Get rid of gender/sex categories

SDSU Aztec wrote:

If you don't like women's sports, watch something else.

In most sports that's an option, you can not watch the WNBA, LPGA, or for that matter the NBA or PGA if you're only interested in one sex's sport. You cannot do that with track as a rule, for better or worse.

HRE wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

If you don't like women's sports, watch something else.

In most sports that's an option, you can not watch the WNBA, LPGA, or for that matter the NBA or PGA if you're only interested in one sex's sport. You cannot do that with track as a rule, for better or worse.

Close your eyes when the women's races are on if it's that upsetting to you.

The NCAA has gotten smart by holding the national meet across multiple days and holding male and female events on different days.

I get the "trollism" bit now. Where did I say it's upsetting me? How did you decide that I seem upset? All I did was point out s difference in how watching track is different from watching other sports.

HRE wrote:

I get the "trollism" bit now. Where did I say it's upsetting me? How did you decide that I seem upset? All I did was point out s difference in how watching track is different from watching other sports.

Oh come one, it's one big troll thread.

It's a couple of people using psuedo-intellectual arguments to say 'Wimminz is bad, men is da bestest'.

It's not like there can be any sort of discourse here.

You're making a case for something that would make sense to a fraction of a percent of the population and you're calling me ignorant?

Okay, it's one big troll thread but you still haven't explained how you decided I was upset which I suppose underscores your point about the troll's thread.

Men are better wrote:

No, it is you who does not understand. A man and a woman show up for an interview. Should the woman have a lower standard to meet in order to get the job? Or should the interviewer merely hire based upon the best qualifications? Most would call that equal treatment. If a set of twins go on a college visit and the boy and girl both want to compete for a roster spot but the boy must run 4:20 but the girl must only run 5:00, most would say that is not equal treatment. Equal treatment of all individuals for scholarships or roster spots would be the disregard of sex or gender.

What a weird analogy. Qualifications for a job are not even remotely the same as ability to run a 4:20 mile.

HRE wrote:

Okay, it's one big troll thread but you still haven't explained how you decided I was upset which I suppose underscores your point about the troll's thread.

Maybe you weren't upset, but given your point was essentially to contradict one of the only common sense comments so far, it's not a stretch for me to think you were part of the 'Girls are slow and stupid, lol' brigade.

"seem too ignorant to realize" != "calling someone ignorant". The former has context. The later is a generalized label of someone's overall character.

trollism wrote:

Oh come one, it's one big troll thread.

It's a couple of people using psuedo-intellectual arguments to say 'Wimminz is bad, men is da bestest'.

It's not like there can be any sort of discourse here.

Actually, it seems the purpose of this thread went right over your head, which is to address the problem of transwomen setting records in womens' athletics, while some transwomen are claiming that requiring them to undergo testosterone replacement is against their rights because it forces them to harm themselves in order to be in the category they belong in. It seems to me that the problem stems from the category being based on "womenhood", rather than being based on the underlying condition of born/biological "womenhood".

Your choice to disregard this thread as "trollism", to me, sounds like sexism. You don't care about issues that affect women. To me, this is an important topic because I believe that it is no more fair to force people to compete against other people with biological advantages than it is fair to force people to compete against other species with biological advantages. If we are going to force women to compete against transwomen, then we might as well just start forcing men to compete against bears,etc. It is nonesense, and it is the category of "women" in sports that creates this nonesense in a society where any individual must be accepted as their preferred or "felt" gender.

new categories or no categories wrote:

intenserunner wrote:

If women never had physical disadvantages to men, the female categories never would have been created and women would be happy to compete against men. .

This argument is complicated. Everyone competing in say distance running can say that they have physical disadvantages against someone else. Most people running have physical disadvantages compared with someone like Kipchoge or Bekele so why do they have to compete in the same category? On the other hand competitive sports is about competing, winning, and losing and just sucking it up. So It does seem logical and unprejudiced to have no gender categroies in sports, especially in a sport like distance running. I would probably draw the line when it comes to combat-type sports but I guess these sports do have weight categories to try and even out the competition.

Yes, this is exactly right, it does get complicated, and that is why I put forward this proposition. Rather than having special categories for every different class of human with physical advantages or weaknesses over each other that are sometimes difficult to classify and measure... just structure athletics competitions in the same way we structure open chess tournaments and include categories based on past performance, regardless of physical makeup. Allow people with similar performance levels to at least compete in the same race/heat together regardless of their gender. You could then have additional awards for "top born female" or whatever. This has the added advantage of being more inclusive of athletes of all levels.... ie. you can be a novice and still enter a competition and potentially get an award for beating the other novices... just like in an open chess tournament.

Men are better wrote:

No, it is you who does not understand. A man and a woman show up for an interview. Should the woman have a lower standard to meet in order to get the job? Or should the interviewer merely hire based upon the best qualifications? Most would call that equal treatment. If a set of twins go on a college visit and the boy and girl both want to compete for a roster spot but the boy must run 4:20 but the girl must only run 5:00, most would say that is not equal treatment. Equal treatment of all individuals for scholarships or roster spots would be the disregard of sex or gender.

Equality is not the same as equity.

If a man and woman come in to interview for a job, the woman does not need to be as experienced or specifically qualified because of all of her disadvantages, which included physical, emotional, and societal.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Armin Tamzarian wrote:

No one watches women’s sports. T&F is like watching a basketball game where NBA and WNBA teams alternate quarters.

You have no interest in Tuohy's career? A lot of people on LR are big fans of her.

"No one" and you are different things. What makes you hate female athletes?

Scary times for child athletes being groomed via Letsrun.

Men are better wrote:

No, it is you who does not understand. A man and a woman show up for an interview. Should the woman have a lower standard to meet in order to get the job? Or should the interviewer merely hire based upon the best qualifications? Most would call that equal treatment...

I wish that was the case, but it is not. Very blatant discrimination against white men already exists in many police force around the world. London has been convicted of such an offence.

This will become more and more prevalent in other job functions (it already has). It took a very brave person to challenge the situation in London. It required a super extreme situation. White heterosexual men had zero chance of getting a job as a London police officer. I’m not sure why the situation had to get to such an extreme level before anything was done about that.

Yes, I agree, performance based categories would make sense. Category A, B, C and D based on level of performance makes sense.

Men are better at math and science. Should an employer pay the same to an inferior female mathematician? That is what colleges do by giving an equal scholarship for a female 4:40 mile as a male 4 minute mile. Why should a male who was born with the same talent as a 4:40 female be discriminated against because of his sex? You will say that males are faster but we should not be putting people into categories. I can post many real stats based on race or sex. Should we then judge individuals who happen to be part of those groups by birth, not by choice?

This works for an open citizens race, when you are dividing people into heats by ability. I've run at a meet like that. It was not a race, it was more of a cooperative effort for people to run fast.

For championship racing, men and women are the 2 categories that make sense. And I find them both exciting to watch.

discrimination against men is very acdepted. this can even be seen in this forum. the extra female category is one of those examples of "positive" discrimination for one group, which just means real ordinary discrimination for another(men in this case).

It doesn't really seem like all that many women are up in arms about this transgender issue. It seems like more of a soap opera issue for bros to debate over.