Keeping women down
September 28, 2017 at 6:40 pm 3 comments
It’s hard to know what’s worse sometimes. Women who support the idea that their gender needs protected events or men who keep women separate to keep them down and to protect their own superiority.
I can see some point in all sports and games having an Open and then categories for human beings with physical or mental disadvantages, and we can include females in that. Presumably women who play female chess or bridge think that they are inferior mentally.
But to have Male and Female categories is a form of discrimination which has been perpetuated by men in the interests of men. Shameful. Most recently skier Lindsey Vonn wants to compete against men. It was refused her in the past and it is still refused her. The argument given for not, is mindbogglingly specious:
“It will be a very difficult challenge to find a reasonable way of doing this because one point that everyone is underestimating is that we need to have equal rights for everyone,” Skaardal said in a June statement. “So if the ladies are allowed to race with the men, then also the men need to be authorized to ski with the ladies, and I’m not sure this is a direction we want to go. I see it as a very difficult topic. … I’m confident that everyone will think this through.”
Most shocking is the story of Zhang Shan
Zhang Shan…is a Chinese sports shooter and Olympic champion. She won the gold medal in the Olympic Skeet Shooting event at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. This event was mixed, open to both men and women. Zhang Shan was the only woman to win a medal in this mixed event from 1972 to 1992. Zhang was not able to defend her title as the event was open to men only in 1996.
Does it get more disgusting? Let women play until they win and then bar them from competing against men.
It’s obvious that women will get better by competing against men (except in sports where women are already superior should there be any). Marathon running has the situation where the fastest female time is in an open event, and there was an attempt therefore to prevent it from being the world record for females. Apparently it only counts if you only run against women. You can read the details here.
Shaking my head.
Entry filed under: politics. Tags: bridge, chess, gender discrimination, marathon running, Olympic shooting, protecting men, skiing.
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The Overtrick 
1.
Chris Depasquale | January 25, 2019 at 12:25 am
You might like to share your views with Professor Alison Booth at ANU in Canberra about this. She claims to have completed the first empirical study with a substantial data set (140,000+) on the subject. The study concludes that “female competitive performance – even for women who have chosen a competitive career and are very good at it – is enhanced by being in a single-sex environment rather than in a mixed-sex environment in which they are in the minority”.
2.
cathyc | January 25, 2019 at 3:58 am
Downloaded, but I won’t get to it tonight…..
3.
cathyc | October 3, 2017 at 5:32 pm
I’m sorry you missed the point. It was about trying to become as strong as possible in your chosen pursuit. Any female who plays female events will never be as strong as if they play Open exclusively. As your example of Polgar demonstrates.
My, it’s never occurred to me to measure mental impairment that way – by not doing the thing that would make you most money. In that case, most if not all of these women are mentally impaired for playing chess rather than making money in a more profitable way. You can, of course, include most of the male players in that mentally impaired category too. But I guess you’ve voted with your feet on this….
Fortunately there are people who do things for reason other than the best financial gain. The world would be a dull place if that weren’t the case.