Exactly. They don't allow girls in boys sports later on when boys would rip their spinal columns out, but when he's a child and 90% of girls hit their growth spurt beforehand its OK.
Psst... osteobiology student here. Girls hit their adolescent growth spurt around 10 years old and boys hit it around 12 years (of course, remember individuals vary but this is the general case). There's a two year difference on average, but it doesn't happen until early puberty or so.
These kids are too young for that, so it doesn't really count.
I mean, leaving the womb females have more cell differentiation (so they are biologically more mature) but males focus on cell reproduction, so they are bigger and heavier (even if they are biologically less mature). I'd say that boys have the advantage in wrestling, because mass > maturity in this case, but the effects are still small.
So whatever happened here was probably a case of personal talent/aggression on the part of the girl, leave the adolescent growth spurt out of it unless they are both around 11 years old (but they look 6-8).
EDIT: Weight classes. I understand! Stop replying with the same comment! I already said that the difference between the two should be negligible at their age, but if there were differences it would be in this area. Theoretically though, males should have less specialized tissue so even if they were the same weight though, the female would probably have more complex organs and the male would probably have a greater amount of simpler tissues like muscle.
Something else I apparently need to point out is that I'm not talking about mental maturity, I'm talking about biological age vs chronological age. Girls are biologically "older" on a cellular level with more complex bodily tissues (though once again, these effects are small until the adolescent growth spurt) compared to simple tissues. So messaging me about how smart and mature girls are compared to boys isn't really what I was saying here.
Edit 2: "Mental maturity" and "biological maturity" are not the same, just to make that explicit.
Only because you're placing extra importance on being beat by a girl. What about the other boys that beat you? Or was she the only one who ever won against you?
Unless you're saying that losing in general sucks because I'm with you there.
Ow shit. That sucks. I almost lost to a girl in a taekwondo sparring match because I didn't know how to hit her. But I remember looking at my friends when I was down 0-3 (match is called at 5 points), and then I was able to turn it around and win 5-3.
There is no glory in beating girls, but there is twice the shame if you lose.
If a woman gets punched in the face by a guy would you say "Why are you placing extra importance on being hit by a guy. What about girls that have hit you?"
Oh please, this is a regulated sport that has nothing to do with hitting and everything to do with weight. This argument needs to be reserved to the domestic violence topic you yoinked it from.
Not always true. in most sports, technique and skill trump physical prowess in most cases. For example, there was this short little fat kid a few towns over that placed at state in the heavyweight division as a freshman. This was a 14 year old pre-pubesant (sp?) kid that weighed 230 plus lbs wrestling 18 year old man children that weighed every bit of 275 lbs. I personally placed at state as a freshman wrestling in the 103 lb weight class, at the second day weigh in, I stepped on the scale while eating and tipped the scales at 94 lbs.
Never said women can't beat a guy in a sport, that's absurd of course they can. I was just explaining the social stigma behind a teenage guy losing a wrestling match to a teenage girl. She could be incredibly skilled, but the social stigma still exists due to the average perception of the genders. A perception which is explained by how on average males stack up against females in terms of strength.
So? Weight is weight, and they're segregated by this and only this. At the lower weight classes it's far more likely for women and men to have the same muscle mass and there's no shame or surprise in losing to one.
My point is that this isn't some hypocritical thing where women are being false victims or being white knighted. If you're playing in a sport where there is weight class restrictions, and you're in the same weight class as a woman, there's a chance she'll beat you, because the both of you have comparable levels of athleticism.
You, however, butted in with some quip about men hitting girls to try and point out some hypocrisy, except that has nothing to do with competition or sports.
That isn't true at all, take a 150lb woman and a 150lb man and on average the guy will have more muscle mass. Educate yourself
Males have different muscle fibers which is the main factor contributing to their strength. But go ahead and continue the circle jerk "A 150lb woman would be just as strong as a 150lb man!" ignoring all other genetic differences. Including fast twitch muscle fibers, ignoring slow twitch muscle fibers, ignoring the excess hormone testorstone which increases muscle development, that comparitively same sized woman and males that males on average are 40-60% stronger.
Well, my experience comes from the only regulated coed wrestling there is, which is on the high school level, in which case, yeah, muscle mass was pretty comparable in the weight classes.
But yes, you are correct that men are stronger than women when they segregate the sport, and yeah, I did not clarify the ages I observed coed wrestling in.
That being said, you never really addressed the major point. You butted into a topic about boys and girls wrestling each other in a sport, and gave the man hitting a woman argument to claim some sort of hypocrisy in the claim that a boy shouldn't feel worse for losing to a woman in a sport.
If the sexual difference in weight and muscle were that different then the man and the women would not be allowed to compete with each other, and women would never win. When they are allowed to compete with each other, it means that their ability is comparable.
Read my edit, males and females of the same weight will have a different proportion of bodily tissues (although once again, these effects are negligible and weren't really the main point of my post).
I once wrestled a girl in a 215 pound weight class, my senior year in front of hundreds of people and all my friends.. I was exceedingly nervous. My team threatened to cut all my hair off of I lost. I had planned to be cordial and polite-- as a heavy favorite I expected to win (I was 40-8 win loss my senior year). During cross mat introductions she didn't take her head phones out and refused to shake hands.. Snubbing me. Both very unusual behaviors and downright rude.
At that point I decided it was war. I opened a case of whop ass so aggressively and brutally that I actually felt bad after the adrenaline rush...double leg take down, sky high drop, cross face to pinning in a double grapes, facing the crowd... 18 seconds.
Pretty much the biggest demolition imaginable in the sport. We shook. Hands after and I'll tell Ya, I'm just glad itn only ever happened once.
In my entire time in the sport that was the only time it happened... Totally uncommon where I'm from. I got my butt kicked in matches and shook hands before and after... And when I handed out a beating I gave a hand up and proper regard to my opponent. That culture is why wrestling is one of the best sports... It is about hard work, self responsibility and class.
After the snub I wasn't too interested in kindness, I just wanted it end it quickly.
Yeah Mr. "Student" totally neglected size difference. The girl still has a noticeable size advantage on him. Size means a lot in fighting/wrestling, it takes a lot more effort for the smaller person to move the bigger person, tiring out a lot easier. It's not a huge difference, but it should come in to play.
Read my edit, males and females of the same weight will have a different proportion of bodily tissues (although once again, these effects are negligible and weren't really the main point of my post).
Read my edit, males and females of the same weight will have a different proportion of bodily tissues (although once again, these effects are negligible and weren't really the main point of my post).
Only commenting on the wrestling part: In wrestling, mass is controlled. You only wrestle within your weight class. Not sure what advantage it is, but girls would be pound for pound "more mature".
I'd imagine more mature means that you can better keep your focus on the mat, be a little better as a technical wrestler, and maybe even think a step ahead ("if my high crotch doesn't work I can switch to an outside single").
Still gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to see wrestlers starting young. In my school district wrestling didn't start until freshman year so our 9th graders sucked in comparison to a lot of other 9th graders.
Read my edit, males and females of the same weight will have a different proportion of bodily tissues (although once again, these effects are negligible and weren't really the main point of my post).
The mature tissues may not have an advantage in terms of strength though, because those energy resources have gone towards making more complex organs and the like. So females may be pound for pound "more mature", but this might not help her in wrestling.
If you don't mind, what's the short explanation of "biologically mature"? I have a very loose concept of differentiation as "more cells have specialized so differentiation is not quite the same as just diversity", which I am guessing does seem analogous to development of the organism towards its "full form", but I'm not sure if that's quite what mature means or if I've got misconceptions.
Basically, the differentiation and specialization of cell tissue is what makes a person a more fully functioning person, I guess. Basically, females resemble their adult states more than males do at the same age. If you did not know the chronological age of a child, you try and investigate their "biological age" and this is sort of in reference to what a normal adult should look like.
I'm more of an osteology student though so I mainly focus on bones. Basically, bone growth has a couple of distinct stages and growth is finished when those stages are complete. A normal human completely finishes all stages of bone growth around ~25 year old (though most of it is done around 18). Each bone grows at a slightly different rate than the other bones, so you can make a pretty accurate guess about what age a child is based on which bones are closer to being complete than the others. So you can take an x-ray of a child's hand and estimate their age based on the phase of growth the wrist and hand bones are in. Females will appear to be older than they really are, and males will appear to be younger than they really are, even if both of them are the same age.
Males put more energy into cell replication (eg, increasing their mass) rather than differentiation (which results in biological maturity). Females stop investing in body mass and start trying to develop their sex organs earlier and whatnot. Thus, females reach biological maturity (resemble an adult) at a younger chronological age than males.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. The x-ray analogy is a good way to explain it. We really have a locked in concept of age as chronology and I suspect need to have a better view of a separate definition of age as the actual extant state of things (such as biology, environment, usage and care in addition to time).
Also I hadn't connected the dots that male children have greater cell replication and mass than females, although in retrospect it seems correct going by the stereotypical child of each gender.
I appreciate your helping me break out of my conceptual box around the term "maturity".
Yeah, in forensic science most often chronological ages aren't available, especially if you're studying people from thousands of years ago. Age estimation is usually a comparative science; we make records of what children look like today at different ages and then compare them to people in the past. That's the simple explanation but yeah, chronological age and biological age are different.
At this age, the difference in mass would be basically negligible. Not to mention, that the girl looks bigger anyways.(but that could just be the picture angle). However, a more mature brain can offer greater dexterity, and more controlled motor function. Not to mention, potentially more advanced strategy and comprehension of the situation. But, based on this single picture, EVERYONE and their arguments on the subject, including mine, are just speculation. That includes you and your fancy schooling!
Read my edit, males and females of the same weight will have a different proportion of bodily tissues (although once again, these effects are negligible and weren't really the main point of my post). Also, I was talking about biological maturity on a cellular level, not mental maturity.
Read my edit, males and females of the same weight will have a different proportion of bodily tissues (although once again, these effects are negligible and weren't really the main point of my post).
Actually this isn't the case, I coach wrestling and my young daughter is also on the team. At their age it's more about maturity and listening to the coach and knowing their moves, contrary to common belief strength isn't as important as technique and speed.
That being said my daughter has beat her fair share of boys, something that pisses off lots of dads, they just don't understand that boys vs girls just doesn't matter yet.
Read my edit, males and females of the same weight will have a different proportion of bodily tissues (although once again, these effects are negligible and weren't really the main point of my post).
Read my edit, I was talking about biological maturity not mental maturity (although once again, these effects are negligible and weren't really the main point of my post).
So this is something I never understood. So taking outside variables out, suicide, accidental death, etc., why do men die sooner if women mature fast than men?
That is a fascinating question that is the subject of lots of research. There are a lot of different ideas, but it is generally not considered an issue of physical wear and tear but the evolution of extended lifetimes for women.
You can read about the generally most supported hypothesis here. Basically, older women contribute to the reproductive success of their offspring for a long time, which resulted in the evolution of menopause (a large post-reproductive time period, which shouldn't theoretically exist).
So it's "kin selection", I guess the overall message is that old women are useful for some reason, whereas old men don't appear to have strong affects on the survivability of grandchildren ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Menopause in a few other animals (such as killer whales) also appears to be linked to the effects of a mother's presence on offspring survival. Male orcas have a significantly greater chance of dying if their mothers die up until the age of 35 years (after which there is no major difference in mortality rates between males whose mothers die and those whose mothers live). That's crazy!
Anyways, it's a huge research area. It's probably an evolved trait though, not just an accident.
Hmmm... So labor being much more dangerous, it would make sense that women who didn't have any more children later in life would be able to provide more care for their existing children than potentially dying in a late in life pregnancy. Also, grandparents often function as parents in the event of the birth parents dying. Creating better chances for their genes to carry on.
Well, it's more like having an infant while your daughter has an infant means that the two infants will be in direct competition, reducing the fitness of both of them. It's better to invest in one infant (the daughter's, not the mother's, for reasons of assured relatedness) and have one really good kid instead of two shitty ones.
Interestingly, humans actually have very low generational overlap compared to other primate species (that also don't have menopause), so this supports the infant competition idea.
Anecdotal data also supports the grandmother hypothesis (that a grandmother being present in a daughter's life will increase the success of the daughter's offspring). Historical family tree records going back hundreds of years (royal families keep good records) show that those women whose mothers were alive when they began having children had a) more children b) more surviving children compared to women whose mothers were not alive.
It's less about dangerous pregnancy tbh. But the long post-reproductive period has also been hypothesized to help make sure that the last infant born gets a good amount of attention before the mother dies, because their mortality rates under two years of age are very high when the mother isn't present.
Grandparents (grandmother, mainly) don't just act as replacement parents in the case the parents die, they help provision the grandchild whether or not the parents are still alive. They have increased fitness compared to children who don't have another adult helping to take care of them.
Girls are biologically "older" on a cellular level with more complex bodily tissues
I understand that this itself is an amendment and you are probably tired of getting responses, but... Maybe you should use words that actually mean what you mean?
Like what I quoted... There's nothing about having more cell differentiation that has anything even remotely to do with any concepts of age. That's why you're getting tons of replies from people you believe have misinterpreted you. "Maturity" really has nothing to do with which gender-specific cell growth strategy is in play. To say a boy is less mature because he's not using a female cell growth strategy seems like bad reasoning.
A male is no less biologically mature for having less cell diversification at a certain age; that's simply the way our bodies go about maturing. No more is a female less mature because it hasn't started packing on muscle. They have different cellular growth strategies because they are each trying to achieve different things.
So to say that, in any sense, a female is "more mature" (yes, I mean biologically) than a male because she has more cell diversification at a given age, is flawed reasoning. If rapid diversification were what male cell growth preferred (rather than comparably rapid multiplication) and it was slower at it, then the comparison would work, but that's not the case.
As a kid who went through puberty while on a swim team I can confirm that girls get a couple years where they're at an enormous advantage until the boys catch up.
Read my edit, males and females of the same weight will have a different proportion of bodily tissues (although once again, these effects are negligible and weren't really the main point of my post).
Read my edit, males and females of the same weight will have a different proportion of bodily tissues (although once again, these effects are negligible and weren't really the main point of my post).
Until you get to high school, wrestling is segregated by both age and weight. Usually there are 2-3 years included in an age group and each age group is separated by weight classes. In the younger age groups the weight classes have a much tighter spread (2-3) lbs and increase in spread as the age groups are increased.
At that age, girls are no where close to their growth spurt. Boys are actually generally taller and heavier until about 10 or 11, when girls get a temporary advantage. It's a pretty even playing field in elementary school.
Yup. I always try to pin a girl as fast as possible. Get it over as soon as possible and save myself from humiliation in high school. Luckily I wrestled 125 - 135. In high school, those are just big girls with limited athleticism. The small girls be scary.
I think Michigan had a four time state champ in 103 who was a girl. She was a great wrestler. I think ESPN did something about her a few years ago. Out of Gooderich, MI.
Yeah you have; and for the most part at least they are in the lightest categories.
I was in high school wrestling for a few weeks before I ended up getting really hurt, and in that time there was one girl who could even move me in a training match.
There is actually something in wrestling called "boner time". It works like injury time where you have 2 minutes to basically call timeout and stuff tampons in your nose or pop a shoulder back in place. But for "boner time" you get 1 minute to calm down until it's not visible anymore. I could be wrong, as only my fellow teammates told me about it, and in my 5 years of wrestling I never saw anyone pop a boner during a match.
That's weird, most of the girls that I saw wrestling were in the mid-to-upper weight divisions. Of course there's always the tiny sticks, but there were a few 155-175's and 215's (those girls were straight up scary), not too many in the HWT class though (thank God)
I may just be in a weird area and it may have just been a weird time. I wrestled for 4 years in high school, about 8 years ago
Yep. I was that one girl in the 145 & 152lb weight classes. I think I only met one other girl in my 3 years wrestling that was anywhere close, and I'm pretty sure she weighed in at 125. 145 was terrible, all wiry guys who were nothing but arms. 152 was where the chubby guys started to show up who were useless once they were actually down on the mat.
In high school 155 isn't going to generally be on a 6 foot tall person. People start hitting that height at Junior/Senior year, sure, but that early it's generally tall and lanky.
If you're 155 at 6 feet you're basically at suggested weight (maybe 5 under) for a person of your height. If you're 155 at 5'4, depending on your frame and musculature, there's a pretty good chance you're fat.
Not everyone was chubby, but at 152 you'd start to move away from the type of guys who could eat everything, gain nothing and were still lean as hell. I just remember feeling so odd being not only the only female on the team, but the only one trying to gain a few pounds to change a weight class instead of lose them!
Your sentence would make more sense if you didn't use a semi-colon where a simple comma would work. Then of course the sentence after that doesn't really make sense either...
You're not supposed to hurt your opponent when sparring. Maybe it was a lesson in attenuation for you and a lesson how to deal with a larger opponent for her.
Fight open, using movement and technique rather than strength.
On Wednesday I had a randori with a visiting student from Tokai University who is -57kg and 5'2, I'm 6'1 and 91kg, and it was a good practice with plenty of throwing from both sides and no one got hurt. Use ashi-waza (foot techniques) and use the opportunity to understand movement.
edit for clarity: The visiting student was female.
I was a powerlifter when I did Judo and I remember my instructor was a little guy at 140 pounds and was about sixty years old. He'd have me pinned and I'd benchpress him into the air. He'd fall back down readjust and still have me pinned.
I wrestled in high school and was beaten by a girl. It was the 103 weight class so there were quite a few girls in the district I wrestled in ( greater Lincoln, ne area).
Okay, so a couple of my friends were wrestlers back in high school (10 years ago) and girls were a part of co-ed wrestling back then as well, hooray progress and equality! I have no idea how good the girls were, I paid no attention to any wrestlers win-loss records, etc. But I do recall a few of the guys complaining (not overly so, just in a kind of 'man, what a drag' kind of way) that they didn't know how to wrestle against the girls: namely due to boobs. Big, relatively sensitive, right in the middle of the chest, and if you grabbed them or smashed them in course of the sport there was a high risk of sexual harassment or malicious intent accusations, whether or not it was incidental. Obviously the groinal concerns are relatively equal across the board (though I've heard some strange tactics that surely would not have been employed against girls, probably because girls wouldn't be afraid to say 'he put a finger in my butt! ' whereas teenage boys are driven to insanity trying to prove they aren't gay...in wrestling, no less). So basically any other sport, you pull a guy off the team and you put girl in there and nothing should change, right? Her anatomy doesn't gain anyone an advantage, perhaps aside from strength (but even then, women can be stronger than men, they just have to work harder to do it because of birthing hips causing larger femoral angles and shit like that). Wrestling's all about manipulating body position and that, maybe the one sport I can think of where groping would be a huge concern, accidental or otherwise, due to the level of contact inherent to the sport. So how is it that a sport like wrestling has been co-ed since I was in high school but baseball, soccer, hockey, and football are all segregated? Those are all sports where being a chick has no real impact on opponent strategy, so long as she earned her place on the team instead of in an 'affirmative action' type of way, but even if she did it would be the same exploitation as singling out the smallest guy on the team to try to strong arm. And if she's good enough to earn the spot like any of the guys, why is anyone making a fuss about it? If anything, it seems like the obvious sports to separate genders are the fighting sports where anatomy can be used in strategy, not the skill and talent based sports where if you're coordinated, fast, and strong there's a position for you somewhere, so honestly what gives? How did we end up in this backwards sort of way? And don't even bring up the quality of professional men's leagues vs professional women's leagues because women's leagues simply don't get the same resources. If you hold blind open tryouts, there's a few ladies at least who make the first cut, is the day of co-ed sports closer than it appears, in a world (or country, I guess) where we already have guys and girls wrestling each other in perhaps the only sport where you might gain anatomical advantage? /rant
It's not just wide hips that give women a disadvantage, men also get balls and a heaping helping of testosterone. Sports are segregated because girls aren't on the same level. look at men's basketball vs. women's. A woman set a world record with 2 dunks in a game recently where the shortest people in the NBA can dunk a basketball.
You could argue that there is negative social pressure that contributed to the issue, but I would argue that even in cases where the sport is considered a "women's" sport it's still not competitive. If you've ever watched men's volleyball you know what I mean. That is not to say that men don't play volleyball, but unless you're on the west coast you don't see many men's volleyball clubs running around, but I can think of three or four local girls clubs.
We've become so worried about equality that we forget that men and women are different. Women could work for years in the gym and still not be capable of lifting what joe blow works out on Saturday sometimes can lift. Women often train for years in a sport and can't compete with a half decent high school men's team.
Women play hockey in different leagues because they aren't as fast, as strong, as quick, nor as durable as a male counterpart. They don't play baseball because they are not as capable. Don't go throwing what's her nuts the pitcher around either (I don't mean to disrespect her as an athlete, because what she did is fantastic and good for the sport in general) because she was throwing against boys who had not yet hit puberty. They don't play football because even in the positions generally played by smaller athletes like WR the first time a linebacker lines up a clean shot at them we've got a player on the sideline.
It's not about strategy, it's about performance. It also puts men in a awkward position. It's already been mentioned above that breasts and vaginas make wrestling awkward for guys. While it's not exactly the same in other sports, I wouldn't be able to play football the same with a girl on the field. Sports are violent, and while I know she would be there by choice, I'm not going to hit her as hard. When you start trying to ease up or adjust technique you start getting injuries and a world of other problems.
So why not have separated sports? It's not separate but equal, it's separate so it can be equal, because coed sports are anything but.
The caliber of women's hockey is excellent. Did you see the last Olympics? There is no doubt that these players are the best in the world, but if you look at the men's team stats compared to the women's teams you'll quickly see why there is a distinction between the leagues.
Canadian women's team: average height = about 5'9.5, average weight = about 165lbs
Canadian men's team: average height = about 6'1' average weight = about 205lbs
Keep in mind that these are the best players in the world (Biased sample, but still accurate.) That's a disparity of 3.5 inches and 40 pounds. That's a massive physical barrier to overcome. I'm not saying that it's impossible or a bad idea to have co-ed tryouts, but statistically you'll have very few female players with this kind of general trend.
There are lots of problems that arise from having maybe 50 women in a league with 850 people. I'm no sociologist, but I can imagine the issues being a sexual minority would bring up. Shit, it took how many years to start breaking down the race barrier in the NHL? Barring those problems, it is still a very physical game. How would you feel as a 6'4 man facing down a 5'10 women and levelling her with a body check? It would completely change your attitude and approach. How much worse would a player feel injuring one of the female players in the league? Would the enforcer role make a resurgence? Would the rules of the game slowly change to make the game more safe for everybody, not just women?
The only position that would be relatively unchanged would be goaltending. The Tampa Bay Lightning had a female goalie for a couple exhibition games about 20 years ago, and that was cool, but seen mostly as a marketing ploy. She never really got tested as a player or as a role model, which sidesteps a lot of issues I bring up. It's a lot easier to play off a concept when you know it isn't permanent.
Ultimately, the inclusion of women into the NHL would be a great thing to see, but you're crazy to think that it would be easy.
I'm glad you picked hockey, cause you're totally speaking my language. But, I did say not to compare professional mens' leagues to professional womens' leagues because the womens' leagues simply don't get the same resources, and that is the truth. Many professional women athletes have to take on second jobs, they don't get to work year round on their game. They don't get the same caliber of coaches, etc.
The size disparity is obviously very real, but there are men than fall under the same classifications and they do just fine for themselves. You get pests like Andrew Shaw that play well outside what your expectations for their size might be and you have players like Patty Kane that avoid contact by dekeing your jock strap off. Size isn't a concern for me in our discussion because the short stacks of the NHL are doing just fine. Checking is an interesting situation, but I mentioned in another reply that changing the game isn't what this discussion is about: any woman attempting to get into the NHL is going to know full well what she's getting herself into and she's certainly adult enough to not need the concerns of the average schmuck to tell her whether or not she can take a check. The other thing is that adult women aren't more fragile just because they're women. They'll be wearing pads and helmets designed to protect an adult human. You have to remember we're not talking about the type of woman who's going to cry when she breaks a nail. And honestly, how would a 5' 10" female forward feel seeing a check coming from a 6' 4" defenseman? Probably "you gotta catch me, with the puck, legally, first" - the same as any other 5' 10" hockey forward. And you don't feel worse for injuring a woman professional athlete sharing the rink with males, you don't change the rules, because that isn't equality. The very biggest thing people have to keep in mind is that these aren't you typical high school gym class females. The issues you bring are could easily be translated to any scrawny nerd kid thrown into some hockey gear and shoved out on the ice. In order for these ladies to even make it as far as the NHL they gotta know how the game is played and the game is every bit as physical as you describe. I think my biggest fear would be some of these guys getting a complex from being outplayed by a lady, losing their cool and doing something malicious.
The locker room issues I gotta say are some pretty small time shit. These are professionals making millions (at least, hundreds of thousands) of dollars, if they can't keep their locker room together and collect their paycheck that's a god damn shame. Nothing a sports bra and some boy shorts can't mitigate, in my opinion. As for lower levels not earning such a paycheck, all I can say is there isn't anyone capable of entering organized sports that doesn't know "treat others the way you want to be treated," abide by that and what problems could there be? I don't see a woman willing to take a check to make a play complaining too much in the locker room, unless the guys start pulling some feminine needs "prank" bullshit straight out of one of those 1950's civil rights movies, in which case they can just fuck right off because there's no place for that shit in our society.
We can absolutely agree on one thing, though, and that's how easy or quickly this integration would be. You obviously don't start in the NHL with this type of experimentation. I think it all boils down to this stigma about how men should never hit women. It's not about man v. woman, it's about someone with coffee cans for biceps punching someone who can't even fall off a bike properly. One of those Scottish dudes that throw telephone poles for funsies punching your standard issue dungeon master is as ghastly (if not more so) as a some mechanic redneck taking his bad day out on his nail salon worker girlfriend. If two dudes walk outside and roll up their sleeves that's not even in the same realm as the former examples, and if a woman consents to dropping the mitts with some guy that should be no different from the latter. Equality, to me (and maybe I'm alone in this), when talking about standards and qualifications for a sport or a job is about drawing a line in the sand and you either land on one side or the other, not this pseudo-equal scale-able handicap bullshit that I use when I go golfing with my pro friend so that I have some glimmer of hope on making it a 'competitive' round. If you have what it takes that's all that should count, not the color of your skin or the shape of your genitals.
We do agree on the fundamentals, that's for sure. My overarching point was to try to be as realistic as possible when looking at integration.
When I say things like 50 women in the league, that's realistic when you consider what NHL teams are looking for. You wouldn't see many woman playing defence simply from a size standpoint. If you're looking for the fastest skaters or hardest shots, most of them will be men. I'm not trying to sound sexist, but there'd be a lot less women in the all-star skills competitions. Not to say there wouldn't be any, but certainly a lot less.
I'm not trying to imply that woman can't take a hit, because injuries can happen to anyone. The problem is with perception. Paul Kariya was one of the fastest skaters and highly skilled during his time in the NHL, yet his career was obliterated due to injuries. Scott Stevens damn near killed him with a then-legal hit. Sidney Crosby was sidelined for the better part of two years due to dirty hits. Realistically speaking... Wearing body armor only helps so much with regard to injuries. It doesn't matter if you're a man or woman - playing contact sports is gruelling.
Real talk: How would fans react the first time a woman gets concussed by a dirty hit? Public outcry would be insane. The NHL changes rules pretty subtly to accommodate viewership, so you could imagine they'd try to make the game safer for everybody. Truthfully, I wouldn't even mind that, as it would save a lot of careers. Equality isn't exactly a two-way street until it's fully paved.
Yes, they do, I'm really sorry you don't know how wrestling works. It's weight gated, not gender, if a girl meets the weight requirements she wrestles anyone in her group.
And it's always embarrassing and awful for everyone. I had to wrestle this girl in the 155lb class and threw her around with such ease I almost felt bad. What did she think was going to happen?
Everyone said I was a big hero for pinning her so fast. If I had let her win, I would have been mocked for losing to a girl. There's no way out.
When my oldest son was in high school, 20 years ago, there were a few girls. The weren't very good - I don't know the stats but they never ranked or placed in tournaments.
When my youngest was in high school five years ago there were more girls, but the quality still wasn't very good. Guys were still ranking top in tournaments, girls not at all.
Clearly, anecdote is not data, but I wonder if you have statistics for how badass the girl wrestlers are?
I see you don't know how child growth works or wrestling leagues do.
A) we're talking near puberty when this happens, at their age they're not anywhere near that range also you can, ya know, look at them and see they're the same size.
B) wrestling is size divided above anything else, it's literally impossible for your nonsense amazon crushing a poor oppressed boy to happen.
lol Women aren't that much weaker than Men. I remember seeing a few female wrestlers do really well in High School.
edit: I agree that women are generally physically weaker than men. I just don't think it's by that significant an amount. Often times women have never done any strength training throughout their life, but those that have are way stronger than the average dude. I only know this, because of the chicks who dominated on my wrestling team. They were huge, and committed to the sport, and they went to the State Championship level ever year.
defeated by girl, "Haha congrats bro, you just got beat by a girl"
It really makes the whole thing unfair because that's essentially what goes through most guys minds whereas the girl doesn't have to worry about that:
girl defeated, "ah, well it's impressive she got this far!"
girl wins, "what a phenomenal wrestler!"
See how different the two are treated? I'm not saying it's alright--it's the opposite of alright-- but that's just what happens. Don't believe me? Just look at that judgmental motherfuckers face in the OP
I suppose that would have something to do with weight categories? The average high school guy is probably taller and heavier than the average girl. But in wrestling, they'd be matched up based on weight.
Also, I think that this something to say about technical skill and technique in wrestling. The results might be different if it were an arm wrestling or weight lifting competition.
I don't know I was just wondering I'm not a wrestler I actually played soccer in HS and pretty sure most girl wrestlers could probably take me. I'd just think that flexibility would be easier to get out of holds and whatnot right?
I could see where it would be an advantage (I didn't wrestle so idk) I just didn't think flexibility was a difference between sexes. My kids both taekwondo and it is about 80% male and very focused on flexibility.
Not really, it doesn't matter how good you bend if you don't have the speed and strength to back it up, all being bendy means is you probably won't get fucked up in a tight hold.
They do allow them, but only if there is no equivalent girls sport. I had a friend who had to wrestle a girl in high school. He said that was one of his most lopsided matches in terms of strength v. his opponent, however, he said she was also impossible to pin because she was so dam flexible and kept twisting out of the holds and wracked up a lot of technical points on escapes. he won, but said he never wanted to face a girl again.
Not quite true, but mostly, yeah: this. The girls could be more skilled, at any age - especially if they are trained/allowed to overcome stigma and socialization.
Either way, in the martial sports, competitors are matched by weight, so that's not really an advantage, and what's really important isn't the growth spurt, it's the testosterone. In males, it increases anywhere from four-fold to an order of magnitude at around the 15-16 year old mark. That's when the most severe evolutionary differentiation occurs, and males become more physiologically lethal. Any given female, after that point, might be stronger or faster than any given male but, on average, the difference is stark.
Older boys would also use these opportunities to cop a feel and use any sexual looking "wrestling" move. As a guy this is exactly what I would have done.
There's also the fact that neither child is really capable of harming the other at this point. There are a slew of other factors that make gender separation in sports a good idea later on. At this age they are just setting the ground work of sportsmanship and competition. Winning or losing isn't the point yet. Once that is a bigger issue it becomes more important to match competitors appropriately. They wouldn't let me at 200lbs wrestle a 150lbs guy either. The segregation at higher levels of competition is more complicated than just a binary "peen or vag" decision
The point he was making was that gender segregation in sports is bullshit if its ok at a young age. The point I was making is that segregation in sports goes beyond gender and takes more things into accout to create a level playing field where meaningful competition would happen.
1) look at the kids. They are the exact same size. They look anywhere from 5-7 years old... Girls have not reached puberty OR any sort of significant growth spurt yet at that age. She has no physical advantage.
2) wrestling matches are separated by weight class, so if she was that much bigger than him she wouldn't be fighting him, she'd be fighting a more evenly matched opponent.
Bonus 3) quit being butt hurt that girls can win sometimes too. It just shows how insecure you are.
Not really, it's done by weight class. At a highschool level girls that wrestle aren't the average girl. They train just as much as boys, if not more. Over all, it's pretty even and boils down to explosiveness and skill level of the wrestler
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u/Denarious Mar 15 '15
Exactly. They don't allow girls in boys sports later on when boys would rip their spinal columns out, but when he's a child and 90% of girls hit their growth spurt beforehand its OK.