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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
 Posted - 11/24/2005 : 13:12:09 [Permalink]
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Subjectmatter, although desegregation of sports by sex might be attractive from an idealist perspective I think that you may be missing the practical consequences. There are very few sports where women can compete with men on an equal footing. Sure women could still play sports at a lower level but in professional sports women would be gone. I don't want this and I don't know of any women who want this either.
In sports where women are approximately equal to men in talent and ability I would support desegregation, but for the most part I don't think it'd be beneficial to men or to women. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2005 : 13:16:52 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
Subjectmatter is right.
Not about not segregating sports by sex.
If a woman is physically up to playing sports with men, she should be allowed to. Oh hell, there really isn't all that much in high school and before that should prevent girls and boys from competing together. The best of the girls are probably better at many sports than many of the boys. If there are divisions it should be based on ability and not gender.
As for the touching thing, you could use the same rationalization for excluding gay males from competing with straight males. And we would, most of us, scream foul.
You can't change attitudes by maintaining the status qua…
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2005 : 13:23:30 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Subjectmatter
....
And how do you move Beskeptigal, from acknowledging that the kids are different genders to segregating the genders?
Where did this come into it? I said the idea you couldn't say, "Good morning boys and girls" because it acknowledged there were two distinct groups in the class was absurd. And my reasoning was that particular acknowledgment has no impact on all the other things you folks are discussing here. Of course there are many places where attention to gender discrimination is needed, especially in early education where the kids are so impressionable. But this case is about whether or not subtly pointing out to the kids they are different has an impact. As if the kids don't know they are different until nurtured to think so. As if the teacher's comments are going to spill over and make a girl think she can't be in any boys' groups.
Kids know they are different and a minor acknowledgment of it in the teacher's morning greeting shouldn't have any real impact.
Now, if you want to look at all those real issues where the teachers' subtle behavior does matter, then that is where the intervention resources belong. Teachers call on boys more often, give more attention to boys and so on as had been documented. Show me where someone has evidence saying good morning to the kids as two groups affects the kids' feelings or behaviors in any way.
Kids are not unisex until molded by nurture. They are divided by nature. That doesn't mean one needs to limit either group when it comes to activity choices like sports or math or the teachers' attention. But it does mean if you tell a kid boys and girls are different from the other, they aren't going to notice because they already know that, by nature.
quote:
And why should social groups be formed according to gender?
The groups are formed by the members, not the teacher. Even in non-segregated schools segregated groups form. You have to change that by first collecting evidence and then intervening. We haven't done that and we then wonder why the kids aren't mixing.
With social dividers like skin color, it should be addressed. With gender differences there are so many real differences you can't just pretend they don't exist. You need to first decide which of the activities we force on kids limit their development, then look at what interventions are needed. To merely assume any acknowledgment of the differences is harmful is not evidence based. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2005 : 17:57:46 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Subjectmatter
Nor do I buy the 'grab-ass' argument. Dancers have no problem with contact and some of the physical contact involved in for example ballet is very intimate.
The last time I had to take a dance class in school was when I was 11, and it certainly wasn't ballet (a sexist activity if there ever were one, by the way).quote:
Why should other activities be any different?
You're kidding, right? Why should other activities be different from dancing? How about because while dancing, people are expected to behave with great deference to their partners, while on, say, an American football field one is expected to destroy one's opponents? The entire mindset is vastly different.quote:
I have actually played mixed rugby (touch, which is a waste of time, but still...) and there were no problems.
Perhaps things are different on your side of the pond. Obviously, cultural differences will affect relationships between the sexes.quote:
Football (not the american kind, I know nothing about that) is certainly no problem, and basketball isn't even a contact sport...
If you're not making contact with your opponents in basketball, you're not playing it well. |
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Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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woolytoad
Skeptic Friend
313 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2005 : 20:32:42 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Kil
quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
Subjectmatter is right.
Not about not segregating sports by sex.
If a woman is physically up to playing sports with men, she should be allowed to. Oh hell, there really isn't all that much in high school and before that should prevent girls and boys from competing together. The best of the girls are probably better at many sports than many of the boys. If there are divisions it should be based on ability and not gender.
Compare Olympic world records:
http://www.olympic.org/uk/utilities/reports/level2_uk.asp?HEAD2=8&HEAD1=5
In sports where hundredths of a second can mean the difference between winning and loosing, the top women are seconds behind the men.
Even in the more skill based sports like archery, there are significant differences. The matchplay rounds give a bit of a skewed perspective as they are short 18 arrow rounds. If you look at the slightly longer rounds - 72 arrow ranking 10 point difference. 216 arrow ranking - this is a team event so 72 each archer - 40 point difference in the totals, 13 point difference on average. Now the Korean women are phenomenal. But they aren't as strong as the men and just a few pounds difference in poundage gives the men this 10 point lead. Now, most international tournaments are 144 arrows over multiple distances. For men: 90, 70, 50, 30 for women: 70, 60, 50, 30.
Good work feminists! You've just regulated some of the worlds most brilliant sports-women to obscurity in the name of "equality". |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2005 : 21:24:59 [Permalink]
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quote:
If a woman is physically up to playing sports with men, she should be allowed to. Oh hell, there really isn't all that much in high school and before that should prevent girls and boys from competing together. The best of the girls are probably better at many sports than many of the boys.
Utter nonsense beyond the 7th or 8th grade when the physical differences between genders become obvious. Before that, maybe girls can compete.
A 140lb male wrestler can destroy a 140lb female wrestler.
Basketball? Seriously, there may be a few exceptional female athletes in highschool who could compete for a spot on the boys team, but they would be few and far between. In college they wouldn't stand a remote chance of making the team.
Track & field? Lets make all the athletes compete to the same standards, use the same weight, etc... you won't find a women who can finish in the top 10 against men, even in highschool.
Powerlifting? Do I need to look up the weight differences between the top men and top women in this sport for you?
Football? Even the biggest and most well conditioned/trained female athletes couldn't compete in this sport. They would be crushed.
Soccer? The occasional elite female athlete might be able to win a spot on a team, but they would be few and far between.
Hockey? Seriously.
Now, extend all of this to the professional level.
You have just eliminated all women from competetive sports. No women can compete against men in the top teirs of elite athletics.
It is just biology. The female body is not as strong and fast as the male body.
To refuse to recognize this is a serious denial of reality.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
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"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2005 : 22:35:40 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Kil
If a woman is physically up to playing sports with men, she should be allowed to. Oh hell, there really isn't all that much in high school and before that should prevent girls and boys from competing together. The best of the girls are probably better at many sports than many of the boys. If there are divisions it should be based on ability and not gender.
Okay, write your congresspeople and get them to change the physical fitness standards to ignore gender.
When I was in school, the physical fitness tests specified that an average boy should be able to do however-many chin ups. Girls, however, only had to be able to hang from a chin-up bar for so-many seconds. I wasn't able to meet the boys' standard, but I probably could have ranked as a very fit girl had all I needed to do was hang there. Biceps were a problem for me, hand strength wasn't.
Oh... what "ability" should we choose to split up the locker rooms? I'm serious, here, since my gym coaches regularly used locker-room time to tell us what we'd be doing that day.quote:
As for the touching thing, you could use the same rationalization for excluding gay males from competing with straight males. And we would, most of us, scream foul.
Well, I'd scream 'foul' only because such segregation would necessitate a government-established program of detailed psychological profiling to "out" the gays as soon as possible.
Shit, Kil, hetero boys regularly sexually mistreat other hetero boys all the time, already. I've never seen a girl get a purple nurple, but I imagine it'd be a hell of a lot worse than it is for a boy. Do girls do that to other girls on a regular basis? How about atomic wedgies?quote:
You can't change attitudes by maintaining the status qua…
What attitude would you like to change through co-ed sports, and why?
Please note that all of the above comes from someone who, through high school, was underweight for his age, and weak because of it. I was pretty proud of myself for jogging an 8-minute mile in ninth grade, but I was the last boy to come in, and most of the girls beat me, too. I suffered through the two required years of gym in high school. 23 years and 100 pounds later, most women would still be able to kick my ass in most sports (because now I'm fat and flabby), but my wife still comes to me when she needs a jar of pickles opened. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2005 : 01:03:45 [Permalink]
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quote:
Dude:
It is just biology. The female body is not as strong and fast as the male body.
To refuse to recognize this is a serious denial of reality.
All I am saying is that the division should be based on ability and not gender. The fact that not many girls would wind up on the varsity football team is only relevant if you have decided that there is some benefit to the team by keeping those who could make it out because of gender. I am suggesting that a false division based on generalizations has been created that is detrimental to individual achievement.
Perhaps coming in fourth or even tenth in a desegregated competition would mean more to the athlete than coming in first against the “weaker sex.”
quote:
Dave W.:
Oh... what "ability" should we choose to split up the locker rooms? I'm serious, here, since my gym coaches regularly used locker-room time to tell us what we'd be doing that day.
Oh gee whiz, now there is an insurmountable problem…
quote:
What attitude would you like to change through co-ed sports, and why?
First off, it isn't just co-ed sports that need a change of attitude. The reason though is this. There is really no good reason for the division by gender. We exclude girls from competing with boys based on a gender bias and not because of individual ability. It sends the wrong message to both the boys and the girls. Ultimately this isn't about sports. It's about conditioning.
Dave, you said it yourself when you pointed out that some girls were better fit than you were. And yet none of those girls has the opportunity to compete at a level that was available to you. That is gender bias plain and simple.
And look, I am not saying that I expect all the sports that Dude named to be suddenly taken over by woman able to out perform the men. I am only suggesting that the reason for allowing or excluding a person should be based on the ability to perform and not based on a generalization that has lead to discrimination based on something that has nothing to do with an individuals ability.
It is my belief that there is a cultural bias here that need not be. That kind of bias is hard to crack because we are part of it by having bought into it. And not by choice either. It's been drummed into us since we were kids. It's the way things are. The hard part is to step back from it and look at it for what it might be. And what it might be is nothing but a social construct that does not really serve us.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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ronnywhite
SFN Regular
501 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2005 : 01:05:34 [Permalink]
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There's the way things should be (or) the way I wish things were (and then,) there's the way things REALLY are.
subjectmatter
I think social precedence being given to such silly and meaningless abilities as to knock people down, knock them unconscious, or jump-higher than others is commentary on the flawed, primal instinct-driven nature of our species ("Intelligently Designed?" Ya gotta be kidding... our "Intelligently Designed"(???) species tells me on a regular basis that God values muscles over brains- compare the mean paychecks of elite athletes and elite scientists!) This mentality extends back to our conditioning as youth. I think that stinks (and you're hearing it from an "ex-jock") and I wouldn't want to encourage a culture of lame-brain muscle-heads (except the decision's obviously already been made by the "Creator," the God of Probability, or whoever.)
If we test and divide men and women according to athleticism (upper-body strength, for instance) the resulting distribution could be described as 2 slightly-skewed normal curves with a small overlap on the right-side of the female, and the left-side of the male "bell curves" (we could get more specific by including multivariates such as speed and endurance, or scaling for strength/weight ration etc. etc. but that's the general idea.) What would this mean? If we divide youth as such for sports, a non-athletic guy would be labeled a "wimp" and ridiculed for being eligible to compete in the "girl's league." Do you want to encourage that kind of environment for raising youth? I sure as hell don't!
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Ron White |
| Edited by - ronnywhite on 11/25/2005 01:41:11 |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2005 : 03:10:01 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by woolytoad
Compare Olympic world records:
http://www.olympic.org/uk/utilities/reports/level2_uk.asp?HEAD2=8&HEAD1=5
In sports where hundredths of a second can mean the difference between winning and loosing, the top women are seconds behind the men.
Let me remind you that we're talking about children.
And since puberty kicks in a bit earlier in girls than boys, wouldn't that momentarily tip the scale in girls' favour? |
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ronnywhite
SFN Regular
501 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2005 : 04:15:24 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by ronnywhite
There's the way things should be (or) the way I wish things were (and then,) there's the way things REALLY ARE.
subjectmatter
I think social precedence being given to such silly and meaningless abilities as to knock people down, knock them unconscious, or jump-higher than others is commentary on the flawed, primal instinct-driven nature of our species ("Intelligently Designed?" Ya gotta' be kiddin'... our "Intelligently Designed"(???) species tells me on a regular basis that God values muscles over brains- compare the mean paychecks of elite athletes with elite scientists!) This mentality extends back to our conditioning as youth. I think that stinks (and you're hearing it from an "ex-jock") and I wouldn't want to encourage a culture of lamebrain muscle-heads (except the decision's obviously already been made by the "Creator," the God of Probability, or whoever.)
If we test and divide men and women according to athleticism (upper-body strength, for instance) the resulting distribution could be described as 2 slightly-skewed normal curves with a small overlap on the left-side of the female, and the right-side of the male "bell curves" (we could get more specific by including multivariates such as speed and endurance, or scaling for strength/weight ratio etc. etc. but that's the general idea.) What would this mean? If we divide youth as such for sports, a non-athletic guy would be labeled a "wimp" and ridiculed for being eligible to compete in the "girl's league." Do you want to encourage that kind of environment for raising youth? I sure as hell don't!
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Ron White |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2005 : 05:22:46 [Permalink]
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Mmm, a bit of meaningless information.
In my highschool years, I used to attend physical education classes because they were in the middle of regular classes and because I liked to be around and watch (I'm handicapped, for those who don't know, been in a wheelchair my whole life). The boys and girls did play everything together, but keep in mind we don't have highschool/college leagues and highschool sports aren't taken seriously. They're irrelevant for the kid's future. It's more about fitness and having fun than competing.
I never witnessed any case of ass-grabing boob-touching. I never witnessed serious cases of violence between boys and girls. I have witnessed girls beating the holy bajeezus out of boys, but not to the point of broken bones. Then again, the sports were usually volleyball and soccer, handball, softball, that sort of stuff, even basketball. We don't have those primitive, violent sports such as american football and hockey just kidding. As far as I know, all schools do mixed P.E., unless they actually have teams to train for the highschool leagues and all, but that's rare.
Then again, I'm not American, the standards were different, population is different, mentality is different and I have never, either, witnessed any case of serious bullying we all know exist in American schools, so I don't know. That's how it was for me. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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| Edited by - Siberia on 11/25/2005 05:24:56 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2005 : 08:35:37 [Permalink]
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quote:
The fact that not many girls would wind up on the varsity football team is only relevant if you have decided that there is some benefit to the team by keeping those who could make it out because of gender.
It is relevent. Because you will end up with something like affirmative action for female athletes. Quotas and double standards and so on.
When there are only one or two girls capable of making the varsity squad (for whatever sport), who is going to pay for the school's legal defense? Because you have to know they will get their asses sued off. And then, when the first girl gets carted off the football field to the nearest trauma ICU.... who's gonna pay THAT legal bill?
The whole thing is a ridiculously bad idea.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2005 : 09:51:08 [Permalink]
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quote:
Dude:
It is relevent. Because you will end up with something like affirmative action for female athletes. Quotas and double standards and so on.
Ahhh, a slippery slope argument…
quote:
When there are only one or two girls capable of making the varsity squad (for whatever sport), who is going to pay for the school's legal defense? Because you have to know they will get their asses sued off. And then, when the first girl gets carted off the football field to the nearest trauma ICU.... who's gonna pay THAT legal bill?
Ahhh, a slippery slope argument…
And what happens when the boys get hurt? Nothing? There are no release forms? Or do the boys parents just care less if the boys are injured?
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2005 : 10:08:06 [Permalink]
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| I think he meant girls, being biologically more delicate, will get hurt more than boys. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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