Feminist dilemma with unisex snowboarding slopes at the Olympics, and women in combat

[Jaskalas]

Let me get this straight, they don't even train on the same courses?
*implied facepalm

Let's start by not handicapping their training.

 

[michal1980]

Let me get this straight, they don't even train on the same courses?
*implied facepalm

Let's start by not handicapping their training.

+1

 

[Fern]

I watched both mens and womens snowboard slopestyle. It was obvious that either the women weren't ready for the course, or the course wasn't suited to the women.

I don't know why there would be such a gap between the men and women, but it was huge. The tricks the men were putting down were leagues beyond what the women could, or did do. I did not expect the difference to be so large in this event, but it was there, and it was obvious. Before watching it, I would have bet that two would be far closer in performance then reality.

Same here.

I expected to see the women do much better tricks. I thought the tricks, flips, spins etc, were similar to those in gymnastics and that the women would be right up there with the guys.

Fern

 

[Bitek]

Same here.

I expected to see the women do much better tricks. I thought the tricks, flips, spins etc, were similar to those in gymnastics and that the women would be right up there with the guys.

Fern

As said earlier, it may be they have not competed on a course of that size and have not developed the skills to fully take advantage.

If anyone was taking note, the size of the men was all clustered around 5'8" to 5'10" /160-170 lbs. Not that high up in the size distribution of women. It's not inconceivable that the female talent pool will develop to be closer to the men. High size and strength
was not proving to be a highly selected trait.

 

[rudeguy]

women are equals
except when they are not
and except when they do not want to be
and besides, sexual organs have nothing to do with gender
so its really whatever you want to do or be or pretend to be that day


I get it.

 

[Nebor]

I think we should just make combat easier for everyone.

 

[trenchfoot]

Here in Hawaii, watching men's and women's pro surf contests will bring out a very obvious difference in performance characteristics between the genders, especially in big surf, like wave heights above ten feet high.

It's even more evident at the high school level, where heats for the girls are usually called off by mutual agreement if the surf is larger or rougher than what the competing coaches will allow, whereas the boys heats are allowed out to compete.

Granted, there are exceptional women that can compete with men in sports where overpowering strength and superior prowess is a critical factor. However, there just aren't enough of these women to consolidate into teams where they can compete at the same level as men.

There it is, plain and simple.

Chess anyone?

 

[Fern]

-snip-

Granted, there are exceptional women that can compete with men in sports where overpowering strength and superior prowess is a critical factor. However, there just aren't enough of these women to consolidate into teams where they can compete at the same level as men.

There it is, plain and simple.

Chess anyone?

Good point, and I think exactly the issue here.

When I watched the women's snowboarding event I came in at the half way point. IIRC, it goes as follows:

1. All women perform. The top scorers/best 12 automatically advance to the finals.

2. Those who didn't score in the top 12 were given another chance to compete for 1 of 4 remaining spots in the finals

3. After the best 4 were identified the finals/medal competition was held.

I began watching at #2. These were the worst of the bunch and really helped form my opinion (expressed above) that the women aren't as good as the men by a wide margin. But reflecting back, some of the better women in the finals weren't that far off from the men.

OTOH, some of the women who didn't make the first cut and were competing for the final 4 spots were not good, not at all.

Simply put, IMO, some of the women allowed to compete weren't advanced enough to do so safely. I'd guess that in the interest of 'fairness' the Olympics allows an equal number of men and women to compete but there just aren't enough women qualified to handle the course so they incur more injuries.

Fern

 

[desy]

http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/Few-Army-Women-Want-Combat-Jobs-247060021.html

Seems there isn't much to worry about women in combat. Few want it

 

[StinkyPinky]

he is not a top shape. he said "he can berely compete at state level" that is not saying he is a top state contender.

vs a top 150 world ranking pro? no.

now if he said a top nationalist qualifier sure. but someone who is not even state champ? lol no.

Actually, I'm not so sure. I would expect a state champion to wipe the floor with a female tennis player, with the exception of maybe the top 20 or so in the world. A struggling state player could very well sometimes beat a 150th ranked female if she hadn't been practicing much

There really is a huge gap between men and women in certain sports. Look at 100m race in track and field. A top tier male high school sprinter can easily run faster than the worlds fastest women.

 

[Triumph]

Saw something in the print version of the Washington Post today, about the physiological differences between men and women. Besides the obvious differences, men have larger hearts, men have more hemoglobin in their blood which is what carries oxygen to cells, male muscle fibers themselves are larger (not just more of them), and women's wide hips cause a larger femur to tibia angle, putting more stress on the knees. Knee injuries in soccer are something like 6 times higher for women because of this.

Women's half pipe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03zOEEhGm98&t=0m40s

Men's halfpipe. Take any sort of metric - height, distance, spin, and basically double it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxlPcru2E1k&t=0m22s

 

[Zorba]

Saw something in the print version of the Washington Post today, about the physiological differences between men and women. Besides the obvious differences, men have larger hearts, men have more hemoglobin in their blood which is what carries oxygen to cells, male muscle fibers themselves are larger (not just more of them), and women's wide hips cause a larger femur to tibia angle, putting more stress on the knees. Knee injuries in soccer are something like 6 times higher for women because of this.

Women's half pipe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03zOEEhGm98&t=0m40s

Men's halfpipe. Take any sort of metric - height, distance, spin, and basically double it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxlPcru2E1k&t=0m22s

In most non-major sports I prefer women's over men's. But the women's halfpipe was BORING, I could definitely see a decent high school boy being able to compete with them. All the other acrobatic ski/snowboard events you could tell the men were much better at as well, not as bad as half pipe, though. For that matter, the skiers were doing much cooler tricks than the snow boarders too.

I would've thought the difference would've been less, since you typically think of women being good tumblers. But really, men cheerleaders at the college level are generally much better tumblers too.

 

[Zorba]

As for combat, the standards should be the same and if women can make it, let them. Not that this is happening, but I also don't think the standards should be raised just to keep women out either.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Oh good, a thread where a bunch of sexist men discuss feminism...

 

[Strk]

Saw something in the print version of the Washington Post today, about the physiological differences between men and women. Besides the obvious differences, men have larger hearts, men have more hemoglobin in their blood which is what carries oxygen to cells, male muscle fibers themselves are larger (not just more of them), and women's wide hips cause a larger femur to tibia angle, putting more stress on the knees. Knee injuries in soccer are something like 6 times higher for women because of this.

Women's half pipe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03zOEEhGm98&t=0m40s

Men's halfpipe. Take any sort of metric - height, distance, spin, and basically double it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxlPcru2E1k&t=0m22s

Women's hips really aren't much wider than men's. Unless they've had a few kids, most of the width is fat. They are angled a bit and a bit thinner than a man's hips though.

However, since men typically weigh more, their skeletons, as a whole, will be stronger. Bones respond to stress. So fun fact for the day: fat people really are big-boned.

 

[silverpig]

he is not a top shape. he said "he can berely compete at state level" that is not saying he is a top state contender.

vs a top 150 world ranking pro? no.

now if he said a top nationalist qualifier sure. but someone who is not even state champ? lol no.

I think the top woman in the world would be around 300-500th ranked in the men's tennis circuit. Drop to 150 on women's rankings and you'd be way down on the men's.

I played soccer growing up. When I was 16 I tried out for a top level league in my city in Canada. The league had about 8-10 teams in the city at this age group for guys. So I was trying out for a spot as one of the top 16 year olds in a population pool of about 250k.

On our last tryout we played the national women's team in an exhibition game. I was the goalie and made one or two fairly easy saves and that was it. I think we were up 3-0 when we called the game early in the 2nd half.

Now, the Canadian women's team isn't one of the top teams in the world, but they'd be competitive. They'd give the top team about as good a match as the #150 ranked woman tennis player would give the #1 ranked woman. There just is that big of a difference in some sports.

It's mostly a matter of just physical differences. No big deal really. Some of it is social as well, where guys are subject to more social forces supporting them in sports (potential for big-league contracts, male sports idols etc) which will increase the pool of men competing and training at a high level.

Now, something I'd be interested in seeing is mixed (or non separated events) for men and women in olympic sports where sex isn't an advantage. Curling for example.

 

[WelshBloke]

Oh good, a thread where a bunch of sexist men discuss feminism...

Yeah, I'm kinda missing the point of this thread.
I thought sports were about pushing yourself to be the best that you could be. There's pretty much always going to be someone better/stronger /faster than you, that doesn't make your achievements any less though.

 

[michal1980]

Oh good, a thread where a bunch of sexist men discuss feminism...

facts are now sexist.


only in the mindset of fucked in the head feminist that think we are all equal.

 

[smackababy]

As for combat, the standards should be the same and if women can make it, let them. Not that this is happening, but I also don't think the standards should be raised just to keep women out either.

The problem is the fitness standards are NOT the same for the men and women (at least, not in the Air Force). I know women who scored excellent on the PT tests, however, they couldn't drag a smaller man 10 yards. That is the problem. I don't care who the person I am fighting along side is, as long as they can perform what might be required of them. That means man, women, white, black, straight, gay, whatever.

 

[Nebor]

Oh good, a thread where a bunch of sexist men discuss feminism...

Facts are "sexist" in the minds of feminists. Modern feminism is garbage, btw. It's more religion than political movement.