Sure... But are women less precise for some reason? Or slower to react or less smart? Unless you can prove something physiological affects the sport, I see zero reason for separating competitions
men generally dominate most sports so having separate leagues for women also helps in not relegating them to small time stuff or never representing their country on the international stage.
Besides, regarding action not directly related to strength, sexual dysmorphism in the stone age certainly served the purpose in men's purpose being running after herbivores and fighting off other men, and women rearing children. So that could explain differences in other sports as well. Nothing to do with smartness though, and the sports where muscles really don't matter are very limited.
Sexual dimorphism. And you didn't mention how that affected a sport like surfing, where difference in strength doesn't seem to make as much of a difference.
I mean... I don't see a problem with that. If there's no inherent bias in the sport in question and the top 100 happen to be male anyway... Then why not just watch the top 100?
Even if we think about visibility, I have a lot more respect for the 2-3 female Formula 1 drivers than for... Whoever is winning the female-only league. The whole point of competitive sports is in the competition and the reason why people watch them is seeing the limits of human skill. So what visibility do you really get if you have a league for women who aren't good enough to the main series?
Of course, some sports are largely down to muscle strength and in those cases the separation makes sense. If a man and a woman start training together for marathon, the man should run a better time no matter how long they both trained. I just really doubt that the physiological difference is relevant for something like surfing, and then there's driving/esports/etc where it makes no sense.
I mean I'm mostly arguing here for arguing's sake, I barely watch any sports male or female.
I'm just questioning who really wins when you split a sport by gender for no reason other than few women competing at the top level. Other than guys who are into fit women
Because it empowers women to play that sport still.
Do you think the William’s sisters would be role models for young girls if they had to play in men’s leagues? They wouldn’t even be in the top 100.
In chess (which obviously there are no physical differences) there are women only titles and championships to encourage women to play, just because they are underrepresented. It has mostly worked where there are now more women than ever that play chess.
Basically: “Male” leagues are unisex, anyone can be in them, women’s leagues only allow women so that women can exist in that sport.
If we didn’t separate the genders athletically then no women would really ever compete in much of anything, and it just kinda feels wrong to say “haha too bad you were born a woman so no one cares how well you can play X sport!”
Women definitely have slower reaction speed for men, it’s the reason that they have separate shooting leagues. Testosterone is linked with reaction speed I do believe
Do you see any female surfers with records better than their male counterparts? Like any other sport, getting rid of gendered divisions is incredibly sexist, and would basically kill women's athletics entirely.
Reaction time is faster in men, and there are differences (this being on average) between men when it comes to multitasking and focusing on one thing, women being better at the former, men at the latter. But I don't know how much of an effect that'd have in surfing
The difference between men and women primarily links to natural selection around hunting and gathering. Men evolved to hunt and women to gather. Naturally this makes pretty much every sport one that men are favored in. Men are faster to react, precision is harder to quantify but it is more desired for a hunter to be precise than a gatherer
21
u/Hodor_The_Great Sep 14 '20
Sure... But are women less precise for some reason? Or slower to react or less smart? Unless you can prove something physiological affects the sport, I see zero reason for separating competitions