?

blue note

I don't know why women still aren't as good as men in sports where power has no influence, but they're just not. I play golf and it definitely helps to be powerful and flexible, but lots of very nonathletic guys are super golfers, so it just shows that all shapes and sizes can be top class (think of Darren Clarke winning an Open). However, looking at mens and womens handicaps, there is a world of difference between men and women golfers. There are a couple of women in my club who would be a similar standard to me, possibly even better than me, however I'd be only a little better than average as a man. Clearly women are just not as good naturally at golf.

The same can be said of the likes of Darts and pool. No physical side to those games, but we've all played them in groups in a pub and women are typically terrible at them. That's not to say that there won't be the odd exceptional woman, but again clearly they're just not naturally good at those types of games either.

AnLonDubh

In case I was unclear, Im sayong that male and female muscle, as in the muscle itself, exert the same force. However I know that men outperform as they have more muscle, and even at the same muscle mass it is distributed differently and interacts slightly differently with other components of the body.

I was simply disagreeing with the contention that the difference is intrinsic to the muscle tissue or due to mental differences.

Again I am not disputing the difference, just disagreeing with its origin.

threeball

AnLonDubh wrote: »

I didnt say the output (Watts) was the same, I said the force per kilogram is the same relating to an earlier post. I dont know about power, but you are certainly right about it.

Im sticking to the accurate scientific terms because people tend to be specific in these debates. Im well aware equal mass female athletes are outperformed it can be checked in seconds.

Force per kg is the same whether its a John Deere Tractor or its a Human. 1kg will move 1kg. The ability of a muscle to move an object is not measured in Kg but in Nm (or torque) this way the length of the levers at play can be taken into account.

Wibbs

AnLonDubh wrote: »

Do you have a reference for this?

Hardly requires one when you consider the evolution of the pelvis in hominids. I can't think of another species, never mind great ape where the pelvis size is so different between genders. Any pathologist in the vast majority of cases can view an adult skeleton at twenty paces and tell you male/female just going by the pelvis. That's before we get to other obvious physical differences. On average women are shorter, carry more fat/less lean mass, less bone density and weaker but more flexible tendons than men.

And as I pointed out the contention that the course of hominid evolution has been toward more gracile forms is more than dubious. If anything it has been quite the opposite. Even anatomically modern humans(AMH) who are a bit of the outlier in the mix are much larger on average than Homo Erectus. If one was to go back in time and meet the ancestors they'd be the same size as modern pygmies. The only downsizing I can see occurred after our common ancestor split between Neandertals in Eurasia and the rise of AMH in Africa. Plus environment had as much if not much more influence on body types. Even among AMH today, those adapted to a cold climate are shorter of limb and bulkier, Neandertals just took that body shape to the extreme, with their barrel chests and immense musculature. We were taller than them though and weren't exactly weedy. In short humans have overall become taller, wider and heavier, not shorter, narrower and lighter.

Faces changed mind you. Again if we showed up to a hominid party we'd look pretty weird to them. Like tall juveniles, minus the brow ridges and the mid face "muzzle"(though we did start off with more of those features). Essentially we look like the domesticated version of the hominid family. Though again even there we find subtle differences between male and female faces. Men have heavier brows, larger jaws and larger skulls on average.

Again let's go back to our recent cousins. Neandertal men and women appeared to be more alike in general body shape than we are*. One theory why they weren't ultimately the winners was because they lived in a more "equal" world, where men and women shared the same daily tasks. Whereas we outcompeted them because we had more gender based tasks going on. This meant that by splitting the tasks between two groups more stuff got done and more food could be gathered. Contrary to popular in hunter gatherer societies its nearly always the women who gather the lions share of the daily calories. Men gather the higher value calories like meat. Though even there particularly with those who live close to the sea again the women are bringing in lots of high value protein like shellfish and the like.

It's pretty dubious to suggest that humans were/are "evolving toward total gender isomorphism" when even Mr Magoo can tell the difference between the genders at a distance. Hell, even the great apes appear to be able to. EG in the Gombi(sp?) park in Africa where Jane Goodall did her fantastic research on chimps, a few rogue chimps took to attacking humans to steal food, or even for "sport", yet they tend to avoid men, even short men like the plague and go for women and kids(even though weaker, blokes tend to be tooled up).





*though do not get me started on the so called scientific reconstructions of Neandertals, both men and women, but especially the latter. In the vast majority of cases artistic licence isn't in it. The reconstruction the BBC did with Prof Roberts in attendance is informative in one way mind you. Even though he was on a stand, they all loom over him in height and he was the King Kong of hominids.

AnLonDubh

threeball wrote: »

Force per kg is the same whether its a John Deere Tractor or its a Human. 1kg will move 1kg. The ability of a muscle to move an object is not measured in Kg

Newton per kg is used to measure muscular strength and strength exertion of other tissue. I dont know how force per kg is the same for a tractor and human, its the same unit but surely not the same value.

Also it is certainly not true that one kg moves one kg, that depends on what the material is capable of and its efficiency surely?

AnLonDubh

Wibbs wrote: »

Hardly requires one when you consider...

It's pretty dubious to suggest that humans were/are "evolving toward total gender isomorphism" when even Mr Magoo can tell the difference between

Your post is interesting, but I did not claim total isomorphism now, just that we were evolving in that direction (not that we would have reached it though, it could have stopped and probably would have since women still have to accomadate a child).

Hence, of course one can tell the difference between the genders easily, but that has no baring on whether we were evolving toward isomorphism.

Im on my phone but will give references later.

Wibbs

The problem I'd see with humans becoming more androgynous as a theory is which ancestor, or living primate model are we comparing. Sure the differences between gender in mountain gorillas is pretty marked, Orangs are very different, with males being twice the size of females. Of the species considered closest to us Chimps are less dimorphic and Bonobos are less dimorphic again. The latter have been compared to Australopithecus (Lucy) and depending on which subspecies you look at the differences between the genders appear to be similar to Bonobos.

Anyhoo then we get to the first "official" human Homo Erectus, kicking off nearly two million years ago. They were recognisably human, likely going around in bands of hunter gatherers, likely came up with fire and later on cooking. From the neck down they're very similar to us. These guys show wide variability(which has usually meant every one discovered got a new subspecies name), but their variability is about the same as what is seen in modern people. The thing is differences between their men and women is slightly greater than modern humans, but not by much. From then on humans sometimes got heftier(Neandertal) or less hefty(us), but the differences between the men and the women seems to stay pretty much constant. Neandertal men may have had huge brow ridges, but their women also had brow ridges much larger than anything seen in modern humans. IE sexual dimorphism seems to get pretty much "set" in humans from early on. In short I don't see any pattern of evolving towards isomorphism from when the first true hominids came along all the way down to today.

AMH do show differences compared to earlier humans, but that's because of an increase in juvenile characteristics retained into adulthood, most seen in the modern human face, the level of dimorphism stays pretty much the same.

Hoop66

raze_them_all_ wrote: »

one did in rally, won like 4 points but never made it big.

Not so. Michèle Mouton was runner-up in the Drivers Championship in 1982, winning 4 races. She was driving for the Audi factory team.

She's 61 or 62 now, but I saw her on TV just the other night and you (well I) defintely still would. Whether she'd be interested in a fat middle-aged twat like me is another matter, but let's skip that for now.

valoren

Pitch and Putt.

ThinkProgress

professore wrote: »

Apparently women are better at long distance endurance events like ultra marathons. Can't be bothered to find the link but there are far less of them in that sport but they are already near the top of it.

This is a bit of a myth. The gap between male and female 'appears' to be smaller, but overall men still dominate this sport.

It's a sport that's one part talent and two parts guts.

Ability to endure unimaginable amounts of pain and suffering gives you a chance. But you still need talent to win, like any other sport.

Ush1

AnLonDubh wrote: »

Men don't have better reaction times and don't have better spatial awareness. This has become more apparent in recent studies that take neuroplasticity (ability of the brain to physically rewire itself in response to its environment) into account, which wasn't controlled for in most studies before the 2000s.

Also those saying that men "evolved" to compete for resources or die, all animals must compete for resources or die and the Y-chromosome doesn't contain any genes related to neural structure that would affect these things. Humans were in fact evolving toward total gender isomorphism, men being physically faster and stronger is a legacy of early primates that was being evolved away in hominids, like the appendix.

Men and women even generate the same force per kilogram of muscle and the muscles are physically identical. Men simply have more muscle as a legacy feature because early primate males did.

Of course this makes a large difference in sports and means male athletes are often significantly better, but all these supposed mental differences don't conform with how brain structure is carried genetically or hominid evolution.

The skeletal structures are very different. Men have narrower hips and broader shoulders. Generally also have denser bones and larger hands.

IrishCule

My theory on this (with absolutely no scientific research whatsoever) is that women tend to group more towards the "average" while more men end on on both ends of the spectrum i.e more men who are mentally retarded and more men who would be considered geniuses. So males will always tend to dominate almost everything competitive.

dunworth1

i don't see any reason why male and female cannot compete in soccer.

there's noting really physically demanding about it

and as far as i can see they spend most of the time falling over themselves onto the floor.

and off the field spend most of the time trying to look pretty

ThinkProgress

IrishCule wrote: »

My theory on this (with absolutely no scientific research whatsoever) is that women tend to group more towards the "average" while more men end on on both ends of the spectrum i.e more men who are mentally retarded and more men who would be considered geniuses. So males will always tend to dominate almost everything competitive.

There are plenty of retarded females out there... I've been unfortunate enough to share oxygen with too many of them. :P

I think greater levels of testosterone leads males to reach more extreme levels in every aspect of life.

But particularly in sports because you've got that fight or flight adrenaline factor. This probably mimicks something we used to get from chasing sabre-tooth tigers or having hand to hand combat in wars! lol

Women are less obsessive about things too. To reach a high level in sports you need to be completely obsessed and consumed in your chosen decipline...

Elite sports people are slightly unhinged... A bit crazy! lol

This would be more of a male characteristic than female IMO.

raze_them_all_

dunworth1 wrote: »

i don't see any reason why male and female cannot compete in soccer.

there's noting really physically demanding about it

and as far as i can see they spend most of the time falling over themselves onto the floor.

and off the field spend most of the time trying to look pretty

Ever play a 90 minute game dunworth where you actually run around and not stand in goal?

dunworth1

raze_them_all_ wrote: »

Ever play a 90 minute game dunworth where you actually run around and not stand in goal?

nope but i used to play rugby and know how draining it can be.

i don't see why a woman wouldn't be able to endure 90 minutes of short stints of brisk running against a man.

some of the women might actually be more manlier than the men playing :pac:

blue note

valoren wrote: »

Pitch and Putt.

Have you ever played pitch and putt with men and women? Men are far better at it.

awec

valoren wrote: »

Definitely can co-compete in Golf.

The handicap system and teeing set up allows for this. It levels the playing field.

Any golfer (man or woman) with a handicap could theoretically beat world number 1 Rory McIlroy under that system.

Not really. Women and men don't compete equally in amateur golf. The holes are shorter for women to compensate for not having the same distance off the tee.

The very nature of handicaps in golf is to keep it competitive by adjusting the challenge for each individual golfer.

And in professional golf there is no handicaps.

valoren

blue note wrote: »

Have you ever played pitch and putt with men and women? Men are far better at it.

I'm sure Michelle Wie would be handy at it :pac:

AnLonDubh

AnLonDubh wrote:

Men and women even generate the same force per kilogram of muscle and the muscles are physically identical.

threeball wrote:

What a load of absolute twaddle regarding muscle output.

Calculation of muscle strength per unit cross-sectional area of human muscle by means of ultrasonic measurement Internationale Zeitschrift für angewandte Physiologie einschließlich Arbeitsphysiologie 1968, Volume 26, Issue 1, pp 26-32

A cross-sectional study of muscle strength and mass in 45- to 78-yr-old men and women. J Appl Physiol (1985). 1991 Aug;71(2):644-50.

Gender differences in strength and muscle fiber characteristics.
Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 1993;66(3):254-62.

And see the papers they reference. Hopefully you will see that men and women's muscles have the same physical properties. The difference in strength is due to muscle mass and how male muscle is distributed, but there is no difference in the muscle itself, as I said and I fail to see how, in light of these papers, what I said was "absolute twaddle".

I still fail to see how "force per kilogram" is the same for a tractor and a human.

Fratton Fred

One thing I've noticed about the women's world cup, is that there appears to be a lot fewer players acting like "a big girl" than in the men's game.

Carlos Orange

AnLonDubh wrote: »

Gender differences in strength and muscle fiber characteristics.
Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 1993;66(3):254-62.

Is this paper available online? Wondering if it is the same one I have seen cited online as saying mens muscles are 5-10% stronger than womens pound for pound.

K4t

Fratton Fred wrote: »

One thing I've noticed about the women's world cup, is that there appears to be a lot fewer players acting like "a big girl" than in the men's game.

There's a beautiful irony in there somewhere. And sexism, some damn fine sexism.

AnLonDubh

psinno wrote: »

Is this paper available online? Wondering if it is the same one I have seen cited online as saying mens muscles are 5-10% stronger than womens pound for pound.

It is online, but behind a subscription, however the abstract is free. It sounds like the same paper as it does conclude men are ~10% stronger per pound.