Yes another mistake I often see on here is that people compare men and women's times linearly. The thing is that this difference is not linear but closer to exponential. Part of the reason for this is things like the top women having straighter bodies than the rest of the women, giving them a greater advantage over the rest of the field. The men have no such advantage.
TheCharlieBrowniest:
@shewolfruns some of the mile mansplaining in your mentions. My God.
8:39 PM - 18 Dec 2015
(comment liked by Sheila)
Sheila Reid:
@Laulaubird they are simply missing my point, but they do hate women.
7:33 AM - 19 Dec 2015
"male nostalgia"
"old, white dudes"
"mansplaining"
"they hate women"
Yep. Third wave feminist SJW confirmed.
Nike is her sponsor. Wonder what Phil Knight would think of her dislike of "white old men"? Come to think of it, probably every Nike executive involved in her sponsorship is a "white old man". Maybe she wants out of her contract and this is her way of getting booted. At her level of talent, Nike isn't paying much.
Track is a very minor sport. It isn't like the NFL where teams perform careful psychological screening of the athletes pre-draft, though they will take a chance on a loon if the talent is tremendous (which usually doesn't work out).
Sam in Oakland wrote:
Bring Back the Mile not a sexist plot. But it is an indication that the physical structure of our races and the benchmarks that we find interesting are designed around the perceived capabilities of male bodies. So the emphasis on the mile is not a male conspiracy, but it does reveal that our world is very gendered, often to the detriment of women athletes.
Or perhaps a better way of putting it is that male athletes have more much to gain from the publicity of a mile event than a female athlete. Case in point: When was the last time Letsrun posted a headline about a woman breaking 4:30 or 4:25 in the mile?
I agree that the mile is a more relatable distance for an American audience. But, disagreement does not make the tweet absurd, and especially not because you perceive it as some sort of PC infringement on the status quo.
If the NCAA or IAAF were to change the 800m distance to 900m to make 2:00 a challenging barrier for top men, Sheila might have a legitimate grievance. However, complaining and crying sexism over moving a 3 3/4 lap race to a 4 lap race, in a country that uses the mile as its unit for distance and when there is also a 2 lap race, 1 lap race, half-lap race and 1/4 lap race is both ridiculous and obnoxious. Having either a mile or 1600m race distance makes far more sense than 1500m, and I say this as a canadian who has always raced the 1500m.
Sexism has absolutely nothing to do with it and, while male athletes may benefit from the publicity of a 4:00 minute barrier, female athletes benefit from the 2:00 barrier in the 800m. You don't see any male athletes crying sexism and pushing to move the distance to 900m.
If you look to the future for women, a future that Genzebe Dibaba has suddenly made look a lot closer, you can see the 4 minute mile becoming a tremendous and inspiring barrier to break. For world elite men currently, the 4 minute mile is nowhere close to their full capability. In fact, the distance from the men's WR to 4:00 is nearly 17 seconds, about the distance from 4:00 to the best non-Masterkova times. But with Dibaba running 3:50 on negative splits and with a pacer only to 800m, and the likelihood that with a male pacer, she could run closer to 3:46-8, you can see the possibilities for a decades long female quest to break 4 with the attention increasing each generation. First, Dibaba will break 4:10. (3:50 flat converts by 1.08x to 4:08 already) Then the interest will start ratcheting up. Give her a couple 1:58 800m runners in great shape as pacers and see what happens, especially if they can take her to the half mile in 2:02 and then maintain another 200m.
The Imperial Mile was developed by male imperialists to impose their genderist/racist hegemony of the middle-distance discussion. Sheila is in the vanguard of those who seek repatriation of the temporal suppression by the governing elite of caucasian males. Male-exclusive clubs like the sub-4:00 elitists are a cigar ash in the eye of all who must bear the children and the fatiguing nostalgia of their aged Y-chromosome-bearing oppressors.
Mr/Ms. Moderator, TEAR DOWN THIS THREAD!
SLOW LIVES *STILL* MATTER!
I rest my case. Women shouldn't be allowed to have opinions rights? No decision that affects women should ever be subject to gender inequality based scrutiny right?
Can Sheila even run half a four minute mile?
She needs to shut her beavertail hole.
I know she's slower than the pro men and firmly stands behind her beliefs. She's "losing it" right?
fast but what else? wrote:
Women shouldn't be allowed to have opinions rights? No decision that affects women should ever be subject to gender inequality based scrutiny right?
No one said that.
Stop straw manning.
actually that is actually what has been said in this thread. I cite the title as my first example. This is a consistent struggle that women(especially public figures) face on a daily basis. Whenever a woman expresses a strong unpopular opinion she is called "crazy" or "overly-emotional." This is because it pisses off the homogeneous white male suburban distance running community.
Are you saying you're fast? And why the picture with engine #38? I don't get your reference.
Strawman argument too. Rojo is right in every point.
fast but what else? wrote:
actually that is actually what has been said in this thread. I cite the title as my first example.
Thread title: Sheila Reid is losing It - Hilarity Ensues - Says switch from 1500 to mile is "male nostalgia"
Your Claim: [Someone said] Women shouldn't be allowed to have opinions rights?
Your Claim: [Someone said] No decision that affects women should ever be subject to gender inequality based scrutiny right?
Nope. Sorry. You were wrong.
No one said what you claimed.
fast but what else? wrote:
This is a consistent struggle that women(especially public figures) face on a daily basis. Whenever a woman expresses a strong unpopular opinion she is called "crazy" or "overly-emotional."
An argument's soundness has no relation to the sex of the person making the argument.
She made a ridiculous claim.
She was rightly called out on it.
fast but what else? wrote:
This is because it pisses off the homogeneous white male suburban distance running community.
"My opinion is right because white men disagree with me and white men are bad".
Classic.
When a woman expresses a dumb opinion and is then called on it it is not sexism. Did it ever occur to you that crying "sexism" all the time makes people less likely to pay attention if there is a claim of sexism in a legitimate context? Also, I hate to break it to you but women *are* more emotional than men. That can be a gift in the right situations but a negative when used instead of reason in certain situations (e.g. positing that the mile is some crazy distance that old white males cling to in order to deprive society of the true, intuitive, and universally accepted standard of measurement the 1500 m., 3 and 3/4 laps of the track). Men have their own strengths and shortcomings. Sometimes our utilitarianism and lack of emotion is a negative. Not in this case, however.
fast but what else? wrote:
actually that is actually what has been said in this thread. I cite the title as my first example. This is a consistent struggle that women(especially public figures) face on a daily basis. Whenever a woman expresses a strong unpopular opinion she is called "crazy" or "overly-emotional." This is because it pisses off the homogeneous white male suburban distance running community.
excuse me but who exactly made the the fact based determination that she made a "ridiculous claim". This is a decision that affects women. She was pointing out that the change from 1500m to mile will have a much lesser effect in gaining interest for the women's event as it will for the men. She started a conversation about how a major decision within her sport will impact women. She was met with multiple responses both in this thread and on twitter calling her "crazy" and emotionally unstable. Go look for yourself. Whether you agree with her opinion or not, the tone and sentiment of the backlash she has received speak volumes about the running community as a whole.
Hahahaha holy sh**. Thank you to "trial of 1500s 1500s of trials" post for making my point. Women are too emotional and lack sufficient rationality so their opinions shouldn't be taken seriously in tense situations.
How much of your head space do "libs" occupy? I think your handle says it all.
I was like "Why is Sheila so darn catty, she's Canadian, right?" Wrong. She's from Women's Republic of Toronto.
Well at least you lads still have Melissa and Fiona, who seem quite lovely in demeanor.
fast but what else? wrote:
... has received speak volumes about the running community as a whole.
the actions and thoughts of a few don't represent the running community as a whole.
The majority of the running community disagrees (you admitted the viewpoint was unpopular), but that doesn't make the majority of runners part of a subset of the bad apple group that disagrees.
"A" disagreeing with "B", doesn't make all those disagreeing with "B" part of "A".
"The majority of the running community disagrees (you admitted the viewpoint was unpopular), but that doesn't make the majority of runners part of a subset of the bad apple group that disagrees."
perhaps you should reread this sentence and retake logic 101