The New York Times ran a pair of articles this weekend about high school girls swim teams in Massachusetts. By state law, Massachusetts public high schools have to provide equal access to sports for both sexes. That means, among other things, that if a school has a girls swim team but no boys swim team (due to insufficient funding/interest), then they have to let boys swim on the girls team. They compete with the girls in intramural competition up to and including the state level.
There have been news stories about various similar situations before, usually going the opposite way. Once in a while you hear about a girl who makes a football team (usually as kicker); once in a longer while, she actually gets to play. There are a number of girls who join boys wrestling teams; they sometimes make the news when they make it to the State finals. A couple of times they've even won (usually in the lowest weight class). There have also been stories about guys joining girls gymnastics teams.
This seems different, though. If a girl wants to join a boys' team, she's essentially 'fighting up' a weight class: more power to her. If a boy joins a girls gymnastics team: fine, they're largely competing on intangibles like artistry, where he doesn't have an edge. Swimming, though, is a sport where strength is definitely an advantage. There's a reason why swim teams are segregated in the first place. If it's fair to allow boys to swim on the girls swim team in cases like this, why isn't it fair in other cases (e.g. where there are swim teams for both)? Conversely, if it isn't fair in other cases, why is it fair here?
As I see it, there's just no logic in allowing boys to swim as girls. That's how I put it in the title of the thread, and I know that might be a bit provocative, but I think it's true. It's called a "girls'" swim team, and they're letting certain boys join it. It's not as if the word "girls" is just a meaningless name, it has clear relevance. Most boys can't compete in these events. Can't, as in not allowed. The only boys who can compete 'as girls' are the ones who happen to reside within a school district that has a swim team for the girls and none for the boys. State law mandates this in the name of "equal opportunity", but really it's anything but. + Show Spoiler [more pictures of the Norwood Girls Swi…] +
(photos and captions from the New York Times) Norwood High School's Anthony Rodriguez and Evelyn Metta during practice. Six boys compete on Norwood's girls team.
Rodriguez, center, is among roughly two dozen boys who compete on girls teams in Massachusetts because their schools do not have boys swimming programs.
Norwood Coach Kim Goodwin, left, said she was a vocal opponent of boys' competing with girls before she had boys on her team.
Edit: a number of people in this thread have made the argument that at the high school level, differences between the sexes are negligible, so this excerpt from the first article seems worth quoting.
The New York Times wrote: Higgins’s winning time of 23.96 was a personal best by one second. He broke the girls’ sectional record, set in 1985 by Cynthia Kangos of Wellesley, by 14-hundredths of a second. (The boys’ sectional record is 21.40.)
If 2.56 seconds doesn't seem like a long time, consider that the difference between first and second place in the actual meet (covered in the follow-up article) was .07 seconds.
Edit 2:
On November 20 2011 18:27 NeThZOR wrote: And here I thought, according to the misleading title of the OP, that I would be seeing boys swimming in bikini's Lol
Originally I didn't want to bother making a thread, so I just bumped a slightly related one here, but I should have realized that it wouldn't take more than a page for the discussion to revert back to the OT of that thread. Here are the relevant posts from there: + Show Spoiler [posts from other thread] +
On November 20 2011 10:28 qrs wrote: This is probably worth a thread of its own, but I don't feel like making one, so I'll just bump this relevant one. If anyone feels like using these links to start a new thread, help yourself.
There have been a few news stories over the years related to the subject of this thread: i.e. girls competing against boys, usually as a result of insufficient funding/interest for a separate female program along with equal-opportunity laws; usually in wrestling, sometimes in football or ice hockey.
On November 20 2011 10:28 qrs wrote: This is probably worth a thread of its own, but I don't feel like making one, so I'll just bump this relevant one. If anyone feels like using these links to start a new thread, help yourself.
There have been a few news stories over the years related to the subject of this thread: i.e. girls competing against boys, usually as a result of insufficient funding/interest for a separate female program along with equal-opportunity laws; usually in wrestling, sometimes in football or ice hockey.
How shitty, these boys work so hard and people just want to piss on them. I'm sure none of them are there "just to beat a bunch of girls" and have no other option (other than simply not swim.) If it's such a big deal, maybe they should put weight classes into these strength-based sessions (50-freestyle) otherwise the bigger stronger girl wins anyways.
This is why all sports should really just be unisexed with weight limitations where necessary.
On November 20 2011 11:35 qrs wrote: ^I don't agree. It makes no sense for boys to compete against girls--if it did, they should be allowed to do that whether or not there's a swimming program for them.
As for your "weight limitation" idea, come on. If weight were an important factor in swimming, don't you think that the sport would already have weight limitations, just like combat sports do? The point is that boys are stronger than girls, not that they're heavier. That's why they shouldn't be allowed to compete as 'girls'. If that means that some boys don't get a chance to swim in their school, too bad. My high school didn't have a swimming program either. We lived.
I don't mind girls competing in boys divisions, because that's like 'fighting up' a weight class, but letting boys compete in girls divisions is like 'fighting down' a weight class and that's not fair.
On November 20 2011 10:28 qrs wrote: This is probably worth a thread of its own, but I don't feel like making one, so I'll just bump this relevant one. If anyone feels like using these links to start a new thread, help yourself.
There have been a few news stories over the years related to the subject of this thread: i.e. girls competing against boys, usually as a result of insufficient funding/interest for a separate female program along with equal-opportunity laws; usually in wrestling, sometimes in football or ice hockey.
How shitty, these boys work so hard and people just want to piss on them. I'm sure none of them are there "just to beat a bunch of girls" and have no other option (other than simply not swim.) If it's such a big deal, maybe they should put weight classes into these strength-based sessions (50-freestyle) otherwise the bigger stronger girl wins anyways.
This is why all sports should really just be unisexed with weight limitations where necessary.
Or why sports should be completely separated, having only boy and girl team respectively.
On November 20 2011 11:57 ThaZenith wrote: Well, regarding the bump guy, I don't think boys should have been swimming on a girls team in the first place, regardless of if there was another team for them or not.
The sexes are physically different, and thus why competitively they're usually separated in sports. There's nothing wrong with that fact, I don't know why people are always trying to force equality when we fundamentally aren't.
And I'd probably be pretty pissed if, hypothetically, my daughter was being beaten in a girls competition by boys. Just kinda stupid.
On November 20 2011 12:01 Zirith wrote: It depends on the age group for swimming, girls mature earlier than boys and are therefore faster at around 12-14 then it becomes slightly even, and by 16ish most boys should have a distinct advantage because of body type.
On November 20 2011 13:01 RavenLoud wrote: Rofl waffle.
This just reaffirms to me that women really aren't that different from men. They would be the bully if they could.
So your saying they aren't different then men, and then in the next sentence you effectively say they cant be the bully for some unknown reason? wouldn't there have to be different in some way if they cant be the bully?
On November 20 2011 12:57 qrs wrote: Norwood High School's Anthony Rodriguez and Evelyn Metta during practice. Six boys compete on Norwood's girls team.
(photo and caption from the New York Times. Click the photo to read the article.)
The New York Times ran a pair of articles this weekend about high school girls swim teams in Massachusetts. By state law, Massachusetts public high schools have to provide equal access to sports for both sexes. That means, among other things, that if a school has a girls swim team but no boys swim team (due to insufficient funding/interest), then they have to let boys swim on the girls team. They compete with the girls in intramural competition up to the state level.
There have been news stories about various similar situations before, usually going the opposite way. Once in a while you hear about a girl who makes a football team (usually as kicker); once in a longer while, she actually gets to play. There are a number of girls who join boys wrestling teams; they sometimes make the news when they make it to the State finals. A couple of times they've even won (usually in the lowest weight class). There have also been stories about guys joining girls gymnastics teams.
This seems different, though. If a girl wants to join a boys' team, she's essentially 'fighting up' a weight class: more power to her. If a boy joins a girls gymnastics team: fine, they're largely competing on intangibles like artistry, where he doesn't have an edge. Swimming, though, is a sport where strength is definitely an advantage. There's a reason why swim teams are segregated in the first place. If it's fair to allow boys to swim on the girls swim team in cases like this, why isn't it fair in other cases (e.g. where there are swim teams for both)? Conversely, if it isn't fair in other cases, why is it fair here?
As I see it, there's just no logic in allowing boys to swim as girls. That's how I put it in the title of the thread, and I know that might be a bit provocative, but I think it's true. It's called a "girls'" swim team, and they're letting certain boys join it. It's not as if the word "girls" is just a meaningless name, it has clear relevance. Most boys can't compete in these events. Can't, as in not allowed. The only boys who can compete 'as girls' are the ones who happen to reside within a school district that has a swim team for the girls and none for the boys. State law mandates this in the name of "equal opportunity", but really it's anything but. + Show Spoiler [more pictures of the Norwood Girls Swi…] +
(photos and captions from the New York Times) Rodriguez, center, is among roughly two dozen boys who compete on girls teams in Massachusetts because their schools do not have boys swimming programs.
Norwood Coach Kim Goodwin, left, said she was a vocal opponent of boys' competing with girls before she had boys on her team.
Despite your sexism, you may of had an argument here if the main purpose of high school sports was to win/lose. Denying these young man a chance to do what they love and grow as a person seems more unfair then the slight edge they get from being men in a swimming competition/denying them a chance at a college scholarship, which may be the only way they can pay for college.
On November 20 2011 13:02 Syth wrote: So you're saying those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim then?
Seriously, it's school swimming. Who actually cares if boys are competing with girls.
This pretty much sums it up. It's not like there's a bunch of money in highschool swimming that they're stealing from the girls or anything.
Of course it would be more ideal if they simply had boys teams for them to play on, but if those aren't available, this is what they have to do. It is what it is.
I think this is completely acceptable, and shouldn't be an issue at all. If women are allowed to enter mens teams when there isnt a designated female alternative why cant it go the other way around? I'm sure the boys would rather race against other boys.
This is really dumb, boy and girls are segregated because boys are stronger than girls period. Allowing boys to be on a swim team with girls is a huge advantage to the team, this isn't fair to the other schools that they are competing against and shouldn't be allowed.
Has nothing to do with discrimination but it has everything to do with obeying the rules and playing fairly.
Physically girls are out classed by males pound for pound.
Its like in golf, on the professional womens scene (LPGA) there are 13 year olds competing. Something you dont see on the PGA tour.
But if the team falls though with out the guys swimming then I see no problem, but if the team with the males constantly wins because of the males then there starts to be a problem.
On November 20 2011 13:02 Syth wrote: So you're saying those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim then?
Seriously, it's school swimming. Who actually cares if boys are competing with girls.
Competition is competition. Trust me, people care.
And I'm saying that those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim on the girls' team. If that means that they can't swim for the school at all, because there isn't a boys team, well that's too bad, but it's no worse than not being able to swim because your school doesn't have any swim team. Which, for instance, my high school didn't. It's really not as tragic as you're making it out to be.
Put it differently, suppose that for whatever reason there was a swimming program in a middle school but not the associated high school. Would you say that high schoolers should be able to swim against middle schoolers because of "fairness"? That's a pretty backwards way to look at it, imo.
Remember, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be able to use the pool. Just that they shouldn't be able to compete against girls in state-sanctioned competition. To me that seems like common sense.
good for them, if they want to swim they should be allowed to. Obviously it would be better if they had guys only team, but seriously in swimming you are mainly racing against your own times, it really an individual sport.
Guys can compete in speedos, many do. Girls cannot compete in bikinis from what i know (at least I have never once seen it in like 15 years of swimming, only one piece suits or the full body suits.)
Is this happening in places where there aren't any other schools nearby? When I swam in high school my team had a few guys that came from a different school because theirs didn't have a boys swim team. It seems like this would be a better solution to the problem.
If boys are allowed to swim on the girl's team, then I don't think that they should be allowed to swim in the same events as the girls do. As bad as that sounds I think it's only fair to the girls.
There is a reason why this is only practiced in Massachusetts: Common sense. Also these boys are a bunch of sissys. "Competing" with girls in a sport that requires muscle power? Probably even proud when they won.
I think it should matter. For instance, lets say one of these boys actually is an alright swimmer. So he guys to state championships. If this works anything like Arizona high school state swimming championships, they only take the top 24 people in each event, so he is actively taking that spot from a girl. Then lets say he is a pretty good swimmer and wins girls state as a boy. That just seems wrong to me. Allow him to compete at a different school with a boys team, problem solved.
There is a reason why this is only practiced in Massachusetts: Common sense. Also these boys are a bunch of sissys. "Competing" with girls in a sport that requires muscle power? Probably even proud when they won.
Yeah you would think that they would have some guilt or something... I know that I would.
Gender preferences in the law cause ironic situations?
Who knew this would happen.
As I see it, there's just no logic in allowing boys to swim as girls. That's how I put it in the title of the thread, and I know that might be a bit provocative, but I think it's true. It's called a "girls'" swim team, and they're letting certain boys join it. It's not as if the word "girls" is just a meaningless name, it has clear relevance. Most boys can't compete in these events. Can't, as in not allowed. The only boys who can compete 'as girls' are the ones who happen to reside within a school district that has a swim team for the girls and none for the boys. State law mandates this in the name of "equal opportunity", but really it's anything but.
Yeah it's really not fair when you think gender equality means sticking it to the Patriarchy but other people think gender equality means gender equality.
As long as a girl can join a boys swim team then I don't see the problem. Did the guy join just so he can potentially out swim girls? I doubt it. I would have a hard time believing that the few guys that swim for an all girls team absolutely dominate everyone so badly that an actual problem forms and that people will call it "unfair".
On November 20 2011 13:09 eLe.Long wrote: So... Girls can join boys teams, but boys can't join girl's teams?
So much for equality, eh?
As far as I'm concerned yes, and it is still equal. A boy joining a girls team is him being up a level. But a girl joining a boys team is her having to fight up a level. It's totally equal to make somebody fight down a level but not up? I don't agree.
I agree with qrs, this shouldn't be allowed, even if "equal rights" comes into question. Men and Women are physically different and you don't see professional Men's tennis players playing against Women, it just isn't fair.
On November 20 2011 13:09 eLe.Long wrote: So... Girls can join boys teams, but boys can't join girl's teams?
So much for equality, eh?
You guys are effing stupid. Of course it goes only one way and not the other when it comes to competition. Girls are at a strict disadvantage in muscle and speed sports against boys and if a girl can compete despite that disadvantage then why not let her participate.
Kinda funny back when I use to wrestle, I went to the NY state champs some years ago and i got matched up vs a girl in the third round. I refused to wrestle her and went to the loser bracket. Next round she had to go against the state champ and this kid beat the shit out of her.... I didn't have it in me, to nice of a person lol.
On November 20 2011 11:35 qrs wrote: ^I don't agree. It makes no sense for boys to compete against girls--if it did, they should be allowed to do that whether or not there's a swimming program for them.
As for your "weight limitation" idea, come on. If weight were an important factor in swimming, don't you think that the sport would already have weight limitations, just like combat sports do? The point is that boys are stronger than girls, not that they're heavier. That's why they shouldn't be allowed to compete as 'girls'. If that means that some boys don't get a chance to swim in their school, too bad. My high school didn't have a swimming program either. We lived.
I don't mind girls competing in boys divisions, because that's like 'fighting up' a weight class, but letting boys compete in girls divisions is like 'fighting down' a weight class and that's not fair.
I don't like your "tough shit, don't swim" outlook. If that was a reasonable conclusion in this scenario, then you're only hurting someones potential to do something that could very well be incredibly important to them--and it's not an ideology that sits well if taken away from something like swimming and put into other aspects ("Though shit, you don't get an education.. I didn't have one growin up on the farm!")
Either the school needs to get together with each other and form a boys swim team, or they need to add classifications for sorting. Weight limits are a good starting point--I'm fairly certain that in equal weight (assuming we're talking about fit people here, not fat-weighted) both genders have relative strength equality. If not sufficient, I'm sure some other form of classification would work out to keep the sport unisexed.
Regardless, these boys want to swim, just like those girls from the previous thread want to wrestle. They should be allowed to, and if necessary be placed on opposite-sex teams due to lack of better arrangements. I'm more apt for a unisex athletic world though.
Further, sex divisions in sports have the problem of thinking too far in a binary. There's a massive range of differences between individuals in each sex. There's some men who are smaller built, have less natural muscle, etc, and there are some women who are built like tanks. Then you have to consider transgendered--do we go by gender, or anatomical sex? If the prior, you end up in situations where a possible unfair advantage could occur (though realistically it's a lot smaller of a possible advantage.) If the later, you end up screwing a lot of people into non-competitive situations and forcing them out of sports.
Why not bring everyone together, and have a more realistic way of sorting them out.
On November 20 2011 13:05 Bonkarooni wrote: Despite your sexism, you may of had an argument here if the main purpose of high school sports was to win/lose. Denying these young man a chance to do what they love and grow as a person seems more unfair then the slight edge they get from being men in a swimming competition/denying them a chance at a college scholarship, which may be the only way they can pay for college.
a) Where do you see sexism in my words? In the assumption that boys are stronger than girls? That's just biology.
b) If sports weren't about winning and losing then they wouldn't be competitive in the first place.
You have a point about scholarships and such, so maybe there should be some thought put into allowing the boys to display their abilities in other ways. A girl quoted in the article made some suggestions: "It infuriates me that they can’t combine two schools’ boys to create one team or have them compete in separate heats". Also from the article: "Some schools in the winter offer coed swimming, where boys and girls compete side-by-side in the dual meets and then separately in the postseason."
well it'd definitely be questionable if they start winning state championships, but swimming as always been more about improving your own time, not beating other people
Competition is competition. Trust me, people care.
And I'm saying that those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim on the girls' team. If that means that they can't swim for the school at all, because there isn't a boys team, well that's too bad, but it's no worse than not being able to swim because your school doesn't have any swim team. Which, for instance, my high school didn't. It's really not as tragic as you're making it out to be.
Put it differently, suppose that for whatever reason there was a swimming program in a middle school but not the associated high school. Would you say that high schoolers should be able to swim against middle schoolers because of "fairness"? That's a pretty backwards way to look at it, imo.
Remember, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be able to use the pool. Just that they shouldn't be able to compete against girls in state-sanctioned competition. To me that seems like common sense.
The reason there aren't teams is not enough money.
What you're saying is similar to the arguments that used to be used against having girls' teams or non-football/baseball/basketball/wrestling teams.
You guys are effing stupid. Of course it goes only one way and not the other when it comes to competition. Girls are at a strict disadvantage in muscle and speed sports against boys and if a girl can compete despite that disadvantage that why not let her participate.
People in this thread don't understand human anatomy or anything about sexes. Sports which require pure strength, endurance, dexterity, and anything else physical are separated for a reason. The male body is stronger in every way that a female's it's pure and simple.
Those of you who are saying that women can compete in men's competition so why shouldn't a man be able to compete in women's competition are really not realizing that genders are separated for a reason. It's not discrimination it's fairness.
I don't think boys should have been swimming on a girls team in the first place, regardless of if there was another team for them or not.
The sexes are physically different, and thus why competitively they're usually separated in sports. There's nothing wrong with that fact, I don't know why people are always trying to force equality when we fundamentally aren't.
And I'd probably be pretty pissed if, hypothetically, my daughter was being beaten in a girls competition by boys. Just kinda stupid.
They can swim on the team, practice, compete with other guys, etc. But imagining that a guy could be the champion of the girls swim meet or w/e is mind-boggling.
Its not "fair" in that men have physically superior capabilities in swimming than women. It is fair in that if the feminists force us to ignore obvious physical differences and allow girls to compete in guys sports, that we will overlook them again if it works to the guys favor.
Not letting them play would be unfair because of the exact equality argument feminists used to get girls on boys wrestling teams.And if they don't let them play they are breaking their own system so that it ONLY helps girls. And that my friend, is actually sexist.
So much hypocrisy in this thread. I don't know how people can take a stand where girls can play in guys teams, but guys can't play in girls teams. Either pick no shared teams, or both shared and stand behind that point.
I myself think it's fine, if there's no guys teams they should definitely be able to practice and compete with the girl's team, doesn't make sense why they would lose the right to compete in the sport they love just because of their sex.
The problem is the stupid government causing the schools to not have enough funding for separate teams. I mean, only having a women's or men's swim team makes little sense. I think it's fine for boys to compete that way if it's there only option, though extremely unfortunate and unfair to everyone involved.
On November 20 2011 13:18 Lebzetu wrote: Well it's not like it really matters in that sport, right? Male genetic attributes cant really help you when it comes to swimming.
Lol. Go google swimming records for men and compare them to those same records for women. They are definitely not the same.
This is really a strange situation and I think that what is being done is the right thing for fairness. That said the boys shouldn't be able to go to a state competition against girls and if the scoring is done by teams the boys times should not be averaged in. PS as far as the girls competing is boys wrestling goes I really don't see how a girl can possibly lose. The boy has to lie down on his face at the start of the match to lose as quickly as possible if he doesn't want to get arrested.
You all are assuming that they are better than all the girls, and in swimming skill matters more than strength, so if they are unskilled they will still be bad no matter how much stronger they are. And about the bikini thing, it causes more drag to wear a bikini, so none of them wear one, that is why in the Olympics all the guys wear the full body wet suit looking things.
"That means, among other things, that if a school has a girls swim team but no boys swim team (due to insufficient funding/interest), then they have to let boys swim on the girls team. They compete with the girls in intramural competition up to the state level." If there is any dispute I think the blame should go on the school for not offering a separate team for males. I am not trying to sound sexist, and the same goes for females. If they are interested in a sport (say wrestling) and there is not enough interest or funding, then they join the boys team. I do not think it should be called 'girls wrestling as guys' just as the title says 'guys swimming as girls'. Just because the girl wrestles on a guy team does not make her a guy, just like a guy having no option but to swim with the girls team make him a girl. If there is a disbute about fairness in the sport, then blame the school for not offering more.
On November 20 2011 13:18 ffadicted wrote: So much hypocrisy in this thread. I don't know how people can take a stand where girls can play in guys teams, but guys can't play in girls teams. Either pick no shared teams, or both shared and stand behind that point.
I myself think it's fine, if there's no guys teams they should definitely be able to practice and compete with the girl's team, doesn't make sense why they would lose the right to compete in the sport they love just because of their sex.
Ok hypothetical time:
You are a girl and competing in the 100m at a track meet, for some reason they let a boy compete in your race, mind you this is the race that wins the meet. You get beat by the boy and get second place. He now stands above you on the podium.
Now how is that any fair? You should be the one wearing the gold (or whatever it is). That isn't fair to the other competitors and shouldn't be allowed.
If the schools can't afford two separate teams, then clearly they shouldn't classify their only team as a "girls" team.
Because then people will nonsensically argue that the boys are somehow receiving an advantage.
If this only school team was a boys team, and they let girls on the team, we wouldn't even have a thread here. It's all in the definition, which is irrelevant any way you look at it.
This is just stupid. Sexual equality is all fine, but sometimes girls or guys are just naturally better at certain things. This is one of them. Guys, generally speaking, are better at this. $50 says some dumb@$$ politician did this for political points.
Girls swimming team + guys = Swimming team. If the guys have an advantage, please consider Flash and Jaedong had an advantage against the girls (all other players) in their respective teams. That's fine because it's a "team".
I mean what's the alternative to a mixed team if the school can't fund separate teams... Sorry guys you're SOL. Sigh, crazy day.
On November 20 2011 12:57 qrs wrote: Norwood High School's Anthony Rodriguez and Evelyn Metta during practice. Six boys compete on Norwood's girls team.
(photo and caption from the New York Times. Click the photo to read the article.)
The New York Times ran a pair of articles this weekend about high school girls swim teams in Massachusetts. By state law, Massachusetts public high schools have to provide equal access to sports for both sexes. That means, among other things, that if a school has a girls swim team but no boys swim team (due to insufficient funding/interest), then they have to let boys swim on the girls team. They compete with the girls in intramural competition up to the state level.
There have been news stories about various similar situations before, usually going the opposite way. Once in a while you hear about a girl who makes a football team (usually as kicker); once in a longer while, she actually gets to play. There are a number of girls who join boys wrestling teams; they sometimes make the news when they make it to the State finals. A couple of times they've even won (usually in the lowest weight class). There have also been stories about guys joining girls gymnastics teams.
This seems different, though. If a girl wants to join a boys' team, she's essentially 'fighting up' a weight class: more power to her. If a boy joins a girls gymnastics team: fine, they're largely competing on intangibles like artistry, where he doesn't have an edge. Swimming, though, is a sport where strength is definitely an advantage. There's a reason why swim teams are segregated in the first place. If it's fair to allow boys to swim on the girls swim team in cases like this, why isn't it fair in other cases (e.g. where there are swim teams for both)? Conversely, if it isn't fair in other cases, why is it fair here?
As I see it, there's just no logic in allowing boys to swim as girls. That's how I put it in the title of the thread, and I know that might be a bit provocative, but I think it's true. It's called a "girls'" swim team, and they're letting certain boys join it. It's not as if the word "girls" is just a meaningless name, it has clear relevance. Most boys can't compete in these events. Can't, as in not allowed. The only boys who can compete 'as girls' are the ones who happen to reside within a school district that has a swim team for the girls and none for the boys. State law mandates this in the name of "equal opportunity", but really it's anything but. + Show Spoiler [more pictures of the Norwood Girls Swi…] +
(photos and captions from the New York Times) Rodriguez, center, is among roughly two dozen boys who compete on girls teams in Massachusetts because their schools do not have boys swimming programs.
Norwood Coach Kim Goodwin, left, said she was a vocal opponent of boys' competing with girls before she had boys on her team.
Despite your sexism, you may of had an argument here if the main purpose of high school sports was to win/lose. Denying these young man a chance to do what they love and grow as a person seems more unfair then the slight edge they get from being men in a swimming competition/denying them a chance at a college scholarship, which may be the only way they can pay for college.
Its intramural swimming, no one there has a realistic shot a scholarship. I'm assuming that there is a separate Varsity level of swimming in Massachusetts. Not that level of competition, and on that note, intramural sports are hardly about winning so I don't see a huge problem with this
Somehow I'd still like to see a guy win a girls competition and go off boasting and gloating about it. Like completely bonkers into how little effort they actually put into winning.
On November 20 2011 13:20 Neb1000 wrote: You all are assuming that they are better than all the girls, and in swimming skill matters more than strength, so if they are unskilled they will still be bad no matter how much stronger they are. And about the bikini thing, it causes more drag to wear a bikini, so none of them wear one, that is why in the Olympics all the guys wear the full body wet suit looking things.
Actually, if you read the follow-up article, a girl ended up winning the state championships. So, yeah, it's not all about strength. The guy who came second was a boy, though. .07 seconds behind. And remember, the girl who won was the best girl in the state. The guy who came second was not the best guy in the state. He was just the best guy who happened to go to a school with no boys swim team.
The thing is, it's not about skill vs. strength. Guys are just as capable of being skilled as girls, but girls on average are not genetically capable of being as strong as guys. That means that when you put it all together, guys have an advantage--and you can bear that out just by looking at the record times for girls and boys. They're not the same, you know. That's why it's not fair to allow some men into a competition for women.
And to everyone saying, "well, at 16 boys may be stronger, but at 14, girls have the advantage", well, sure, but who do you think wins high school competitions? The 9th-graders?
On November 20 2011 13:23 TruthIsCold wrote: If the schools can't afford two separate teams, then clearly they shouldn't classify their only team as a "girls" team.
Because then people will nonsensically argue that the boys are somehow receiving an advantage.
If this only school team was a boys team, and they let girls on the team, we wouldn't even have a thread here. It's all in the definition, which is irrelevant any way you look at it.
You're totally wrong about that. If the only school team was a boys team, then when they competed against other schools, they'd be competing against boys, rather than against girls, which is the case here.
If they did do that, then the ones who would be complaining would be the girls, of course, and with right.
The sensible thing to do here would be to revise the system so that schools could send individual swimmers to compete in regional and state meets, regardless of whether the school officially had a "girls team" or a "boys team". If that were how it worked, then you'd be right about the whole thing being irrelevant. That's currently not how it works, though.
Well, most swimming teams have men and women training together regularly anyway. I really don't see a problem with this. It does seem unfair that the men have to compete against women but if there is literally no other option then they need to get their tournament experience somewhere. Just remember that the boys do not want to compete against girls, it is probably just as uncomfortable for both sides. That being said, those boys are pretty lucky that they actually get to swim for their school.
On November 20 2011 13:18 ffadicted wrote: So much hypocrisy in this thread. I don't know how people can take a stand where girls can play in guys teams, but guys can't play in girls teams. Either pick no shared teams, or both shared and stand behind that point.
I myself think it's fine, if there's no guys teams they should definitely be able to practice and compete with the girl's team, doesn't make sense why they would lose the right to compete in the sport they love just because of their sex.
Ok hypothetical time:
You are a girl and competing in the 100m at a track meet, for some reason they let a boy compete in your race, mind you this is the race that wins the meet. You get beat by the boy and get second place. He now stands above you on the podium.
Now how is that any fair? You should be the one wearing the gold (or whatever it is). That isn't fair to the other competitors and shouldn't be allowed.
He was better than her, how is that not fair if it was a mixed competition anyway? It's not like the guy chose to swim in the girl's meet, he didn't have a choice in the matter, it's a mixed meet anyway at this point. And I would say that at high school level, the advantage that a guy would have over a girl if they've both practiced to the same skill point otherwise is being highly overblown.
On November 20 2011 11:35 qrs wrote: ^I don't agree. It makes no sense for boys to compete against girls--if it did, they should be allowed to do that whether or not there's a swimming program for them.
As for your "weight limitation" idea, come on. If weight were an important factor in swimming, don't you think that the sport would already have weight limitations, just like combat sports do? The point is that boys are stronger than girls, not that they're heavier. That's why they shouldn't be allowed to compete as 'girls'. If that means that some boys don't get a chance to swim in their school, too bad. My high school didn't have a swimming program either. We lived.
I don't mind girls competing in boys divisions, because that's like 'fighting up' a weight class, but letting boys compete in girls divisions is like 'fighting down' a weight class and that's not fair.
I don't like your "tough shit, don't swim" outlook. If that was a reasonable conclusion in this scenario, then you're only hurting someones potential to do something that could very well be incredibly important to them--and it's not an ideology that sits well if taken away from something like swimming and put into other aspects ("Though shit, you don't get an education.. I didn't have one growin up on the farm!")
Either the school needs to get together with each other and form a boys swim team, or they need to add classifications for sorting. Weight limits are a good starting point--I'm fairly certain that in equal weight (assuming we're talking about fit people here, not fat-weighted) both genders have relative strength equality. If not sufficient, I'm sure some other form of classification would work out to keep the sport unisexed.
Regardless, these boys want to swim, just like those girls from the previous thread want to wrestle. They should be allowed to, and if necessary be placed on opposite-sex teams due to lack of better arrangements. I'm more apt for a unisex athletic world though.
Further, sex divisions in sports have the problem of thinking too far in a binary. There's a massive range of differences between individuals in each sex. There's some men who are smaller built, have less natural muscle, etc, and there are some women who are built like tanks. Then you have to consider transgendered--do we go by gender, or anatomical sex? If the prior, you end up in situations where a possible unfair advantage could occur (though realistically it's a lot smaller of a possible advantage.) If the later, you end up screwing a lot of people into non-competitive situations and forcing them out of sports.
Why not bring everyone together, and have a more realistic way of sorting them out.
I think you're right, and so is everyone else who's said, "just telling them they can't swim isn't fair to them"--and I think that's a problem that people should try to solve. I just don't think that this is the solution.
The genders don't have relative strength equality. Google it if you don't believe me.
Holy shit, people who are all like, zomg biology boys are stronger then girls are so fucking retarded they don't even understand what they are talking about.
Girls develop faster then boys, boys end up stronger then girls. But it takes them years and years longer to get there. There isn't much of a difference in highschool. You don't see major differences across the board until college.
this is fine unlike the wrestling because there is no brute force, but at this level more technique. i mean why can't they just let him compete on another school's team? i know they do that for us in the TSSAA, we have a lot of students from other schools play our sports here.
There have been news stories about various similar situations before, usually going the opposite way.
This quote shows the heart of the problem.
Equality is a two way street. It is just as possible for boys to be disadvantaged as girls, but society as a whole is much more accustomed to the notion of girls receiving opportunities as a means of promoting equality. So when it happens with boys, it makes somewhat of a "splash".
And equality is the crux of the argument here. Equality will always come at some cost to the group that is currently in the position of power. In this case it's the girls.
Is this situation fair to the girls? No, The boys are stronger and will have an advantage. But what would be even less fair is preventing the boys from swimming at all. It's the same situation with girls joining boys' football: It's not quite fair to the boys that they now have to play with a teammate that isn't as strong as they are, but it would be much less fair to the girls to say they can't play at all.
On November 20 2011 13:18 ffadicted wrote: So much hypocrisy in this thread. I don't know how people can take a stand where girls can play in guys teams, but guys can't play in girls teams. Either pick no shared teams, or both shared and stand behind that point.
I myself think it's fine, if there's no guys teams they should definitely be able to practice and compete with the girl's team, doesn't make sense why they would lose the right to compete in the sport they love just because of their sex.
Ok hypothetical time:
You are a girl and competing in the 100m at a track meet, for some reason they let a boy compete in your race, mind you this is the race that wins the meet. You get beat by the boy and get second place. He now stands above you on the podium.
Now how is that any fair? You should be the one wearing the gold (or whatever it is). That isn't fair to the other competitors and shouldn't be allowed.
He was better than her, how is that not fair if it was a mixed competition anyway? It's not like the guy chose to swim in the girl's meet, he didn't have a choice in the matter, it's a mixed meet anyway at this point. And I would say that at high school level, the advantage that a guy would have over a girl if they've both practiced to the same skill point otherwise is being highly overblown.
But the point is that it was officially not a mixed competition--although, yes, de facto it was one. And if you're saying that there shouldn't be separate competitions for girls at all, then that's where I disagree with you.
As for the advantage that a guy has being highly overblown at a high school level, you can armchair-theorize all you like, but swimming in a pool is as objective as you can get, and the winning times prove you wrong.
On November 20 2011 13:34 metbull wrote: why am I not seeing any articles about girls competing on boys football teams?
On November 20 2011 11:35 qrs wrote: ^I don't agree. It makes no sense for boys to compete against girls--if it did, they should be allowed to do that whether or not there's a swimming program for them.
As for your "weight limitation" idea, come on. If weight were an important factor in swimming, don't you think that the sport would already have weight limitations, just like combat sports do? The point is that boys are stronger than girls, not that they're heavier. That's why they shouldn't be allowed to compete as 'girls'. If that means that some boys don't get a chance to swim in their school, too bad. My high school didn't have a swimming program either. We lived.
I don't mind girls competing in boys divisions, because that's like 'fighting up' a weight class, but letting boys compete in girls divisions is like 'fighting down' a weight class and that's not fair.
I don't like your "tough shit, don't swim" outlook. If that was a reasonable conclusion in this scenario, then you're only hurting someones potential to do something that could very well be incredibly important to them--and it's not an ideology that sits well if taken away from something like swimming and put into other aspects ("Though shit, you don't get an education.. I didn't have one growin up on the farm!")
Either the school needs to get together with each other and form a boys swim team, or they need to add classifications for sorting. Weight limits are a good starting point--I'm fairly certain that in equal weight (assuming we're talking about fit people here, not fat-weighted) both genders have relative strength equality. If not sufficient, I'm sure some other form of classification would work out to keep the sport unisexed.
Regardless, these boys want to swim, just like those girls from the previous thread want to wrestle. They should be allowed to, and if necessary be placed on opposite-sex teams due to lack of better arrangements. I'm more apt for a unisex athletic world though.
Further, sex divisions in sports have the problem of thinking too far in a binary. There's a massive range of differences between individuals in each sex. There's some men who are smaller built, have less natural muscle, etc, and there are some women who are built like tanks. Then you have to consider transgendered--do we go by gender, or anatomical sex? If the prior, you end up in situations where a possible unfair advantage could occur (though realistically it's a lot smaller of a possible advantage.) If the later, you end up screwing a lot of people into non-competitive situations and forcing them out of sports.
Why not bring everyone together, and have a more realistic way of sorting them out.
I think you're right, and so is everyone else who's said, "just telling them they can't swim isn't fair to them"--and I think that's a problem that people should try to solve. I just don't think that this is the solution.
The genders don't have relative strength equality. Google it if you don't believe me.
I can't honestly think of a solution other than A) Sort by sex (which has the issues I mentioned) or B) some sort of categorizing system.
Perhaps a detailed system based on the sport would need to be developed, accounting for anatomical sex (affecting muscle patterns used for the sport actively) weight and other features.
I'm not knowledgeable enough on swimming to really know what would or wouldn't work, however in a case like this I think the entire system is flawed and needs to work on developing a realistic response to these issues if our athletics will continue to grow without impede. Otherwise we end up in situations where kids are turned away on the basis of sex to sports, or are put through unneeded shaming, harassment, or drama as a result (as discussed in the wrestling thread, and in the article.) I feel for the kids that really want to swim and compete, and yet are feeling shamed enough to consider not because of the situation of these school teams.
There is a reason why this is only practiced in Massachusetts: Common sense. Also these boys are a bunch of sissys. "Competing" with girls in a sport that requires muscle power? Probably even proud when they won.
There is a reason why this is only practiced in Massachusetts: Common sense. Also these boys are a bunch of sissys. "Competing" with girls in a sport that requires muscle power? Probably even proud when they won.
are you serious?
Yes. This is not like in the Wrestling example where the girl came to a boys competion and deliberately searched a bigger challenge. In the Wrestling case the guy just discriminated the girl by not competing against her.
In this swimming thing these boys just highjack a girl's competition. That is absolutely pathetic.
On November 20 2011 11:35 qrs wrote: ^I don't agree. It makes no sense for boys to compete against girls--if it did, they should be allowed to do that whether or not there's a swimming program for them.
As for your "weight limitation" idea, come on. If weight were an important factor in swimming, don't you think that the sport would already have weight limitations, just like combat sports do? The point is that boys are stronger than girls, not that they're heavier. That's why they shouldn't be allowed to compete as 'girls'. If that means that some boys don't get a chance to swim in their school, too bad. My high school didn't have a swimming program either. We lived.
I don't mind girls competing in boys divisions, because that's like 'fighting up' a weight class, but letting boys compete in girls divisions is like 'fighting down' a weight class and that's not fair.
I don't like your "tough shit, don't swim" outlook. If that was a reasonable conclusion in this scenario, then you're only hurting someones potential to do something that could very well be incredibly important to them--and it's not an ideology that sits well if taken away from something like swimming and put into other aspects ("Though shit, you don't get an education.. I didn't have one growin up on the farm!")
Either the school needs to get together with each other and form a boys swim team, or they need to add classifications for sorting. Weight limits are a good starting point--I'm fairly certain that in equal weight (assuming we're talking about fit people here, not fat-weighted) both genders have relative strength equality. If not sufficient, I'm sure some other form of classification would work out to keep the sport unisexed.
Regardless, these boys want to swim, just like those girls from the previous thread want to wrestle. They should be allowed to, and if necessary be placed on opposite-sex teams due to lack of better arrangements. I'm more apt for a unisex athletic world though.
Further, sex divisions in sports have the problem of thinking too far in a binary. There's a massive range of differences between individuals in each sex. There's some men who are smaller built, have less natural muscle, etc, and there are some women who are built like tanks. Then you have to consider transgendered--do we go by gender, or anatomical sex? If the prior, you end up in situations where a possible unfair advantage could occur (though realistically it's a lot smaller of a possible advantage.) If the later, you end up screwing a lot of people into non-competitive situations and forcing them out of sports.
Why not bring everyone together, and have a more realistic way of sorting them out.
I think you're right, and so is everyone else who's said, "just telling them they can't swim isn't fair to them"--and I think that's a problem that people should try to solve. I just don't think that this is the solution.
The genders don't have relative strength equality. Google it if you don't believe me.
I can't honestly think of a solution other than A) Sort by sex (which has the issues I mentioned) or B) some sort of categorizing system.
Perhaps a detailed system based on the sport would need to be developed, accounting for anatomical sex (affecting muscle patterns used for the sport actively) weight and other features.
I'm not knowledgeable enough on swimming to really know what would or wouldn't work, however in a case like this I think the entire system is flawed and needs to work on developing a realistic response to these issues if our athletics will continue to grow without impede. Otherwise we end up in situations where kids are turned away on the basis of sex to sports, or are put through unneeded shaming, harassment, or drama as a result (as discussed in the wrestling thread, and in the article.) I feel for the kids that really want to swim and compete, and yet are feeling shamed enough to consider not because of the situation of these school teams.
A couple of people in this thread (as well as in the article) have suggested solutions, including letting boys swim on other school's teams (see CoolSea's post on the first page), or letting the boys swim on the girls team for practice and all that, but to compete in regional and state competitions with boys, rather than with girls.
On November 20 2011 13:18 ffadicted wrote: So much hypocrisy in this thread. I don't know how people can take a stand where girls can play in guys teams, but guys can't play in girls teams. Either pick no shared teams, or both shared and stand behind that point.
I myself think it's fine, if there's no guys teams they should definitely be able to practice and compete with the girl's team, doesn't make sense why they would lose the right to compete in the sport they love just because of their sex.
Ok hypothetical time:
You are a girl and competing in the 100m at a track meet, for some reason they let a boy compete in your race, mind you this is the race that wins the meet. You get beat by the boy and get second place. He now stands above you on the podium.
Now how is that any fair? You should be the one wearing the gold (or whatever it is). That isn't fair to the other competitors and shouldn't be allowed.
He was better than her, how is that not fair if it was a mixed competition anyway? It's not like the guy chose to swim in the girl's meet, he didn't have a choice in the matter, it's a mixed meet anyway at this point. And I would say that at high school level, the advantage that a guy would have over a girl if they've both practiced to the same skill point otherwise is being highly overblown.
But the point is that it was officially not a mixed competition--although, yes, de facto it was one. And if you're saying that there shouldn't be separate competitions for girls at all, then that's where I disagree with you.
As for the advantage that a guy has being highly overblown at a high school level, you can armchair-theorize all you like, but swimming in a pool is as objective as you can get, and the winning times prove you wrong.
Okay don't mean to be picky but you also made a reference to boys playing on girls gymnastics teams. This is a different situation because the two are distinguished. Guys compete on 6 events where as girls compete on 4, the events are focused on the sex (balance for girls such as the beam and grace / form through the floor; upper body strength for guys through the rings and pommel where as the floor displays specific routines not ones that are self created or aligned to music). It is common that schools do not offer mens gymnastics and male gymnasts practice with the female teams using the same floor / vault, but they do not compete together. The difference is you used that analogy with guys competing on girls swim teams, not just practice.
I think this is the same as the girl's wrestling thing. You have gender separation for a reason. The guys have a biological advantage, they're better on average in both swimming and wrestling. Not fair for the girls at all. And then, you'd have guys dropping out of competitions like wrestling because they'd be looked down on if they went all out. You're denying both sexes their chance to shine, and "gender equality" shouldn't be the argument that ends all.
On November 20 2011 13:16 ampson wrote: Have the school team up with another school to form a joint boy's swim team, problem solved.
I created an account too address some of these awful facts people are given. (Longtime Lurker) (I am a boy on a BOYS swim team in Massachusetts)
1. Boys do IN FACT have an advantage over girls in this sport, it's natural, and I'm surprised some people are even arguing over it. The kid who got 2nd in that race probably wouldn't of even qualified for the guys version of that meet.
2. These guys can't just join together and form one team, the logistics of that are incredibly difficult.
3. For these guys, its not like they can just quit the sport and forget about it. ITS probably their only one, and they've probably dedicated themselves to it.
4. There are such things as Co-Ed swim teams, but I don't think thats in Division 2 swimming. (Possible Solution)
On November 20 2011 13:18 ffadicted wrote: So much hypocrisy in this thread. I don't know how people can take a stand where girls can play in guys teams, but guys can't play in girls teams. Either pick no shared teams, or both shared and stand behind that point.
I myself think it's fine, if there's no guys teams they should definitely be able to practice and compete with the girl's team, doesn't make sense why they would lose the right to compete in the sport they love just because of their sex.
Ok hypothetical time:
You are a girl and competing in the 100m at a track meet, for some reason they let a boy compete in your race, mind you this is the race that wins the meet. You get beat by the boy and get second place. He now stands above you on the podium.
Now how is that any fair? You should be the one wearing the gold (or whatever it is). That isn't fair to the other competitors and shouldn't be allowed.
He was better than her, how is that not fair if it was a mixed competition anyway? It's not like the guy chose to swim in the girl's meet, he didn't have a choice in the matter, it's a mixed meet anyway at this point. And I would say that at high school level, the advantage that a guy would have over a girl if they've both practiced to the same skill point otherwise is being highly overblown.
But the point is that it was officially not a mixed competition--although, yes, de facto it was one. And if you're saying that there shouldn't be separate competitions for girls at all, then that's where I disagree with you.
As for the advantage that a guy has being highly overblown at a high school level, you can armchair-theorize all you like, but swimming in a pool is as objective as you can get, and the winning times prove you wrong.
On November 20 2011 13:34 metbull wrote: why am I not seeing any articles about girls competing on boys football teams?
Okay don't mean to be picky but you also made a reference to boys playing on girls gymnastics teams. This is a different situation because the two are distinguished. Guys compete on 6 events where as girls compete on 4, the events are focused on the sex (balance for girls such as the beam and grace / form through the floor; upper body strength for guys through the rings and pommel where as the floor displays specific routines not ones that are self created or aligned to music). It is common that schools do not offer mens gymnastics and male gymnasts practice with the female teams using the same floor / vault, but they do not compete together. The difference is you used that analogy with guys competing on girls swim teams, not just practice.
I'm surprised there are guys who would even consider doing this.
How could anyone possibly endure the ridicule?
This is an obvious case of the rules being very out of touch with public perception. Sounds like a load of socialist "equal opportunities" bullshit to me.
On November 20 2011 13:09 eLe.Long wrote: So... Girls can join boys teams, but boys can't join girl's teams?
So much for equality, eh?
You guys are effing stupid. Of course it goes only one way and not the other when it comes to competition. Girls are at a strict disadvantage in muscle and speed sports against boys and if a girl can compete despite that disadvantage then why not let her participate.
There are tons of muscle lesbians at my gym and on the internet. It can be done, we both have similar biology, the disadvantage takes time to overcome as proven by several USAF studies.
Their studies also show women are at better gender disposition to be good at computer. ;_: Hence the increase in women in the Navy.
I really don't see a problem with this. It's not like the boys choose to swim against girls because they think they have a better chance of winning a shiny gold medale. Their only other option is to either quit swimming or change schools. Both of which sounds as worse options to me.
Unless they are doing some sort of artistic sync swimming, then swimming is a sport where the individual is the only one who can effect their own performance. ie it's not a team game.
A girl placing 1st in a competition with only girls, or 32nd (behind 31 men) in a mixed-gender-competition, doesn't change how well she performed. Unless there is some sort of wierd physics going on when the men participate, that makes the girls swim upstream, against the current, then her time for simming xxx meters wouldn't change. The only thing changing is the people she is being compared against. If the men hadn't competed in this competition but in a men-only league, she would still be slower then the men, and giving her a shiny gold medale doesn't change this.
Why not just be happy that you beat every other girl (just as if ther were no boys). It might just be that I havn't gotten the same competative spirit as some people, but just because Michael Phelps can swim 100 meters in 48 sec, doesn't change the satiscation I get from swimming the same distance in 90 secs
If I as a boy were completly dominating a "girls" competition, then I wouldn't get any satisfation from winning a gold-medale. Instead I would be comparing my time, against other boys swimming the boys-competition to see where I would rank there.
On November 20 2011 14:19 Hansibot wrote: I really don't see a problem with this. It's not like the boys choose to swim against girls because they think they have a better chance of winning a shiny gold medale. Their only other option is to either quit swimming or change schools. Both of which sounds as worse options to me.
Unless they are doing some sort of artistic sync swimming, then swimming is a sport where the individual is the only one who can effect their own performance. ie it's not a team game.
A girl placing 1st in a competition with only girls, or 32nd (behind 31 men) in a mixed-gender-competition, doesn't change how well she performed. Unless there is some sort of wierd physics going on when the men participate, that makes the girls swim upstream, against the current, then her time for simming xxx meters wouldn't change. The only thing changing is the people she is being compared against. If the men hadn't competed in this competition but in a men-only league, she would still be slower then the men, and giving her a shiny gold medale doesn't change this.
Why not just be happy that you beat every other girl (just as if ther were no boys). It might just be that I havn't gotten the same competative spirit as some people, but just because Michael Phelps can swim 100 meters in 48 sec, doesn't change the satiscation I get from swimming the same distance in 90 secs
If I as a boy were completly dominating a "girls" competition, then I wouldn't get any satisfation from winning a gold-medale. Instead I would be comparing my time, against other boys swimming the boys-competition to see where I would rank there.
By the same token, why not let the boys swim by themselves in the pool and see how their time matches up, according to your argument?
People do care about medals, rational or not. That's why these things are competitions in the first place.
I used to swim back in high school, and from my experience, even a mediocre male swimmer would dominate his female counterparts if they are at roughly the same competitive level. There's just no contest. The advantage the male swimmer has over the female one is very significant and should not be ignored.
Yes, it is unfortunate that there is not enough support for a completely independent male swim team, but that does not justify ruining the competition for the female teams. How do you lot think the female swimmers feel about this?
Could someone explain how high school sports work in terms of funding, girls vs boys teams, meets etc.etc? School sports don't exist in Sweden so I have no idea how this works.
Some of you might think it's arbitrary to separate the sexes in sports just because one group is stronger than the other. However, sports is all about arbitrary rules. These rules are designed to keep things competitive and interesting. Why can't pro boxers compete in the Olympics? Why are there weight classes in combat sports?
There are so many examples in sports of rules designed to separate individuals of different strengths. Because it's not all about determining who the strongest person is in the world, but about entertainment and exercise. How entertaining is it to just see heavyweights compete because the smaller fighters simply cannot compete? Imagine a world with no Pacquiao, GSP, Mayweather, etc.
It's not very entertaining if we didn't have all these group separations, and it only serves to contract the popularity of the sport instead of expanding it.. If one group is weaker, then rules that restrict the competition to that group allow us to see them compete. Without them they have no chance to see what it's like in compete in a major tournament and win first place.
easy solution. They compete with the girls but not as girls. If they want to qualify for records, nationals, etc, they have to be compared to other boys. Sure at the local level they might not have enough boys, but at a state/national level, there is.
It's totally fine that they're in the girl's swim team. But does that mean that when they go to Uni they'll still be in the Girl's team? no. nor would they compete as girls at any other event, granted there be enough males. Title 9 allows them to compete together, it does not say they compete equally, nor should they, as males and females have distinct physical differentia specifica which disallows direct comparison in physical competition.
it's not like football where they're competing against each other anyway, since the only thing they're competing against is the clock. Should be quite simple to have their times approved for Nationals separately as a "1 man boys swim team" using the girl's competitions as officially recorded times.
On November 20 2011 14:19 Hansibot wrote: I really don't see a problem with this. It's not like the boys choose to swim against girls because they think they have a better chance of winning a shiny gold medale. Their only other option is to either quit swimming or change schools. Both of which sounds as worse options to me.
Unless they are doing some sort of artistic sync swimming, then swimming is a sport where the individual is the only one who can effect their own performance. ie it's not a team game.
A girl placing 1st in a competition with only girls, or 32nd (behind 31 men) in a mixed-gender-competition, doesn't change how well she performed. Unless there is some sort of wierd physics going on when the men participate, that makes the girls swim upstream, against the current, then her time for simming xxx meters wouldn't change. The only thing changing is the people she is being compared against. If the men hadn't competed in this competition but in a men-only league, she would still be slower then the men, and giving her a shiny gold medale doesn't change this.
Why not just be happy that you beat every other girl (just as if ther were no boys). It might just be that I havn't gotten the same competative spirit as some people, but just because Michael Phelps can swim 100 meters in 48 sec, doesn't change the satiscation I get from swimming the same distance in 90 secs
If I as a boy were completly dominating a "girls" competition, then I wouldn't get any satisfation from winning a gold-medale. Instead I would be comparing my time, against other boys swimming the boys-competition to see where I would rank there.
By the same token, why not let the boys swim by themselves in the pool and see how their time matches up, according to your argument?
Because for boys winning means money for their athletics department and perhaps acquiring a proper male swim team? You're seriously stupid if you think the boys arent embarrassed about the situation and arent overcoming great emotional turmoil for the sport they love. If you have beef with it make it political, and question why there isnt funding in the first place.
As someone who competitively swam nearly all my childhood and teenage life I can tell you for certain that swimming is about beating your own previous best time and progressing against yourself to be better and faster. It is a timed sport, not a team sport. The falsities raised by people that have never participated in timed sports are mainly due to thinking that because a bunch of people are racing it must be about who comes in first. Yes, its nice to have a first place medal but for those actually dedicated to timed sports its far more important to have a faster time than to have a certain 'place' in an arbitrary race.
Consider this, I often raced in a pool with someone well over 6 foot and close to 18 years of age when I was 16 and in the same race was a freshman kid that was lucky to weigh as much as me let alone the fully developed senior. Yet none of us cared, it wasn't about that. We weren't racing against each other, we were racing to best our own personal times. The 'race' if you want to call it that is more for the spectators or people that just want to feel competitive while they try to do their best.
Please consider this when you talk about boys beating girls in races and whether its fair. This isn't the same as point driven team sports. This is an individually driven timed sport.
On November 20 2011 13:02 Kuja wrote: Serious question, as a girl, are you allowed to compete in Bikinis? and Speedos for guys?
You can wear whatever you want, I'm pretty sure, but it'd be dumb to do so. The official gear lessens drag immensley. Where I'm from, it's required that you get/wear one of the shark-skin suits because they're so game breaking
Nice. I love this article. If a Girl competes in a male dominated team/sport she is applauded. In a similar situation where boys do not have the same opportunities as the girls and choose to compete with females they are painted in much less positive light.
It's not like this is the olympic level.... Nor is it a physical/contact sport... What's the issue here? The school obviously doesn't have the means to create a boys team, so let them swim.
On November 20 2011 14:50 Synwave wrote: As someone who competitively swam nearly all my childhood and teenage life I can tell you for certain that swimming is about beating your own previous best time and progressing against yourself to be better and faster. It is a timed sport, not a team sport. The falsities raised by people that have never participated in timed sports are mainly due to thinking that because a bunch of people are racing it must be about who comes in first. Yes, its nice to have a first place medal but for those actually dedicated to timed sports its far more important to have a faster time than to have a certain 'place' in an arbitrary race.
Consider this, I often raced in a pool with someone well over 6 foot and close to 18 years of age when I was 16 and in the same race was a freshman kid that was lucky to weigh as much as me let alone the fully developed senior. Yet none of us cared, it wasn't about that. We weren't racing against each other, we were racing to best our own personal times. The 'race' if you want to call it that is more for the spectators or people that just want to feel competitive while they try to do their best.
Please consider this when you talk about boys beating girls in races and whether its fair. This isn't the same as point driven team sports. This is an individually driven timed sport.
But in most dual meets between schools, each team (from my experience) gets points based on how well their swimmers perform. So, while each event is individualized, each swimmer is still trying to place as high as possible to score points for their team.
In meets like these, it's perfectly reasonable for individuals to think of the team first (swimming in a hated event for the good of the team, not trying as hard in an event you've clearly won in order to do better in a more competitive event) in order to maximize the points the team scores, in order to win the meet.
Copy and pasted from other thread (with minor edits)
There has been a great level of disparity between the genders and the hope is that we are moving towards a time when people of different genders will be treated with equal respect and garnish equal freedoms. Men have competed in sporting events much longer than women and with many sporting events there is a negative stigmata that comes with a female who competes. Separating the sports by gender was a great method (in my opinion) to generate a greater interest in sports for women. Women who may have been too intimidated by social pressures before were now praised in a very healthy encouraging environment.
I think that separating the leagues by gender is a great way to bring women into male dominated sports or to bring men into female dominated sports. But I think that keeping these sports separate is inherently sexist. It draws a strong distinction between men and women and loudly exclaims "No! Men and Women can't compete at the same level!" That is clearly sexist.
I would equate this with trying to create a league for different ethnicities. Well there are more successful black basketball players so we should make a separate league based on ethnicity. I can understand creating different leagues in order to keep people interested. But every league, in every sport, should be open to any player who is good enough, regardless of race, creed, gender, sexual orientation etc. Forbidding players to participate in a league based on anything aside from skill is discriminatory.
Boys should definitely be allowed to swim and practice.
As for the competing part, at first I got caught up in the inherent unfairness. But then I thought, it's not like they'd allow the boys to have their records engraved in history. And the second place girl could just astericks her placement in a resume, saying that she lost to a boy. So no big deal.
There is a reason why this is only practiced in Massachusetts: Common sense. Also these boys are a bunch of sissys. "Competing" with girls in a sport that requires muscle power? Probably even proud when they won.
are you serious?
Yes. This is not like in the Wrestling example where the girl came to a boys competion and deliberately searched a bigger challenge. In the Wrestling case the guy just discriminated the girl by not competing against her.
In this swimming thing these boys just highjack a girl's competition. That is absolutely pathetic.
You do realize that there is no boys swim team right? So a kid that joins the girls swim team because there isn't a boys swim team is pathetic? lol It may not be fair but you are villanizing the boys for absolutely no reason
As someone who swam 4 years of competitive swimming in my younger years, certain events give more of an innate advantage to men over women than others, but the general advantage at the top is to the men. Men are larger and more muscular and with every stroke, that additional muscle and torque from longer limbs is a positive. It's less of a positive in, say, breaststroke, but it's still a net positive factor.
The taller, stronger swimmer, skill and conditioning equal, will always win the race.
If there's no boys team, I think it would be fair to have them compete at events under the flag of another team, or "unattached." They can still practice with the girls no problem.
On November 20 2011 15:41 igotmyown wrote: Boys should definitely be allowed to swim and practice.
As for the competing part, at first I got caught up in the inherent unfairness. But then I thought, it's not like they'd allow the boys to have their records engraved in history. And the second place girl could just astericks her placement in a resume, saying that she lost to a boy. So no big deal.
yeah, why bother competing in a women's league? you going to brag about it to your friends if you win? you going to put on your resume #1 women's team swimmer? i would think this would be a lifetime stain on your life achievements and something you wouldn't want to talk about.
i understand that they have no other choice (no men's team), but still . . . maybe they should consider another sport.
People in this thread don't understand human anatomy or anything about sexes. Sports which require pure strength, endurance, dexterity, and anything else physical are separated for a reason. The male body is stronger in every way that a female's it's pure and simple.
Those of you who are saying that women can compete in men's competition so why shouldn't a man be able to compete in women's competition are really not realizing that genders are separated for a reason. It's not discrimination it's fairness.
This. How anyone can not understand the physical difference between men and women is beyond me - they are important in all sports but even more so in purely physical sports like running and swimming.
There's a similar case recently of a boy joining a Girl's field hockey team, and its actually starting to become a systematic issue.
A couple years ago some boy in Pennsylvania joined the girl's field hockey team and just face-rolled everyone to win the State Championship.
Since field hockey is traditionally only offered as a girl's team, it means any boys can join, so after a couple publicized incidents like this guy, a lot of teams are now having male Ice Hockey players added to the rosters, and essentially putting the female athletes in the backseat on their own team.
People are competitive, and they do things required to win. Allowing this sort of male entry into female competitions simply forces the females who it is meant for into a secondary role, and that's not what we should be doing.
In sports we have divisions for everything. Age groups, Gender groups, Skill levels...
The logic behind letting girls into male sports is "If she's good enough, who's it going to hurt?" That logic simply does not apply in the reverse situation, and the Title 9 laws should not work in reverse.
There's a similar case recently of a boy joining a Girl's field hockey team, and its actually starting to become a systematic issue.
A couple years ago some boy in Pennsylvania joined the girl's field hockey team and just face-rolled everyone to win the State Championship.
Since field hockey is traditionally only offered as a girl's team, it means any boys can join, so after a couple publicized incidents like this guy, a lot of teams are now having male Ice Hockey players added to the rosters, and essentially putting the female athletes in the backseat on their own team.
People are competitive, and they do things required to win. Allowing this sort of male entry into female competitions simply forces the females who it is meant for into a secondary role, and that's not what we should be doing.
In sports we have divisions for everything. Age groups, Gender groups, Skill levels...
The logic behind letting girls into male sports is "If she's good enough, who's it going to hurt?" That logic simply does not apply in the reverse situation, and the Title 9 laws should not work in reverse.
i understand what you mean, but if you treat men differently from women in any respect then Title 9 is violated. you cant have different rules for men and women.
I went to a high school in massachusetts, and if I'd known it was possible to do swim before I joined the math team I might have wanted to do it.
These boys get ridiculed for swimming on a girls team. They don't do it for easy rewards. They do it for fun.
That said I think only girls should be allowed to win fastest swimmer titles. If a boy does well enough he should compete at the boys swim finals. I can see boys using their wins on their college applications without saying they were competing with a natural advantage otherwise.
On November 20 2011 16:09 obesechicken13 wrote: I went to a high school in massachusetts, and if I'd known it was possible to do swim before I joined the math team I might have wanted to do it.
These boys get ridiculed for swimming on a girls team. They don't do it for easy rewards. They do it for fun.
That said I think only girls should be allowed to win fastest swimmer titles. If a boy does well enough he should compete at the boys swim finals. I can see boys using their wins on their college applications without saying they were competing with a natural advantage otherwise.
Yeah I don't think anyone is saying the boys shouldn't be allowed to train and swim with the girls. It's actual competitions we're debating about.
There's a similar case recently of a boy joining a Girl's field hockey team, and its actually starting to become a systematic issue.
A couple years ago some boy in Pennsylvania joined the girl's field hockey team and just face-rolled everyone to win the State Championship.
Since field hockey is traditionally only offered as a girl's team, it means any boys can join, so after a couple publicized incidents like this guy, a lot of teams are now having male Ice Hockey players added to the rosters, and essentially putting the female athletes in the backseat on their own team.
People are competitive, and they do things required to win. Allowing this sort of male entry into female competitions simply forces the females who it is meant for into a secondary role, and that's not what we should be doing.
In sports we have divisions for everything. Age groups, Gender groups, Skill levels...
The logic behind letting girls into male sports is "If she's good enough, who's it going to hurt?" That logic simply does not apply in the reverse situation, and the Title 9 laws should not work in reverse.
i understand what you mean, but if you treat men differently from women in any respect then Title 9 is violated. you cant have different rules for men and women.
Then Violate Title 9
You most certainly Can have different rules for men and women, most sports and many laws certainly do.
Title 9 isn't there to 'Stop Sexism' It was made to Let girls on Boy's teams when there was no girls team.
If it allows boys on girl's teams...it's only because someone wasn't thinking or they wrote the law wrong.
Sometimes a law doesn't make sense and you've got to fix it. That's the case here.
Doesn't bother me on a high school level. If this were the Olympics or something I could see people being upset. Then again, I've never really taken any high school sports very seriously, so my opinion might be somewhat slanted.
On November 20 2011 16:23 Thingdo wrote: Doesn't bother me on a high school level. If this were the Olympics or something I could see people being upset. Then again, I've never really taken any high school sports very seriously, so my opinion might be somewhat slanted.
Student-Athletes can get full ride scholarships for High School performance, and in some sports, end up with multi-million dollar contracts right out of high school.
Michael Phelps had just graduated High School 3 months he won 6 gold medals in Athens.
On November 20 2011 13:09 eLe.Long wrote: So... Girls can join boys teams, but boys can't join girl's teams?
So much for equality, eh?
Whilst I think that if it's between guys swimming on a girls team or not swimming at all they should be allowed to swim on the girls team, this is a pretty stupid comment lol these rules aren't pointless and arbitrary, it is because in physical activities guys tend to have an inherent advantage just by being a male. It doesn't matter in this case since it's just school swimming, but women wouldn't win jack shit in sports (apart from maybe like gymnastics and a few exceptions) if they had to compete with guys.
you know, i'd be fine with them practicing with, but not competing with.
i hope people realize that gender does make a difference in this case; i don't remember the specific pr's but at my school the boys pr's were vastly superior to the girl's and i'm pretty sure this is the case in any school.
On November 20 2011 16:40 Whyzguy wrote: Tossgirl to pro-team. mmm.... meh sure I guess.
Now imagine Boxer to... I don't even know what it's called.
There's your answer.
in games there is no advantage to whether or not you are male or female. in actual sports... there clearly is.
On November 20 2011 17:10 dUTtrOACh wrote: I'm curious if they send the shit male swimmers to the girls' team after tryouts, or if they just say: "Sorry, list's full. But the girls' swim team has an opening." If they're sending the lower portion of the male swimmers, I don't think gender equality is even observed in this case. It's just an elaborate diss.
that would be just silly "The New York Times ran a pair of articles this weekend about high school girls swim teams in Massachusetts. By state law, Massachusetts public high schools have to provide equal access to sports for both sexes. That means, among other things, that if a school has a girls swim team but no boys swim team (due to insufficient funding/interest), then they have to let boys swim on the girls team. They compete with the girls in intramural competition up to the state level."
I'm curious if they send the shit male swimmers to the girls' team after tryouts, or if they just say: "Sorry, list's full. But the girls' swim team has an opening." If they're sending the lower portion of the male swimmers, I don't think gender equality is even observed in this case. It's just an elaborate diss.
If fair competition were the priority, perhaps this would be a problem. But I imagine the priority is more that the kids be able to enjoy themselves, make friends, and be healthy. I don't see a reason to place competitiveness above that.
On November 20 2011 17:10 dUTtrOACh wrote: I'm curious if they send the shit male swimmers to the girls' team after tryouts, or if they just say: "Sorry, list's full. But the girls' swim team has an opening." If they're sending the lower portion of the male swimmers, I don't think gender equality is even observed in this case. It's just an elaborate diss.
The article clearly states that this can only happen if a boy's team does not exist
On November 20 2011 17:14 Befree wrote: If fair competition were the priority, perhaps this would be a problem. But I imagine the priority is more that the kids be able to enjoy themselves, make friends, and be healthy. I don't see a reason to place competitiveness above that.
I can guarantee you that a lot of these athletes are extremely competitive, and don't give a shit about priority.
When I did XC/Track in high school, I appreciated the sport and what it did for me, but I cared a lot more about my performance, my placement, beating people on the course and beating people on my team. Looking back it does seem a little foolhardy to care so much about high school sports, but I really did care, and so did a lot of my teammates (male and female). I know that they would have been raging if the girls would compete with the guys.
The difference between placing 1st or 7th is actually a big deal as an athlete.
@OP You can't see a reason that he should be allowed? Do you realize that your conception of fairness is there because Tit-for-Tat with forgiveness, or Pavlov, is a close to optimal solution to prisoner's dilemma? Natural selection has built into you a repulsion against anything that seems to be unfair as it was an optimal social approach for all your ancestors. It doesn't mean your position is reasoned. Your brain is hugely biased to retract from what seems to be unfair, and you engage in after-the-fact rationalization (what evolutionary psychologists call your brain's lawyer) to support your gut feeling.
used to be a swimmer for many years. when it comes to swimming, as my coach would put it, its 10 percent about strength while the rest is made up of technique. not to say that there isnt an advantage if youve got greater strenght but i reckon its more negligible in this particular sport. had plenty of girls and women on my swim team that were plenty faster than me, while weighing in at about 20 kgs less and not looking anything muscular at all.
What I do not understand is why they have to compete against girls? I mean swimming is an individual sport (except for relays), sure they can train with the girls if thats more convenient to them or the school, but why can't they then just swim against boys at the competition?
On November 20 2011 17:54 Fatta wrote: What I do not understand is why they have to compete against girls? I mean swimming is an individual sport (except for relays), sure they can train with the girls if thats more convenient to them or the school, but why can't they then just swim against boys at the competition?
That's what they do here in Australia, we have mixed ages and genders when practicing quite often, but at sport you will compete within your own division.
The Massachusetts system defies all logic and I think its more about schools exploiting a loop hole than the law itself. I'd say the law was gender neutral because they didn't think it would happen in reverse. Honestly I think the schools could easily create a boys team that trains with the girls even if there was only one guy.
On November 20 2011 13:23 Djzapz wrote: Dear first world problem batman.
Girls swimming team + guys = Swimming team. If the guys have an advantage, please consider Flash and Jaedong had an advantage against the girls (all other players) in their respective teams. That's fine because it's a "team".
I mean what's the alternative to a mixed team if the school can't fund separate teams... Sorry guys you're SOL. Sigh, crazy day.
because starcraft is not a physically demanding sport where muscle mass is important and a deciding factor in victory, along with arm span, and leg length.
Unless there is no competitive aspect to the swim team, this is obviously wrong. You can't have true competition with imbalance and yes, men are imbalanced compared to woman physically. Whether it's as relevant at a high school level or not doesn't matter. You discredit your achievements competing as a male.
because starcraft is not a physically demanding sport where muscle mass is important and a deciding factor in victory, along with arm span, and leg length.
Funny then, how no female has ever broken through in any scene as a top level player. (Or even remotely close and DON'T even try to mention Tossgirl)
On November 20 2011 16:18 Gnaix wrote: I don't know, is letting a master player into a diamond only tournament fair?
the difference is, diamond and master are groups based (for the most part) on skill. Male and Female are based on gender, and unless you want to open up the can of worms that is calling male and female inherently unequal, you have to call them equal
Doesn't matter too much but if we give girls the chance to wrestle cause there's no team for them, and dudes really wanna swim, they should be able to. It should go both ways.
On November 20 2011 16:18 Gnaix wrote: I don't know, is letting a master player into a diamond only tournament fair?
the difference is, diamond and master are groups based (for the most part) on skill. Male and Female are based on gender, and unless you want to open up the can of worms that is calling male and female inherently unequal, you have to call them equal
I wouldn't expect it's a can of worms. There's publicly available evidence that the mean of the Gaussian is far superior for males.
On November 20 2011 16:18 Gnaix wrote: I don't know, is letting a master player into a diamond only tournament fair?
the difference is, diamond and master are groups based (for the most part) on skill. Male and Female are based on gender, and unless you want to open up the can of worms that is calling male and female inherently unequal, you have to call them equal
You can talk socio/political/economical equality all you want but if you are talking about swimming you are in the realm of biology, men and women are not equal, its why two males dont reproduce, and we dont have asexual reproduction, and why if a female has a lot of testosterone in a drug test in the olympics we consider it signs of cheating.
I am confuse. It seems to me that since swimming is primarily a sport for individuals (barring a few subcategories), so why not let the boys practice on the girls team but swim as boys against boys? Is there some sort of interschool scoring(pride) system that I am not aware of? Why in the world would you think "Well, they practice with girls, so I think it's only fair of they also compete with them."?
On November 20 2011 18:46 DerNebel wrote: I am confuse. It seems to me that since swimming is primarily a sport for individuals (barring a few subcategories), so why not let the boys practice on the girls team but swim as boys against boys? Is there some sort of interschool scoring(pride) system that I am not aware of? Why in the world would you think "Well, they practice with girls, so I think it's only fair of they also compete with them."?
I believe you sign up as a team, if the boys wanted to be listed in the boy's competition, they would have to sign up as a team, then you would have the girls compete with boys. Its like starcraft right, you join proleague and teamleague as a team, even though you are playing 1v1.
On November 20 2011 17:34 arbitrageur wrote: @OP You can't see a reason that he should be allowed? Do you realize that your conception of fairness is there because Tit-for-Tat with forgiveness, or Pavlov, is a close to optimal solution to prisoner's dilemma? Natural selection has built into you a repulsion against anything that seems to be unfair as it was an optimal social approach for all your ancestors. It doesn't mean your position is reasoned. Your brain is hugely biased to retract from what seems to be unfair, and you engage in after-the-fact rationalization (what evolutionary psychologists call your brain's lawyer) to support your gut feeling.
I've never seen more bullshit condensed into a single paragraph.
Did you like, just take a Game Theory and intro to Psych Class this week? This is absolute nonsense.
Yes, people do often object to things they don't think are fair, and there's social value in being perceived to be fair or not greedy...
But that's not in any way at play here. Nor it is After-The-Fact in any way.
It's quite the opposite, it's been meticulously and with great forethought determined well ahead of time what gender and age groupings would be made for which sports, and specific reasons for those groupings.
You'll notice most children's teams are often co-ed up to a certain age, and only separated into boy's and girl's teams after gender difference are appearing. (Soccer, Hockey, Basketball..) Other sports are actually separated from the beginning, due to different skill sets that will apply later on (Gymnastics, Tennis, Golf)
The ages of divisions within sports are usually not arbitrary either, and are often subject to change when science points to better cut-offs. The more physically demanding a sport is, the more likely it is to have smaller age cut-offs because of slight differences in development, which are often then revised by the governing body of the sport. For instance, Hockey Canada has gone from age cut offs of 2 years down to 1 year after realizing the physical differences between a 14 y/o and 15y/o male were just too large. They're even piloting in some areas now the idea of using 6 month rolling cut-offs, after finding out that 90% of Top Junior age players were born in September or October, because the age cut-off is Sept 1st, so they're the oldest and most developed kids each season.
The point is, in sports where being an Inch Taller or shorter, 5lbs heavier or Lighter, 2 months older or Younger, 1% stronger or weaker... In sports that are this competitive. It's not arbitrary at all that people seek a level playing field.
Some of the rules even go against what your gut feeling would be, but are based on observation and science behind the sports.
So overall, while most people would certainly think this is unfair intuitively...their intuition is backed up by a myriad of stats and evidence that verify their instinct...and is not a salivating reaction.
Either the kid swims in this girl team or he can't swim at all. That is the end of it.
Why this parade of "men are better then women but not really but they really are" eludes me. Nowhere in this article is it ever suggested that the olympics are going to mingle their swimmers.
It's high school swimming. Get a little perspective seriously.
IMO the proper thing to do would be to have them compete against males on the other people's teams. If this is not the case, have them compete in lower level competition. Since swimming is an individual sport (opposed to both footballs, basketball, baseballs, etc) if they make it far enough, they should have to compete against other males. Likewise, even though they're training and are technically on the girl's team, they should have their records applied to the state/regional/score BOYS record, rather than the girls, which makes no sense to me.
I'm gonna say this again, because this should never be a problem for a sport like swimming. Individual based sports (IE Track & Field, Swimming, Weightlifting, etc) should never have to deal with restrictions or integration of sexes, as the efforts of the individual are unaffected by the performance of their teammates. I can see this being an issue in scoring, but otherwise, it's not like the male is gonna jump across the lanes and attempt to wrestle the girls down, as would be the case in say, water polo. I say let them swim, but put restrictions on what titles they can earn or what points they can earn.
Funny then, how no female has ever broken through in any scene as a top level player. (Or even remotely close and DON'T even try to mention Tossgirl)
sociological/economic/political reasons are why there are no top level female players. Its all numbers, gaming is a majorly male dominated area, its less common for girls to play games. Its slowly becoming more common, there are sure to be some girls out there that are as good as Flash. But they dont have the same chance to perform at it as males do.
The same argument could be made for professional magic players, they are all male, its a male dominated area and it is difficult for women to get in the sport.
Funny then, how no female has ever broken through in any scene as a top level player. (Or even remotely close and DON'T even try to mention Tossgirl)
sociological/economic/political reasons are why there are no top level female players. Its all numbers, gaming is a majorly male dominated area, its less common for girls to play games. Its slowly becoming more common, there are sure to be some girls out there that are as good as Flash. But they dont have the same chance to perform at it as males do.
The same argument could be made for professional magic players, they are all male, its a male dominated area and it is difficult for women to get in the sport.
I disagree, but have no contradicting evidence to back up my thoughts, so withdraw from this argument. If you can think of any sports that challenge you like sc2 and aren't as male dominated, please post though! (Unless derailing thread).
On November 20 2011 19:52 xM(Z wrote: its fair to boys but unfair to girls.
a small boy has no choice but to compete against a "large" boy in swimming, there are no weight classes. how is that fair on a guy who has no choice that he is 1ft shorter than the other guy or a bad build for swimming. its just school league swimming let them both swim even though its 'unfair' on 1 guy.
then based on that how is it any different than a mid sized boy (small in sporting terms) competing against a girl? its not her fault, but its not his fault either. swimming doesnt have weight categories, its just a good vs bad situation. whether its right or wrong to have sex segregation is an argument on its own but probably not for this thread. my point is that swimming is imbalanced all the time and therefore to make the best of the situation they can they should just let the boys swim, however it is feasible for their school funding.
you know what i first thought when i saw the picture? the boy is DRESSING in girl's swimsuit to swim in some high school. not that bizarre compare to many more bizarre news that we have heard from US all these years.
On November 20 2011 19:52 xM(Z wrote: its fair to boys but unfair to girls.
a small boy has no choice but to compete against a "large" boy in swimming, there are no weight classes. how is that fair on a guy who has no choice that he is 1ft shorter than the other guy or a bad build for swimming. its just school league swimming let him swim.
then based on that how is it any different than a mid sized boy (small in sporting terms) competing against a girl? its not her fault, but its not his fault either. swimming doesnt have weight categories, its just a good vs bad situation. whether its right or wrong to have sex segregation is an argument on its own but probably not for this thread. my point is that swimming is imbalanced all the time and therefore to make the best of the situation they can they should just let the boys swim, however it is feasible for their school funding.
To expand upon this point. There are even more inequalities that we don't account for in situations like this. What if there was an incredibly rich team who could buy good private training for all the athletes? Should their individual contribution be controlled as well since it gives them an "unfair" advantage? What about kids who get held back a year? Or, on the flipside, should we make swim leagues for kids with minor disabilities, like asthma? It's certainly unfair they must compete on the same stage as kids with no health problems.
Compensating for so many variables is a luxury. These kids don't have that luxury, so they must compete in whatever way possible.
On November 20 2011 20:13 BurningSera wrote: you know what i first thought when i saw the picture? the boy is DRESSING in girl's swimsuit to swim in some high school. not that bizarre compare to many more bizarre news that we have heard from US all these years.
My thought exatly .. But srsly tho dont see problem with if they are allowed to do it by law
On November 20 2011 16:04 Runnin wrote: This. How anyone can not understand the physical difference between men and women is beyond me - they are important in all sports but even more so in purely physical sports like running and swimming.
Not sure what you mean by this. In general, men have a bigger proportional advantage in non-'pure' sports like basketball or football or whatever. This is partially because such sports are a bit exploitative in nature, in the sense that a physical advantage is often magnified many times by the nature of the sport (i.e., a top man may beat a top woman by about 10% in a sprint, but a top male tennis player will beat a top female tennis player 6-0,6-0, or a top men's basketball team would beat a top female team by a hundred plus points).
The other reason is that such sports select for a wide range of athletic ability. Consider an elite wide receiver in the NFL, for example, or an elite linebacker, corner, or safety. Not only does such a man often run a 100m time faster than any woman on the planet, but he also has a greater vertical leap than any woman on the planet, greater agility, and has world-class strength by female standards (probably there are a few women who could bench more or whatever, but they obviously don't have any sort of speed or agility). Having inadequate ability in any single athletic aspect will be completely exploited in these sports.
On November 20 2011 16:04 Runnin wrote: This. How anyone can not understand the physical difference between men and women is beyond me - they are important in all sports but even more so in purely physical sports like running and swimming.
Not sure what you mean by this. In general, men have a bigger proportional advantage in non-'pure' sports like basketball or football or whatever. This is partially because such sports are a bit exploitative in nature, in the sense that a physical advantage is often magnified many times by the nature of the sport (i.e., a top man may beat a top woman by about 10% in a sprint, but a top male tennis player will beat a top female tennis player 6-0,6-0, or a top men's basketball team would beat a top female team by a hundred plus points).
The other reason is that such sports select for a wide range of athletic ability. Consider an elite wide receiver in the NFL, for example, or an elite linebacker, corner, or safety. Not only does such a man often run a 100m time faster than any woman on the planet, but he also has a greater vertical leap than any woman on the planet, greater agility, and has world-class strength by female standards (probably there are a few women who could bench more or whatever, but they obviously don't have any sort of speed or agility). Having inadequate ability in any single athletic aspect will be completely exploited in these sports.
Yeah, and similarly you can argue that different races have different genetic makeups that makes some races predisposed to do well in certain sports. For example, Africans are physically more suited for running, Caucasians are better at swimming, etc. So why don't they segregate sportsmen by race? Because it's special pleading, and the whole purpose of sport is to determine who has better ability in the first place. The same should go for gender.
User was warned for this post
edit: Well, I meant that there is strong evidence that race is correlated to physical differences, as genes that determine race (although an arbitrary concept) correlate with genes that determine physicality. I didn't mean or say anywhere that skin colour or origin determines abilities, and I know that that is untrue. Not racist in any way, but I guess it was misconstrued by a mod who made assumptions..
I'd never considered the racial vs sex split before, but it actually makes a lot of sense, how can you argue for sex based discrimination based on physical differences but then refuse the same split based on racial differences.
For people thinking that there is any sort of athletic similarity in competitive sports you should see the brandi chastain(us womens soccer player) who said the womens team cannot beat the u15 boys team in scrims on a regular basis and have no hope against u17 due to just not matching up at all. I don't know if the east coast is different but high school is second rate swim competition for many states as club swimming is much higher level.
What i don't really get is why this whole thing should even be necessary. Swimming is an individual sport. For the training, it should not matter at all, just let them train together if you don't have enough people/trainers to train seperately. And for competitions, why can't they simply compete in the male competitions? Just get someones parents to drive them there if the school really can't afford a car at all, and the competition is not at the same place and time as the one for females.
I really don't understand why that would be so hard.
The BEST way would just to give the girls a handicap if there are boys competing in the same competition. so if a boy and a girl have the same time the girl wins. Anything else really is just too complicated
Everyone swimming seriously swims on club swimming teams, but most clubs assume their high school swimmers are also swimming for their high school team, therefore they have lighter practice schedules during the high school season. The only reason these guys are doing this is to stay in shape and practice for club swimming. They aren't doing it so they can beat girls ect ect.
Another reason it doesn't matter is all anyone cares about in swimming is states. All the events prior to states are just to practice and to qualify for states. The article said the guys compete up to states meaning they don't compete in states. Qualifying for states is all based on time it doesn't matter if you come in last in your heat as long as you are under the set time for that event which is set at the start of the year.
If anything these guys are helping the girls around them by giving the girls who are normally the fastest something to chase, and its a lot easier to get better when you have something to chase. Oh and at lots of schools guys and girls swimming practice together anyways.
TL;DR: Swimming is practice and qualifying till states, guys dont go to states, they should be allowed.
On November 20 2011 22:48 Simberto wrote: What i don't really get is why this whole thing should even be necessary. Swimming is an individual sport. For the training, it should not matter at all, just let them train together if you don't have enough people/trainers to train seperately. And for competitions, why can't they simply compete in the male competitions? Just get someones parents to drive them there if the school really can't afford a car at all, and the competition is not at the same place and time as the one for females.
I really don't understand why that would be so hard.
You nailed it. People who are talking as if the only two alternatives here are "don't let the boys swim" or "let them be counted as girls for competitive purposes" are missing the point, imho.
On November 20 2011 23:06 jamesr12 wrote: Another reason it doesn't matter is all anyone cares about in swimming is states. All the events prior to states are just to practice and to qualify for states. The article said the guys compete up to states meaning they don't compete in states. Qualifying for states is all based on time it doesn't matter if you come in last in your heat as long as you are under the set time for that event which is set at the start of the year.
Actually, I meant "up to and including" states. Sorry about the ambiguity; I'll correct that now.
On November 20 2011 13:02 Syth wrote: So you're saying those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim then?
Seriously, it's school swimming. Who actually cares if boys are competing with girls.
This. Not even close to as bad as the high school that allowed a girl to join the boys wrestling team. Can you imagine being a teenager wrestling a butch girl and getting beat, being mocked and taunted for the rest of high school? Honestly guys if it's OK for a girl to join a guys wrestling team, then it's obviously OK for guys to swim in the same pool as girls...
On November 20 2011 13:18 TiTanIum_ wrote: Girls actually swim better than most boys until 16 years. And:
On November 20 2011 13:02 Syth wrote: So you're saying those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim then?
Seriously, it's school swimming. Who actually cares if boys are competing with girls.
This. Not even close to as bad as the high school that allowed a girl to join the boys wrestling team. Can you imagine being a teenager wrestling a butch girl and getting beat, being mocked and taunted for the rest of high school? Honestly guys if it's OK for a girl to join a guys wrestling team, then it's obviously OK for guys to swim in the same pool as girls...
Two - it is entirely different for a girl to compete against boys in a competition as she is overcoming a physical disadvantage to try and compete on their level. There is a reason wrestlers are allowed to wrestle up one weight class but not down one.
On November 20 2011 13:18 TiTanIum_ wrote: Girls actually swim better than most boys until 16 years. And:
On November 20 2011 13:02 Syth wrote: So you're saying those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim then?
Seriously, it's school swimming. Who actually cares if boys are competing with girls.
This. Not even close to as bad as the high school that allowed a girl to join the boys wrestling team. Can you imagine being a teenager wrestling a butch girl and getting beat, being mocked and taunted for the rest of high school? Honestly guys if it's OK for a girl to join a guys wrestling team, then it's obviously OK for guys to swim in the same pool as girls...
Two - it is entirely different for a girl to compete against boys in a competition as she is overcoming a physical disadvantage to try and compete on their level. There is a reason wrestlers are allowed to wrestle up one weight class but not down one.
Wouldn't the girl swimmers be overcoming a physical disadvantage as well? So it is basically the same no? But it's only OK if the young girl WANTS to deal with this? Why can't they just all compete against each other, and the fastest gets the awards, and add an award for the fastest female as well? Why should any guy in the school/district of schools be banned from being a part of the swim team because they are guys? Just a note, the pictures show that the female on the diving board looks more muscular than the guy...
On November 20 2011 19:52 xM(Z wrote: its fair to boys but unfair to girls.
a small boy has no choice but to compete against a "large" boy in swimming, there are no weight classes. how is that fair on a guy who has no choice that he is 1ft shorter than the other guy or a bad build for swimming. its just school league swimming let them both swim even though its 'unfair' on 1 guy.
then based on that how is it any different than a mid sized boy (small in sporting terms) competing against a girl? its not her fault, but its not his fault either. swimming doesnt have weight categories, its just a good vs bad situation. whether its right or wrong to have sex segregation is an argument on its own but probably not for this thread. my point is that swimming is imbalanced all the time and therefore to make the best of the situation they can they should just let the boys swim, however it is feasible for their school funding.
i have no idea how your point relates to what ive said so: - its fair to boys because they get the chance to practice, compete in a sport that they like. - its unfair to girls because theyll get the shaft (sooner or later) at winning.
also, i dont know how its in england but here, the swimming team competitions are based on age groups. there are no 'small boys' competing with 'large boys'.
Men COMPETING in women's only events? Absolutely not. Men have more lean muscle mass, and all the feel good hippy gender equality BS isn't going to change that. Equality doesn't mean men get to give birth, and it doesn't mean you can positive-energy away physical differences.
Don't. Screw. Up. The. Competition. That's one of the biggest ways young kids learn; through competition.
Let's take this to the logical extreme: a couple of schools start allowing guys in women-only events. They'll start winning everything. Eventually, EVERY school will appeal (and win) the unfairness, and start allowing men in THEIR women only events. Final result: a few years down the line, both male and female teams will be men only. Retarded, and its fuzzy feel-good logic that will get us there.
Plus i don't even know why that should be needed. Obviously you have quite a different system over there, here in germany sports are usually organized in clubs which have no affiliations with schools at all, and thus such a problem does not appear at all.
And apparently you have some very strange regulations, because it really is not expensive to reach a competition usually, so i just don't understand why you could not just have them compete in the competition designed for males. What is preventing from just sending them there? I am pretty sure that if you have even a very small group of children dedicated to swimming, you would find some parent that drives them to the competition. What is preventing that?
The alternative is obviously that Since this swim team has boys in it, it should be called Boys swim team (with girls allowed). Since you/we're putting boys above girls (in inherent strength/swimming-abilities) they must take precedence were they not allowed to compete with girls (so as to not be excluded), it would be the only remaining option. Result being girls losing their "girls" team, and having to compete with boys.
There is (kinda) a second option: Banning boys from any/all/most/some(?) "girls" team completely, which is essentially discrimination of sexes. I'm pretty sure this "law of equal opportunity" was made to give girls the same opportunity as boys; but you're proposing that the law also discriminates against boys by not giving the boys the same opportunities as girls.
Either way, it will be a setback (or will it) for the "womens movement" or whatever you call it. Either the womens movement will start discriminating against boys, or it will have to remove the law of equal opportunity all-together. I just know I'd want to fight any discrimination against boys. Wether or not women, in the end, actually want to be equal or different after all is up to them. But this is basically what we get when women fight to be the same as men.
I tihnk you'll just have to live with it.
What I don't understand tho', is why can't the boys compete with other boys and girls with other girls? Essentially everybody is in a swim team; whats the big idea with bringing boys to girls competition rather than sending them to another boys competition? Does it cost more to send boys and girls in opposite directions rather than the same? Bus fair that expensive? Seems more like a logistics problem, where someone doesn'tt realize that boys arent actually attached to girls' hips.
On November 20 2011 23:53 Autofire2 wrote: Had to skip a lot but, essentially:
Training together? Whyever not?
Men COMPETING in women's only events? Absolutely not. Men have more lean muscle mass, and all the feel good hippy gender equality BS isn't going to change that. Equality doesn't mean men get to give birth, and it doesn't mean you can positive-energy away physical differences.
Don't. Screw. Up. The. Competition. That's one of the biggest ways young kids learn; through competition.
Let's take this to the logical extreme: a couple of schools start allowing guys in women-only events. They'll start winning everything. Eventually, EVERY school will appeal (and win) the unfairness, and start allowing men in THEIR women only events. Final result: a few years down the line, both male and female teams will be men only. Retarded, and its fuzzy feel-good logic that will get us there.
Not exactly. The teams would then become boys teams, and girls would start their own teams (or similarly, boys would form their own team), and voilla: you'd have 2 teams. Which will happen if swimming gets as big of a sport as you're suggesting.
On November 20 2011 23:37 aebriol wrote: You americans are insane, why not train together and compete in the right class depending on your sex?
While you could do that in Swimming, it doesn't address the general issue. (Plus you're also assuming Male and Female competitions occur at the same time and place, often Travel is really the cost of competitions)
You've got the same issue with Soccer teams, Field hockey teams and so on where there isn't that type of simple fix.
My High School had a male only hockey team, so girls would have been able to play that, which seems fine.
But we also had a Girl's Rugby team, and no Boy's Rugby team.
Would you let a 6'3" 220lbs 18 y/o Boy play on the girl's Rugby team?
Someone will eventually have to apply some common sense to these 'Equality' type policies.
Sometimes you just don't get to play something. If there's no Boy's Team, then there's no Boy's team.
My High School didn't have a Boy or Girl's Football team...So I didn't get to play football in High School....boo hoo. Sometimes you just don't get everything you want.
There is a reason why this is only practiced in Massachusetts: Common sense. Also these boys are a bunch of sissys. "Competing" with girls in a sport that requires muscle power? Probably even proud when they won.
They are not sissys. They are guys who want to swim. You would have a point if it was guys wanting to play field hockey and girls wanting to play football but swimming is something that both genders have always done.
And the swimmers aren't competing with each other anyways. Sports like swimming, golf, bowling, sprinting, long distance running...you are only playing against yourself. The participants do not interact with each other, and have no way to influence the results of another participant, nor can they use another participant to enhance their own performance.
I would argue that having separate swim teams for males and females is absolutely silly.
If you are so concerned about results, they should just keep track of the best male and best female results separately.
And Massachusetts liberals do some crazy stuff sometimes but there is no other place in the union where I would rather live...(well except maybe on a beach in Hawaii).
Hold on a moment, is this team designed for female gender only? Or is it unisex? If its the prior then I can understand all the outrage about what had occurred.
On November 21 2011 02:08 Xiphos wrote: Hold on a moment, is this team designed for female gender only? Or is it unisex? If its the prior then I can understand all the outrage about what had occurred.
In a nutshell: state-sanctioned competitive swimming is segregated by gender. The team in question is designated as a girls team, which means that the swimmers on it can be sent to sectional, regional, and state girls' meets (and not to the boys' equivalent). Conversely, if it were a boys team, the swimmers on it could be sent to the boys' meets and not the girls' meets.
Owing to a technicality of the law, schools that have a girls' team but not a boys' team, have to let boys onto the girls' team, which currently means not only that they train with the girls' team but that they compete in girls' events. As a number of people have said in this thread, a more logical solution would surely be to allow schools to send swimmers to the appropriate events, regardless of what gender their "team" is officially, and perhaps with this receiving media attention, the state athletics board will make that change.
On November 20 2011 13:02 Syth wrote: So you're saying those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim then?
Seriously, it's school swimming. Who actually cares if boys are competing with girls.
Competition is competition. Trust me, people care.
And I'm saying that those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim on the girls' team. If that means that they can't swim for the school at all, because there isn't a boys team, well that's too bad, but it's no worse than not being able to swim because your school doesn't have any swim team. Which, for instance, my high school didn't. It's really not as tragic as you're making it out to be.
Put it differently, suppose that for whatever reason there was a swimming program in a middle school but not the associated high school. Would you say that high schoolers should be able to swim against middle schoolers because of "fairness"? That's a pretty backwards way to look at it, imo.
Remember, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be able to use the pool. Just that they shouldn't be able to compete against girls in state-sanctioned competition. To me that seems like common sense.
I competed in Athletics for years in an age group way above mine and won. At 13 I was competing for my local athletics club in high jump and javelin in both the under 15 and under 17's catagories. At 15 I was competing and winning for the mens team. Age makes little difference to how good you can be against people of a somewhat similar age, it all about talent and practice. The same can be said between male and female up to a certain age and level of competition.
Until the age of 16-17, there isn't much of a difference between speed and strength between guys and girls in general. in the UK girls and boys can play most sports together until adulthood including football (soccer), in which girls put their bodies in danger. At least in swimming its just you and the water.
On November 20 2011 13:09 eLe.Long wrote: So... Girls can join boys teams, but boys can't join girl's teams?
So much for equality, eh?
You guys are effing stupid. Of course it goes only one way and not the other when it comes to competition. Girls are at a strict disadvantage in muscle and speed sports against boys and if a girl can compete despite that disadvantage then why not let her participate.
Not stupid at all.
You could apply your reasoning to boys who are thinner and weaker than most other boys and say they should be allowed to compete in girl's sports because they don't have an advantage.
You reason correctly that boys are not stronger than girls...but boys are on average stronger than girls, and there is overlap. Why allow females to move over into male territory if they are suited for it but not allow males to move over into female territory if that is where they are more suited? What I am getting at is set standards for the sports and judge everyone as individuals and not based on gender. Then a strong girl could play football or lacrosse if she wants to and a short scrawny boy can play on a team made up of mostly girls..not because they are girls but because that is where his ability would match up.
How is a boy competing with girls any different than some unusually large brute of a girl competing with other girls?
Not that any of this applies to the topic which is swimming which is a single player sport and should be unisex along with track and field, bowling, golf etc
On November 21 2011 02:08 Xiphos wrote: Hold on a moment, is this team designed for female gender only? Or is it unisex? If its the prior then I can understand all the outrage about what had occurred.
In a nutshell: state-sanctioned competitive swimming is segregated by gender. The team in question is designated as a girls team, which means that the swimmers on it can be sent to sectional, regional, and state girls' meets (and not to the boys' equivalent). Conversely, if it were a boys team, the swimmers on it could be sent to the boys' meets and not the girls' meets.
Owing to a technicality of the law, schools that have a girls' team but not a boys' team, have to let boys onto the girls' team, which currently means not only that they train with the girls' team but that they compete in girls' events. As a number of people have said in this thread, a more logical solution would surely be to allow schools to send swimmers to the appropriate events, regardless of what gender their "team" is officially, and perhaps with this receiving media attention, the state athletics board will make that change.
Well maybe they should have a boy and girls team, or none at all. Problem solved.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/sports/boys-swimming-on-girls-teams-find-success-then-draw-ire.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=sports The way it is now, the boys are taking recognition away from girls who have worked hard and deserve it
On November 20 2011 13:09 eLe.Long wrote: So... Girls can join boys teams, but boys can't join girl's teams?
So much for equality, eh?
You guys are effing stupid. Of course it goes only one way and not the other when it comes to competition. Girls are at a strict disadvantage in muscle and speed sports against boys and if a girl can compete despite that disadvantage then why not let her participate.
Not stupid at all.
You could apply your reasoning to boys who are thinner and weaker than most other boys and say they should be allowed to compete in girl's sports because they don't have an advantage.
You reason correctly that boys are not stronger than girls...but boys are on average stronger than girls, and there is overlap. Why allow females to move over into male territory if they are suited for it but not allow males to move over into female territory if that is where they are more suited? What I am getting at is set standards for the sports and judge everyone as individuals and not based on gender. Then a strong girl could play football or lacrosse if she wants to and a short scrawny boy can play on a team made up of mostly girls..not because they are girls but because that is where his ability would match up.
How is a boy competing with girls any different than some unusually large brute of a girl competing with other girls?
Not that any of this applies to the topic which is swimming which is a single player sport and should be unisex along with track and field, bowling, golf etc
lol Just compare every record of every track and field or swimming event between men and women. Then you should see why Unisex athletics and swimming are a stupid idea.
On November 20 2011 14:00 Krikkitone wrote: Best solution, eliminate sports from schools. (extra curricular activities can be extra curricular)
Brilliant. Free up all that money from the public sector to let the private sector do the sports stuff. I've been running races lately - 5ks, half marathons, 5 milers. They are very well organized by small groups of people with no public money. They are directly funded by the runners through entry fees and voluntary donations. Things work way better without government intervention.
On November 20 2011 13:09 eLe.Long wrote: So... Girls can join boys teams, but boys can't join girl's teams?
So much for equality, eh?
You guys are effing stupid. Of course it goes only one way and not the other when it comes to competition. Girls are at a strict disadvantage in muscle and speed sports against boys and if a girl can compete despite that disadvantage then why not let her participate.
Not stupid at all.
You could apply your reasoning to boys who are thinner and weaker than most other boys and say they should be allowed to compete in girl's sports because they don't have an advantage.
You reason correctly that boys are not stronger than girls...but boys are on average stronger than girls, and there is overlap. Why allow females to move over into male territory if they are suited for it but not allow males to move over into female territory if that is where they are more suited? What I am getting at is set standards for the sports and judge everyone as individuals and not based on gender. Then a strong girl could play football or lacrosse if she wants to and a short scrawny boy can play on a team made up of mostly girls..not because they are girls but because that is where his ability would match up.
How is a boy competing with girls any different than some unusually large brute of a girl competing with other girls?
Not that any of this applies to the topic which is swimming which is a single player sport and should be unisex along with track and field, bowling, golf etc
lol Just compare every record of every track and field or swimming event between men and women. Then you should see why Unisex athletics and swimming are a stupid idea.
OK what is your point though?
Each individual still runs or swims a given distance in the same amount of time regardless of who is running/swimming next to them?
Have you ever watched a marathon or seen the results? The men and women all run together. They report top male and female finishes separately. They can do that with swimming and track and field in school if people care enough but having separate teams where males and females train and compete separately is silly and it is a waste of time and money.
The fastest girl can still be recorded as the fastest girl..what is the problem with that? Will she be upset to see with her own eyes 5 guys swimming faster than her? Not that she would see if while she was swimming..but you get my point.
Segregation is wrong. Anyone who disagrees with this is out of touch with the past 50 years. When has segregation ever been good? State sanctioned events and teams should not have segregation imbedded into them.
pro teams can do whatever they want, they are private. if i want i can found a very secluded and private team and participate in events sponsored by companies. however for the state to have segregated teams it is outrageous and conflicts with everything the human rights activists have worked for.
prohibiting persons (either boys or girls) to participate in events just because of their sex is sexist and preposterous when it comes from the government. people should not be judged by their sex, same way they are not judged for their race, place of origin etc. you cannot have half-measures that in the end only serve your purpose and needs. there should only be mixed teams, not boy-girls. at least for state sanctioned events and government funded schools. pro teams make their own rules since its their money.
sure, because of male physical prowess (it sounds cheesy, i ddint mean to) the boys would win since a priori they are better gifted usually for sport and competitions. however this just goes to show that elite sports and championships are wrong. Sports are fun, and athleticism is a great human value. however competitions do nothing but force kids to go out of their way to become better, with consequences that we all know like drugs, steroids and injuries and fragile, broken down psychs of young athletes. just let the kids have fun, play sports for the exercise and only for that. then segregation is not needed since competition is not there.
On November 20 2011 14:00 Krikkitone wrote: Best solution, eliminate sports from schools. (extra curricular activities can be extra curricular)
Brilliant. Free up all that money from the public sector to let the private sector do the sports stuff. I've been running races lately - 5ks, half marathons, 5 milers. They are very well organized by small groups of people with no public money. They are directly funded by the runners through entry fees and voluntary donations. Things work way better without government intervention.
Yeah I agree with that. 2 years ago my town was laying off math and science teachers and the schools were trying to get a prop 2 1/2 override (in MA this is something that voters need to agree too in order to raise property taxes). Voters wouldn't do it. Then after they couldn't fire any more teachers they were going to make cuts to sports..once precious football was threatened people raised the taxes...it makes me sick.
We built a new track and football field behind the high school a few years ago for a the cost of over a million dollars. It already needs to be renovated because the selfish kids gouged up parts of the track by being careless with their equipment and they leave trash everywhere. If someone from the town wants to use the track in the evening after the teams finish practices, they will see water bottles and litter all over the place.
There is a charity event called relay for life, they can't use the high school track this year because it was deemed unsafe until the repairs are made.
On November 21 2011 03:49 brokor wrote: sure, because of male physical prowess (it sounds cheesy, i ddint mean to) the boys would win since a priori they are better gifted usually for sport and competitions. however this just goes to show that elite sports and championships are wrong. Sports are fun, and athleticism is a great human value. however competitions do nothing but force kids to go out of their way to become better, with consequences that we all know like drugs, steroids and injuries and fragile, broken down psychs of young athletes. just let the kids have fun, play sports for the exercise and only for that. then segregation is not needed since competition is not there.
What would be the point of any sport if people didn't care who won? What if MLG just showed a bunch of people playing starcraft vs the computer for no particular reason? I don't see how you could possibly argue against competition if you have ever been in a competetive situation. If you have a desire to beat others, you push yourself to be -your- best. Competition is a part of who we are, it is the reason we have survived as a species, and we should celebrate it.
But competition is undermined when others are given an unfair advantage: drugs, sex, cheating. Anyone who has competed seriously knows the demoralizing effect of feeling untalented, but it is a completely intangible quality, there is no way to account for it because dedication, mindset, and training methods are all intertwined with talent when it comes to performance. So we take care of what we can take care of: not allow advantages due to drugs, cheating, or sex (males competing against females).
And HS sports DO matter. They matter to these girls who dedicate a lot of time to their sport. The sport will teach them great values, and if some girls decide not to try because they're competing against boys anyway, they lose this, and we as a community should try to prevent this.
OK what is your point though?
Each individual still runs or swims a given distance in the same amount of time regardless of who is running/swimming next to them?
Have you ever watched a marathon or seen the results? The men and women all run together. They report top male and female finishes separately. They can do that with swimming and track and field in school if people care enough but having separate teams where males and females train and compete separately is silly and it is a waste of time and money.
The fastest girl can still be recorded as the fastest girl..what is the problem with that? Will she be upset to see with her own eyes 5 guys swimming faster than her? Not that she would see if while she was swimming..but you get my point.
There's a difference between a race and a time trial. True competition is about beating your opponents at all costs. This is damaged when there are multiple races occuring at the same time, particularly on a track. Marathons are different - they last forever so it's easier to do it all at once, and it's either too spread out for it to matter that there are 2 races going on or the primary competition is in a pack and is aware of where their opponents are. And if the scoring for swim meets are actually separated by gender like this, you might as well have separate races for boys and girls.
Saus i do not agree with you. First of all you state that sex is an unfair advantage, and u put it in the same category as cheating and drugs. i dont know what they teach you but men are not cheaters. they just happened to be born this way. and it is not unfair advantage. it is an advantage they were born with. likewise someone is more talented than the other or has the physical gifts and characteristics to make him ideal for a sport. like in basketaball, ofcourse a tall muscular guy is gonna be better than a short scrawny one. so what? is this an unfair advantage? let me give you some personal examples. i am 2m tall and 100kg, pretty fit i might add. i play basketaball with my friends like every 2 weeks. am i not supposed to play with them? ofc they are mostly average height. most of them have more experience in basketabll than i do, but i still best them quite easily. so according to you this is an unfair disadvantage. does it mean that they should protest and not "compete" with me. it is a sport. we do it for fun. noone cares if we win or loose in the end. the world is not gonna change if we play better/do better time in swimming. get over yourselves and enjoy sports as a fun leisure, and not a competition or means to self assurement. on the other end i play football aswell (soccer for you). i am aweful at this game, cant balance myself for a shoot, cant run and hold the ball and cant even contorl the ball when it comes to my feet. i blame this on my big frame and huge limbs (no pun intended) although i could get better if i wanted/needed to. should i just avoid playing because of that? i mean come on you do need your coach to tell you you are the best or your mom to be proud of you to have fun in a sport. me and many others are in it for the fun. and i believe the kids and the athletes should do. whats the point of running fast or swimming long distances if you do not enjoy it. atleast on a school level. if you wanna get in the pro scene thats different. they are private teams they make their own rules, and you also make money out of it.
i have competed in sports. i remember crying when i failed to qualify for the national track and field in height jump(being a very very tall kid coaches got me under the wing and tried to promote me). i then realized (although i was like 12) how stupid competition in sports is. i got angry at school when my team lost. i get angry when i loose playing sc2/dota. doesnt mean i am gonna prohibit people from swimming/running (playing sc2/playing soccer for me) cause loosing makes me feel bad. deal with it.
competition is in human nature and is the force behind human progress you say. i will not disagree with this. but so many things are embedded in the human DNA. from murder to rape to prejudice to alienation. should the government promote all these? are you gonna base the values you pass on your kids on what would make them the best hunters or warriors 4000 years ago?
just to make ti clear, i urge myself to be the best when i care about something.who doesnt? but sometimes things just dont matter. and if you think what place you get in a swimming competition shapes your future in any way or form then you have your priorities mixed up.
Different leagues for boys/girls in sports is segregation(undisputable). segregation is wrong(undisputable. even as a greek i have read about brown vs the board of education to know that). end of discussion for me
Good for the boys for getting around the obviously sexist swimming team selection issues. I honestly agree with brokor in that separate leagues are sexist and segregated, because of how it is giving someone unequal treatment, just because they are a girl instead of a boy.
For me, it's the same thing as that one "all-girl" SC2 tourney a few weeks ago. $10K prize pool, plus equipment, but men couldn't join, just because they're, well, men. They claimed it was to give the girls a fair chance in competition, but that in itself was saying that girls aren't as good as boys at SC. For me, it's the same thing as this.
On November 21 2011 05:07 brokor wrote: Different leagues for boys/girls in sports is segregation(undisputable). segregation is wrong(undisputable. even as a greek i have read about brown vs the board of education to know that). end of discussion for me
You have an insane lack of common sense. It's hard to even respond to these young males who somehow have got the idea in their heads that gender equality means there are no differences between genders. Equality comes in giving an equal opportunity to compete, learn, etc. It is also hilariously ignorant when people in this thread say that there are no physical differences between boys and girls at 16-17. At 16 I had run an 800m race faster than all but 3 women in the history of track and field, and I wasn't even close to the best in my state.
This school does not have a men's swimming team due to a lack of funding and interest amongst students. In 95% of cases like this, the individuals interested in the sport are able to communicate with their state high school sports association and gain the right to compete for another nearby school. Why that isn't the case here is beyond me. Of course the boys should be allowed to train with their women's team, that is not the issue. There are alternatives for competition, and the state HS association has failed these young men (and women) by not addressing the issue in another way.
Title IX is an imperfect law that creates tons of problems like this. The issue hasn't been properly addressed, however it is certainly preferable to the previous situation where there were few opportunities for young women to better themselves through competition at the collegiate level and anemic programs for them at the high school level.
It seems many people in this thread simply don't care about high school sports. That's fine, there are tons of extra-curriculars and hobbies that can be just as fulfilling as a HS sport. For many people though, high school sports can be a life-changing, character building experience. I remember a thread a while back where a track and field coach in Korea was interviewed and was judged by this forum to have been condescending and dismissive of e-sports. He was rightfully torn apart by angry starcraft players who were upset over his lack of perspective and appreciation for an activity that many people enjoy. If you are one of those people posting that HS sports don't matter, or that everyone should "get over it", get some perspective and think about how upset you would be if your opportunity to play starcraft was taken away from you or severely limited because somebody arbitrarily decided it didn't matter.
Used to swim competitively for years so I'll throw my 2 cents in. But first can somebody explain to me why the swim meets don't have separate events for boys and girls? Are there not enough people swimming or what? Because "boys swimming on a girls team" is pretty much the norm. They're only separated when it comes time to compete. The part of the OP that says "if a school has a girls swim team but no boys swim team (due to insufficient funding/interest), then they have to let boys swim on the girls team" makes no sense to me. Girls practiced with us but it had nothing to do with funding, only skill.
If boys actually swim in the same heats as girls and can take their records away that's just retarded IMHO. It's pretty much a fact that boys have more natural muscle mass and are generally faster swimmers. That school must be a backwater if they can't recognize that.
For me, it's the same thing as that one "all-girl" SC2 tourney a few weeks ago. $10K prize pool, plus equipment, but men couldn't join, just because they're, well, men. They claimed it was to give the girls a fair chance in competition, but that in itself was saying that girls aren't as good as boys at SC. For me, it's the same thing as this.
There's not enough data to say that girls are worse than men in SC2. There is plenty of data that says it is the case for swimming. So no, it's not the same thing at all.
On November 21 2011 02:29 emythrel wrote:Until the age of 16-17, there isn't much of a difference between speed and strength between guys and girls in general. in the UK girls and boys can play most sports together until adulthood including football (soccer), in which girls put their bodies in danger. At least in swimming its just you and the water.
This post is crazy. In a sport like basketball, not only are top 16 year old boys miles better than the best women in the world, but playing together is extremely dangerous due to the size, speed, and strength differential (especially given the documented frequency with which women suffer career-threatening ligament injuries -- as much as ten times more than men, and that's when playing with competitors their own size). Soccer is the same way unless the men consciously go easy on the women.
For more physical sports like football, rugby, or hockey, your suggestion is even more absurd.
On November 21 2011 06:43 Gradius wrote: Used to swim competitively for years so I'll throw my 2 cents in. But first can somebody explain to me why the swim meets don't have separate events for boys and girls? Are there not enough people swimming or what? Because "boys swimming on a girls team" is pretty much the norm. They're only separated when it comes time to compete. The part of the OP that says "if a school has a girls swim team but no boys swim team (due to insufficient funding/interest), then they have to let boys swim on the girls team" makes no sense to me. Girls practiced with us but it had nothing to do with funding, only skill.
If boys actually swim in the same heats as girls and can take their records away that's just retarded IMHO. It's pretty much a fact that boys have more natural muscle mass and are generally faster swimmers. That school must be a backwater if they can't recognize that.
The meets have separate events for boys and girls (or perhaps separate meets: I'm not 100% sure about that point), but the way the system is currently set up, a school can only send students to an event if they have an official team registered for that event--i.e. they can send students to the girls high school regional championships, etc. if they have a "girls' team" registered. But by law, if they don't have a boys' team, then any boy can sign up for the girls' team.
The upshot of this is that yes, boys actually swim in the same heats as girls and can take their records away, and a boy can be girls' state champion and all that. As you say, it seems a bit retarded, but it's not the fault of any individual school but of the interscholastic athletics system.
On November 21 2011 05:07 brokor wrote: Different leagues for boys/girls in sports is segregation(undisputable). segregation is wrong(undisputable. even as a greek i have read about brown vs the board of education to know that). end of discussion for me
You have an insane lack of common sense. It's hard to even respond to these young males who somehow have got the idea in their heads that gender equality means there are no differences between genders. Equality comes in giving an equal opportunity to compete, learn, etc. It is also hilariously ignorant when people in this thread say that there are no physical differences between boys and girls at 16-17. At 16 I had run an 800m race faster than all but 3 women in the history of track and field, and I wasn't even close to the best in my state.
This school does not have a men's swimming team due to a lack of funding and interest amongst students. In 95% of cases like this, the individuals interested in the sport are able to communicate with their state high school sports association and gain the right to compete for another nearby school. Why that isn't the case here is beyond me. Of course the boys should be allowed to train with their women's team, that is not the issue. There are alternatives for competition, and the state HS association has failed these young men (and women) by not addressing the issue in another way.
Title IX is an imperfect law that creates tons of problems like this. The issue hasn't been properly addressed, however it is certainly preferable to the previous situation where there were few opportunities for young women to better themselves through competition at the collegiate level and anemic programs for them at the high school level.
It seems many people in this thread simply don't care about high school sports. That's fine, there are tons of extra-curriculars and hobbies that can be just as fulfilling as a HS sport. For many people though, high school sports can be a life-changing, character building experience. I remember a thread a while back where a track and field coach in Korea was interviewed and was judged by this forum to have been condescending and dismissive of e-sports. He was rightfully torn apart by angry starcraft players who were upset over his lack of perspective and appreciation for an activity that many people enjoy. If you are one of those people posting that HS sports don't matter, or that everyone should "get over it", get some perspective and think about how upset you would be if your opportunity to play starcraft was taken away from you or severely limited because somebody arbitrarily decided it didn't matter.
Yo you are mixing it up again. noone said anything about limiting their access to swimming. we all want them to practise their favourite hobby. you are saying "if your opportunity to play starcraft was taken away from you or severely limited because somebody arbitrarily decided it didn't matter". well it is nothing like that. i never said dont let them swim. i said dont compete at swimming. all these young boys and girls swim for the exercise and because it is fun for them. this never has to change. it is the competition aspect i have a problem with. so i do not know where your post came from. noone said to stop hs sports. just the competition that usually comes with it.
Also, i bet in the 50's there was someone thinking just like you only instead of "gender difference" he was talking about "race difference" and that's the reason why universities and schools were segregated.
equality doesnt mean there are no differences between genders (or race,nationality, w/e). it means that the state treats them all equally, no matter what those differences are. even if these differences are well known and akcnowledged equality means different groups are treated as if those differences weren't there. if we tailor society and state affairs to everyone's differences we are back to the dark ages. i bet some decades ago there were "documented differences" between races aswell. thankfully society has moved past that. let's hope we can aswell in the subject of gender equality.
On November 21 2011 05:07 brokor wrote: Different leagues for boys/girls in sports is segregation(undisputable). segregation is wrong(undisputable. even as a greek i have read about brown vs the board of education to know that). end of discussion for me
You have an insane lack of common sense. It's hard to even respond to these young males who somehow have got the idea in their heads that gender equality means there are no differences between genders. Equality comes in giving an equal opportunity to compete, learn, etc. It is also hilariously ignorant when people in this thread say that there are no physical differences between boys and girls at 16-17. At 16 I had run an 800m race faster than all but 3 women in the history of track and field, and I wasn't even close to the best in my state.
This school does not have a men's swimming team due to a lack of funding and interest amongst students. In 95% of cases like this, the individuals interested in the sport are able to communicate with their state high school sports association and gain the right to compete for another nearby school. Why that isn't the case here is beyond me. Of course the boys should be allowed to train with their women's team, that is not the issue. There are alternatives for competition, and the state HS association has failed these young men (and women) by not addressing the issue in another way.
Title IX is an imperfect law that creates tons of problems like this. The issue hasn't been properly addressed, however it is certainly preferable to the previous situation where there were few opportunities for young women to better themselves through competition at the collegiate level and anemic programs for them at the high school level.
It seems many people in this thread simply don't care about high school sports. That's fine, there are tons of extra-curriculars and hobbies that can be just as fulfilling as a HS sport. For many people though, high school sports can be a life-changing, character building experience. I remember a thread a while back where a track and field coach in Korea was interviewed and was judged by this forum to have been condescending and dismissive of e-sports. He was rightfully torn apart by angry starcraft players who were upset over his lack of perspective and appreciation for an activity that many people enjoy. If you are one of those people posting that HS sports don't matter, or that everyone should "get over it", get some perspective and think about how upset you would be if your opportunity to play starcraft was taken away from you or severely limited because somebody arbitrarily decided it didn't matter.
Yo you are mixing it up again. noone said anything about limiting their access to swimming. we all want them to practise their favourite hobby. you are saying "if your opportunity to play starcraft was taken away from you or severely limited because somebody arbitrarily decided it didn't matter". well it is nothing like that. i never said dont let them swim. i said dont compete at swimming. all these young boys and girls swim for the exercise and because it is fun for them. this never has to change. it is the competition aspect i have a problem with. so i do not know where your post came from. noone said to stop hs sports. just the competition that usually comes with it.
Also, i bet in the 50's there was someone thinking just like you only instead of "gender difference" he was talking about "race difference" and that's the reason why universities and schools were segregated.
equality doesnt mean there are no differences between genders (or race,nationality, w/e). it means that the state treats them all equally, no matter what those differences are. even if these differences are well known and akcnowledged equality means different groups are treated as if those differences weren't there. if we tailor society and state affairs to everyone's differences we are back to the dark ages. i bet some decades ago there were "documented differences" between races aswell. thankfully society has moved past that. let's hope we can aswell in the subject of gender equality.
Equality does not mean that the state ignores differences between genders. That is absurd and unintelligent to even claim that. Equality means that the state does what it can to provide equally in spite of differences - aka women deserve the same funding for hs sports as men, which results in some schools having to cut mens swimming because sports like football do not have the support to provide a female equivalent. The result is a mens football team and a women's swimming team - an imperfect solution but as I stated the law is not ideal at the moment.
For you to claim that pointing out gender differences is the equivalent of societal racism against minorities in the past is one of the most ignorant, offensive, and downright stupid comments I have ever read.
On November 21 2011 07:31 qrs wrote:The meets have separate events for boys and girls (or perhaps separate meets: I'm not 100% sure about that point), but the way the system is currently set up, a school can only send students to an event if they have an official team registered for that event--i.e. they can send students to the girls high school regional championships, etc. if they have a "girls' team" registered. But by law, if they don't have a boys' team, then any boy can sign up for the girls' team.
The upshot of this is that yes, boys actually swim in the same heats as girls and can take their records away, and a boy can be girls' state champion and all that. As you say, it seems a bit retarded, but it's not the fault of any individual school but of the interscholastic athletics system.
Ah ok. I wonder if that's just a Massachusetts thing then. Or is it that the school isn't filling out the paperwork for having an official "boys team"?
Yo you are mixing it up again. noone said anything about limiting their access to swimming. we all want them to practise their favourite hobby. you are saying "if your opportunity to play starcraft was taken away from you or severely limited because somebody arbitrarily decided it didn't matter". well it is nothing like that. i never said dont let them swim. i said dont compete at swimming. all these young boys and girls swim for the exercise and because it is fun for them. this never has to change. it is the competition aspect i have a problem with. so i do not know where your post came from. noone said to stop hs sports. just the competition that usually comes with it.
You do realize that we are talking about competitive swimming, not segregation in public pools right? Because I can guarantee you that people mostly swim because of the competition. They're trying to get scholarships to college and improve on best times.
On November 20 2011 13:09 eLe.Long wrote: So... Girls can join boys teams, but boys can't join girl's teams?
So much for equality, eh?
You guys are effing stupid. Of course it goes only one way and not the other when it comes to competition. Girls are at a strict disadvantage in muscle and speed sports against boys and if a girl can compete despite that disadvantage then why not let her participate.
Not stupid at all.
You could apply your reasoning to boys who are thinner and weaker than most other boys and say they should be allowed to compete in girl's sports because they don't have an advantage.
You reason correctly that boys are not stronger than girls...but boys are on average stronger than girls, and there is overlap. Why allow females to move over into male territory if they are suited for it but not allow males to move over into female territory if that is where they are more suited? What I am getting at is set standards for the sports and judge everyone as individuals and not based on gender. Then a strong girl could play football or lacrosse if she wants to and a short scrawny boy can play on a team made up of mostly girls..not because they are girls but because that is where his ability would match up.
How is a boy competing with girls any different than some unusually large brute of a girl competing with other girls?
Not that any of this applies to the topic which is swimming which is a single player sport and should be unisex along with track and field, bowling, golf etc
lol Just compare every record of every track and field or swimming event between men and women. Then you should see why Unisex athletics and swimming are a stupid idea.
except that thats not what he said at all.
the reasoning for separation based on sex is that on average boys are stronger than girls and that at the very top end boys have a higher maximum speed or strength, but there are HUGE areas of overlap, therefore a man of equal size and weight to a female competitor could argue that he has a right to compete against women, because the males competitors of his sport are probably bigger and stronger than him in ways he cannot train to overcome.
lets look at the example of long distance running. Africans, primarily Ethiopians from a specific area of Ethiopia have consistently been far and away the best long distance runners for years. would we ever consider a separate black and white league for running? the very very best runners in the world are all black, but 99% of people can just train harder to improve their times. the sport is dominated by black athletes but any idea of separating the sport to encourage white runners to enter and compete, would be sickening to a lot of people.
Biological differences across gender are very, very, very different than they are across race. They are not comparable. By your logic 99% of women should just "train harder" to improve their times - after all the genetic difference between a man and woman is no different than that of a black and white male!
Clearly all women are just lazy athletes who are coddled and babied by their female only competitions. If we just force them to compete against men they will just have to work hard (like us strong, superior men) and then they will reach our level. *rolls eyes*
On November 21 2011 08:18 Holykitty wrote: no. 99% of females or males or anyone, can just work harder to achieve anything.
my point is just the differences in how racial differences and sexual differences are handled and the results that has in the long term.
Well we shouldn't bother balancing starcraft at all, in fact just undo all the patches and revert back to beta. After all, 99% of people can improve their play anyways and will never play the game perfectly.
On November 21 2011 08:18 Holykitty wrote: no. 99% of females or males or anyone, can just work harder to achieve anything.
my point is just the differences in how racial differences and sexual differences are handled and the results that has in the long term.
Well we shouldn't bother balancing starcraft at all, in fact just undo all the patches and revert back to beta. After all, 99% of people can improve their play anyways and will never play the game perfectly.
broodwar hasnt been patched in 7 years
or just to fit the analogy, we could base the length of your lane of the swimming pool on how big you are. then anyone could swim if they worked hard. its just a shame that changing a map is easier than changing a swimming pool
On November 21 2011 08:18 Holykitty wrote: no. 99% of females or males or anyone, can just work harder to achieve anything.
my point is just the differences in how racial differences and sexual differences are handled and the results that has in the long term.
Well we shouldn't bother balancing starcraft at all, in fact just undo all the patches and revert back to beta. After all, 99% of people can improve their play anyways and will never play the game perfectly.
broodwar hasnt been patched in 7 years
or just to fit the analogy, we could base the length of your lane of the swimming pool on how big you are. then anyone could swim if they worked hard. its just a shame that changing a map is easier than changing a swimming pool
You are making my points for me. Brood War hasn't been patched in 7 years because IT IS BALANCED. Men vs Women in athletics IS NOT. Having women compete seperately IS THE PATCH.
Would it be fairer to tell the boys they can't swim, period? Cause that sounds way more unfair to them.
High school sports aren't all about competition and winning. If the boys can't swim because they don't have enough members for a boys-only swim team, then this situation is the best way to accommodate them. To tell them they can't compete because it would be unfair would actually be pretty ironic.
On November 21 2011 08:41 wherebugsgo wrote: Why is this a question of competition fairness?
Would it be fairer to tell the boys they can't swim, period? Cause that sounds way more unfair to them.
High school sports aren't all about competition and winning. If the boys can't swim because they don't have enough members for a boys-only swim team, then this situation is the best way to accommodate them. To tell them they can't compete because it would be unfair would actually be pretty ironic.
No one is saying this. There are accommodations that can be made, but for whatever reason the school/state organization is not making them. In my state there are schools that "coop" smaller sports, pooling the two schools together for the purposes of competition. The boys could compete for another school and could even continue training in their own pool with the girl's team if they wished (although if the transportation wasn't too inconvenient it would be preferable for them to train with the team they will be competing for).
If there is no other way for the guy to swim then this may be one of the only way to get noticed and scholarships. I know where I am from if your school does not have a team you can also compete with another schools team. This is so you can get noticed where it does matter.
On November 21 2011 08:18 Holykitty wrote: no. 99% of females or males or anyone, can just work harder to achieve anything.
my point is just the differences in how racial differences and sexual differences are handled and the results that has in the long term.
Well we shouldn't bother balancing starcraft at all, in fact just undo all the patches and revert back to beta. After all, 99% of people can improve their play anyways and will never play the game perfectly.
broodwar hasnt been patched in 7 years
or just to fit the analogy, we could base the length of your lane of the swimming pool on how big you are. then anyone could swim if they worked hard. its just a shame that changing a map is easier than changing a swimming pool
You are making my points for me. Brood War hasn't been patched in 7 years because IT IS BALANCED. Men vs Women in athletics IS NOT. Having women compete seperately IS THE PATCH.
no time in the history of broodwar has there been a 50:50 win rate, and yet noone changes the balance, why? because they can all just work harder and win more
you are missing the point though, its not about this wide idea of what is balanced. because anyone can find an example of a girl more physically capable than a guy. the imbalance discussion only affects the highest levels of competition, the same as starcraft. for everyone else they just need to try harder, at the school level people should just all compete together. they can keep a girl record and a male record, anyone looking to give scholarships or whatever can obviously tell the difference between a boy and a girl. they can even have 2 trophies. but they can still swim in the same pool
On November 21 2011 08:18 Holykitty wrote: no. 99% of females or males or anyone, can just work harder to achieve anything.
my point is just the differences in how racial differences and sexual differences are handled and the results that has in the long term.
Well we shouldn't bother balancing starcraft at all, in fact just undo all the patches and revert back to beta. After all, 99% of people can improve their play anyways and will never play the game perfectly.
broodwar hasnt been patched in 7 years
or just to fit the analogy, we could base the length of your lane of the swimming pool on how big you are. then anyone could swim if they worked hard. its just a shame that changing a map is easier than changing a swimming pool
You are making my points for me. Brood War hasn't been patched in 7 years because IT IS BALANCED. Men vs Women in athletics IS NOT. Having women compete seperately IS THE PATCH.
no time in the history of broodwar has there been a 50:50 win rate, and yet noone changes the balance, why? because they can all just work harder and win more
you are missing the point though, its not about this wide idea of what is balanced. because anyone can find an example of a girl more physically capable than a guy. the imbalance discussion only affects the highest levels of competition, the same as starcraft. for everyone else they just need to try harder, at the school level people should just all compete together. they can keep a girl record and a male record, anyone looking to give scholarships or whatever can obviously tell the difference between a boy and a girl. they can even have 2 trophies. but they can still swim in the same pool
No one changes the balance in brood war because it is very, very close to 50/50, changes constantly, and is so tightly strung that even a minor change could throw the entire game out of whack.
The whole "imbalance only affects the highest levels of competition" is a mildly valid argument in starcraft when used properly (which you aren't doing). It refers to, as an example, not buffing reaver move-speed based on lower level players being ineffective with them because a top player can shuttle micro and turn the reaver in to a 1 unit army. It does not mean that imbalance does not affect lower level players, or else we may as well buff marine damage to 20 per shot and tell zergs "too bad you still have room to improve your play".
The argument is not only entirely irrelevant to swimming, but also contradicts the point you are trying to make. At the highest levels of competition guess what happens...Men are much, much faster than women.
I have no idea what you are trying to say about swimming in the same pool. Nobody is saying they can't train in the same pool as the women. If you are trying to say that it doesn't matter who you are swimming against in a race because all that matters is the clock, then you are entirely ignorant of all sports and competitive activities and should stop arguing about this altogether. I'd suggest not trying to impose your views on activities that you've never taken part in, and possibly never even watched before.
On November 21 2011 09:57 Marcus420 wrote: It clearly says they dont have a boys league. Its not their fault they have too, they have no other option to do what they love.
Are you implying that there is no boys swimming in that state? Other posts "clearly say" that there are other options that do not ruin the competition for females.
On November 21 2011 09:57 BarbieHsu wrote: Competitive fairness it less important than equal opportunity, especially at that level.
Let's not forget that the first thing we were taught was that it wasn't about winning, it was how we played the game.
There is equal opportunity. Somebody (either the school, the HS association, or these boys - unlikely them though) is not doing what they need to do to take advantage of this opportunity. There are competitions for boys, and there are ways to get them competing in them.
On November 21 2011 08:41 wherebugsgo wrote: Why is this a question of competition fairness?
Would it be fairer to tell the boys they can't swim, period? Cause that sounds way more unfair to them.
High school sports aren't all about competition and winning. If the boys can't swim because they don't have enough members for a boys-only swim team, then this situation is the best way to accommodate them. To tell them they can't compete because it would be unfair would actually be pretty ironic.
No one is saying this. There are accommodations that can be made, but for whatever reason the school/state organization is not making them. In my state there are schools that "coop" smaller sports, pooling the two schools together for the purposes of competition. The boys could compete for another school and could even continue training in their own pool with the girl's team if they wished (although if the transportation wasn't too inconvenient it would be preferable for them to train with the team they will be competing for).
No, not always. All of those things cost money, which obviously no one has right now.
On November 21 2011 08:41 wherebugsgo wrote: Why is this a question of competition fairness?
Would it be fairer to tell the boys they can't swim, period? Cause that sounds way more unfair to them.
High school sports aren't all about competition and winning. If the boys can't swim because they don't have enough members for a boys-only swim team, then this situation is the best way to accommodate them. To tell them they can't compete because it would be unfair would actually be pretty ironic.
No one is saying this. There are accommodations that can be made, but for whatever reason the school/state organization is not making them. In my state there are schools that "coop" smaller sports, pooling the two schools together for the purposes of competition. The boys could compete for another school and could even continue training in their own pool with the girl's team if they wished (although if the transportation wasn't too inconvenient it would be preferable for them to train with the team they will be competing for).
No, not always. All of those things cost money, which obviously no one has right now.
Cooperative do not cost money. They save money for the schools in question, allowing them to effectively provide athletics for the student bases of two schools for the cost of one. Two schools of boys get access to swimming, but the cost remains the same of paying one coach, one bus for the team, etc.
A quick glance on the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association website lead to what I believe is the problem.
On this page regarding cooperative teams, (http://www.miaa.net/contentm/easy_pages/view.php?sid=38&page_id=61) it states that a cooperative team proposal may be rejected if it is deemed to "deny opportunity to students at the host school".
Cooperative requests are not granted if one school has sufficient participation to support a varsity program. Even though their were no “cuts” made during the previous two years, students from School B were taking time and opportunity away from students at the host school.
I am willing to bet that this school was denied a request for a cooperative team on this basis. So the boys only option at this point was to use this loophole to join the girls team - this is not the boys fault. The failures here are the people at MIAA who refused the coop on the basis of "taking time and opportunity away from students at the host school". So instead, time, opportunity, and competitive fairness is taken away from the girls competition. It is completely backwards and a monstrosity of a situation created by the MIAA.
a mod should really change the title or something..it sounds like boys are dressing up as girls swimming, but instead its about boys competing in a girls swim team because of funding of the school.
really just came here with a huge wtf, but read the OP n it was totally different then what the title said.
On November 21 2011 08:18 BlackJack wrote: I'm late to the thread - does anyone know if Title IX is involved in this in any way?
Title IX only works in a sense that if you have a "boys sport" such as football then you must also have a "girls sport" such as volleyball. A lot of High School sports have a boys and girls team for a lot of sports (basketball, baseball, etc). The only way Title IX could possibly be involved is that since the school has a girl's swim team but no boy's swim team they need to have a boy's team for some other sport.
On November 21 2011 08:41 wherebugsgo wrote: Why is this a question of competition fairness?
Would it be fairer to tell the boys they can't swim, period? Cause that sounds way more unfair to them.
High school sports aren't all about competition and winning. If the boys can't swim because they don't have enough members for a boys-only swim team, then this situation is the best way to accommodate them. To tell them they can't compete because it would be unfair would actually be pretty ironic.
No one is saying this. There are accommodations that can be made, but for whatever reason the school/state organization is not making them. In my state there are schools that "coop" smaller sports, pooling the two schools together for the purposes of competition. The boys could compete for another school and could even continue training in their own pool with the girl's team if they wished (although if the transportation wasn't too inconvenient it would be preferable for them to train with the team they will be competing for).
No, not always. All of those things cost money, which obviously no one has right now.
Cooperative do not cost money. They save money for the schools in question, allowing them to effectively provide athletics for the student bases of two schools for the cost of one. Two schools of boys get access to swimming, but the cost remains the same of paying one coach, one bus for the team, etc.
A quick glance on the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association website lead to what I believe is the problem.
On this page regarding cooperative teams, (http://www.miaa.net/contentm/easy_pages/view.php?sid=38&page_id=61) it states that a cooperative team proposal may be rejected if it is deemed to "deny opportunity to students at the host school".
Cooperative requests are not granted if one school has sufficient participation to support a varsity program. Even though their were no “cuts” made during the previous two years, students from School B were taking time and opportunity away from students at the host school.
I am willing to bet that this school was denied a request for a cooperative team on this basis. So the boys only option at this point was to use this loophole to join the girls team - this is not the boys fault. The failures here are the people at MIAA who refused the coop on the basis of "taking time and opportunity away from students at the host school". So instead, time, opportunity, and competitive fairness is taken away from the girls competition. It is completely backwards and a monstrosity of a situation created by the MIAA.
At my high school, we had a cooperative in place for academics; we didn't have enough students for certain classes, so we pooled with other schools so that certain classes could be offered. We had a satellite campus, essentially, where five schools from nearby districts would send students.
While it's true that this would save money over each school having its own individual offering of a particular course/sport, it doesn't save money over simply taking an existing team and then putting the boys into it.
Taking the girls team and putting boys on it probably costs next to nothing. Running a cooperative team would actually cost something, regardless of how you look at it. It saves money over having separate teams, but when you don't have separate teams in the first place it costs more.
I'm not sure what the additional cost would be other than transporting the students to the other school. True, it's more than nothing, but it's a small cost compared to ruining the competition for the girls. I am guessing that the school in question is more than willing to accommodate their students at this small cost, but had their petition to coop denied by the MIAA.
You'd be surprised at how much bussing students actually costs. That was the single most expensive item on my school's marching band budget, even though we routinely dealt with instruments that cost thousands of dollars.
On November 21 2011 10:33 Runnin wrote: I'm not sure what the additional cost would be other than transporting the students to the other school. True, it's more than nothing, but it's a small cost compared to ruining the competition for the girls. I am guessing that the school in question is more than willing to accommodate their students at this small cost, but had their petition to coop denied by the MIAA.
What are you talking about? It doesn't seem like the competition was ruined, after all it was a girl who won the meet.
On November 21 2011 10:34 wherebugsgo wrote: You'd be surprised at how much bussing students actually costs. That was the single most expensive item on my school's marching band budget, even though we routinely dealt with instruments that cost thousands of dollars.
Very true. However with only a few students to bus, a full-size is not needed. I'm not sure about this school district, but my high school had a few smaller, 10-12 person shuttles that were used for things like this. If that's not an option, we already know that these boys have access to a pool, so there isn't necessarily a need to shuttle them, it would just be nice for the team aspect to train together. They could continue to work out at their school, with their girls team and possibly e-mailed workouts from the coach, and join up with the host school for competition purposes.
On November 21 2011 10:33 Runnin wrote: I'm not sure what the additional cost would be other than transporting the students to the other school. True, it's more than nothing, but it's a small cost compared to ruining the competition for the girls. I am guessing that the school in question is more than willing to accommodate their students at this small cost, but had their petition to coop denied by the MIAA.
What are you talking about? It doesn't seem like the competition was ruined, after all it was a girl who won the meet.
What are you talking about? Just because an incredible female athlete won the meet over a male does not mean that the competition was fair or not ruined for the other girls at the meet or the girl who lost her spot in the finals due to the boy being in the meet.
On November 21 2011 10:33 Runnin wrote: I'm not sure what the additional cost would be other than transporting the students to the other school. True, it's more than nothing, but it's a small cost compared to ruining the competition for the girls. I am guessing that the school in question is more than willing to accommodate their students at this small cost, but had their petition to coop denied by the MIAA.
What are you talking about? It doesn't seem like the competition was ruined, after all it was a girl who won the meet.
What are you talking about? Just because an incredible female athlete won the meet over a male does not mean that the competition was fair or not ruined for the other girls at the meet or the girl who lost her spot in the finals due to the boy being in the meet.
What about the boy who can't get on the wrestling team because a girl beat him out? Or the girls who wants to play football and now a boy can't play? You can't have it both ways. In an ideal world we'd have High School sports for both sexes, including a boys swim team and a girls wrestling team. But we don't live in an ideal world. They need funding and they need interest.
If the school doesn't have a boys swim team it's likely that it's due to lack of interest to run a team or lack of funding. Or potentially both factors. It's the reason why there aren't boys volleyball teams or girls football teams in America. So yes, while it would be fantastic if we could have a boys swim team at this school it's likely that they don't have the funding or the interest to justify a boys swim team. I guess you could change the law but then you'd have to ask if it's fair to tell a boy he can't swim for his school or tell a girl she can't play football for her school.
If it was as easy as making a boys swim team they would've done so years ago.
There were girls on a few of the boy's water polo teams when I was in HS. Wasn't a huge deal other than they were a lot more vicious than the guys in terms of scratching with nails etc... not good memories of having giant red lines all the way down my back after games with them.
On November 21 2011 10:33 Runnin wrote: I'm not sure what the additional cost would be other than transporting the students to the other school. True, it's more than nothing, but it's a small cost compared to ruining the competition for the girls. I am guessing that the school in question is more than willing to accommodate their students at this small cost, but had their petition to coop denied by the MIAA.
What are you talking about? It doesn't seem like the competition was ruined, after all it was a girl who won the meet.
What are you talking about? Just because an incredible female athlete won the meet over a male does not mean that the competition was fair or not ruined for the other girls at the meet or the girl who lost her spot in the finals due to the boy being in the meet.
What about the boy who can't get on the wrestling team because a girl beat him out? Or the girls who wants to play football and now a boy can't play?
On November 21 2011 10:33 Runnin wrote: I'm not sure what the additional cost would be other than transporting the students to the other school. True, it's more than nothing, but it's a small cost compared to ruining the competition for the girls. I am guessing that the school in question is more than willing to accommodate their students at this small cost, but had their petition to coop denied by the MIAA.
What are you talking about? It doesn't seem like the competition was ruined, after all it was a girl who won the meet.
What are you talking about? Just because an incredible female athlete won the meet over a male does not mean that the competition was fair or not ruined for the other girls at the meet or the girl who lost her spot in the finals due to the boy being in the meet.
What about the boy who can't get on the wrestling team because a girl beat him out? Or the girls who wants to play football and now a boy can't play? You can't have it both ways. In an ideal world we'd have High School sports for both sexes, including a boys swim team and a girls wrestling team. But we don't live in an ideal world. They need funding and they need interest.
If the school doesn't have a boys swim team it's likely that it's due to lack of interest to run a team or lack of funding. Or potentially both factors. It's the reason why there aren't boys volleyball teams or girls football teams in America. So yes, while it would be fantastic if we could have a boys swim team at this school it's likely that they don't have the funding or the interest to justify a boys swim team. I guess you could change the law but then you'd have to ask if it's fair to tell a boy he can't swim for his school or tell a girl she can't play football for her school.
If it was as easy as making a boys swim team they would've done so years ago.
There are ways to allow the boys to compete without taking anything away from the girls. Coops, separate heats, etc.
You're right that ideally we'd have teams for both genders in every sport. I agree with you there. The difference between girls taking boys spots is that the girls are overcoming a disadvantage to take that spot. An insanely talented girl might take a football spot from a mediocre boy, but he will still hopefully get an opportunity on a JV team and was at least given the chance to earn his spot at a tryout, which is preferable to denying the girl any opportunity whatsoever. In this case, a mediocre male swimmer is taking accolades and attention away from top notch female swimmers. I understand that boys losing spots to these girls is less than ideal, but as you said this world isn't ideal and this is the better of the two options.
On November 21 2011 10:33 Runnin wrote: I'm not sure what the additional cost would be other than transporting the students to the other school. True, it's more than nothing, but it's a small cost compared to ruining the competition for the girls. I am guessing that the school in question is more than willing to accommodate their students at this small cost, but had their petition to coop denied by the MIAA.
What are you talking about? It doesn't seem like the competition was ruined, after all it was a girl who won the meet.
What are you talking about? Just because an incredible female athlete won the meet over a male does not mean that the competition was fair or not ruined for the other girls at the meet or the girl who lost her spot in the finals due to the boy being in the meet.
What about the boy who can't get on the wrestling team because a girl beat him out? Or the girls who wants to play football and now a boy can't play? You can't have it both ways. In an ideal world we'd have High School sports for both sexes, including a boys swim team and a girls wrestling team. But we don't live in an ideal world. They need funding and they need interest.
If the school doesn't have a boys swim team it's likely that it's due to lack of interest to run a team or lack of funding. Or potentially both factors. It's the reason why there aren't boys volleyball teams or girls football teams in America. So yes, while it would be fantastic if we could have a boys swim team at this school it's likely that they don't have the funding or the interest to justify a boys swim team. I guess you could change the law but then you'd have to ask if it's fair to tell a boy he can't swim for his school or tell a girl she can't play football for her school.
If it was as easy as making a boys swim team they would've done so years ago.
There are ways to allow the boys to compete without taking anything away from the girls. Coops, separate heats, etc.
You're right that ideally we'd have teams for both genders in every sport. I agree with you there. The difference between girls taking boys spots is that the girls are overcoming a disadvantage to take that spot. An insanely talented girl might take a football spot from a mediocre boy, but he will still hopefully get an opportunity on a JV team and was at least given the chance to earn his spot at a tryout, which is preferable to denying the girl any opportunity whatsoever. In this case, a mediocre male swimmer is taking accolades and attention away from top notch female swimmers. I understand that boys losing spots to these girls is less than ideal, but as you said this world isn't ideal and this is the better of the two options.
If the males in this swimming competition are mediocre, then how are the taking wins away from a supposedly top notch female? You are arguing against your own point, and it's kind of funny to see you do it. By your definition, males are biologically superior to females from the start, and that's how they can be sub par yet still win.
On November 21 2011 09:57 Marcus420 wrote: It clearly says they dont have a boys league. Its not their fault they have too, they have no other option to do what they love.
Are you implying that there is no boys swimming in that state? Other posts "clearly say" that there are other options that do not ruin the competition for females.
No? Sorry, maybe they dont have a car or something to make it to the next city where there is a "boys team". I never implyed that at all.
On November 21 2011 10:33 Runnin wrote: I'm not sure what the additional cost would be other than transporting the students to the other school. True, it's more than nothing, but it's a small cost compared to ruining the competition for the girls. I am guessing that the school in question is more than willing to accommodate their students at this small cost, but had their petition to coop denied by the MIAA.
What are you talking about? It doesn't seem like the competition was ruined, after all it was a girl who won the meet.
What are you talking about? Just because an incredible female athlete won the meet over a male does not mean that the competition was fair or not ruined for the other girls at the meet or the girl who lost her spot in the finals due to the boy being in the meet.
What about the boy who can't get on the wrestling team because a girl beat him out? Or the girls who wants to play football and now a boy can't play? You can't have it both ways. In an ideal world we'd have High School sports for both sexes, including a boys swim team and a girls wrestling team. But we don't live in an ideal world. They need funding and they need interest.
If the school doesn't have a boys swim team it's likely that it's due to lack of interest to run a team or lack of funding. Or potentially both factors. It's the reason why there aren't boys volleyball teams or girls football teams in America. So yes, while it would be fantastic if we could have a boys swim team at this school it's likely that they don't have the funding or the interest to justify a boys swim team. I guess you could change the law but then you'd have to ask if it's fair to tell a boy he can't swim for his school or tell a girl she can't play football for her school.
If it was as easy as making a boys swim team they would've done so years ago.
There are ways to allow the boys to compete without taking anything away from the girls. Coops, separate heats, etc.
You're right that ideally we'd have teams for both genders in every sport. I agree with you there. The difference between girls taking boys spots is that the girls are overcoming a disadvantage to take that spot. An insanely talented girl might take a football spot from a mediocre boy, but he will still hopefully get an opportunity on a JV team and was at least given the chance to earn his spot at a tryout, which is preferable to denying the girl any opportunity whatsoever. In this case, a mediocre male swimmer is taking accolades and attention away from top notch female swimmers. I understand that boys losing spots to these girls is less than ideal, but as you said this world isn't ideal and this is the better of the two options.
If the males in this swimming competition are mediocre, then how are the taking wins away from a supposedly top notch female? You are arguing against your own point, and it's kind of funny to see you do it. By your definition, males are biologically superior to females from the start, and that's how they can be sub par yet still win.
Yes, and he's right. The males in this swimming competition are near the top of their female competition (as witness their times). However, they are mediocre by comparison to the top-notch male competition ("").
are sports in the US always centered around the highschool? All this mixing of scholarships, highschool, competetive sports, hobbies seems awefully inapropiate.
We have all kinds of clubs here where you can join if you are interested at something. Noone is forced to join competitions, you have the ability to do so, but none of that affects education.
I always trained swimming with girls/women, but ofc in competitions i swam against other guys. Its silly not to as its about individual ability. There was almost no other male in my hometown that was my age and was interested in swimming, but this system works well enough to still allow me to do my favorite sport (which requires an expensive location and trained lifeguards and trainers) in a small town.
anyways, it is wrong to let males and females compete together in swimming, but its also wrong to not let males wim if females have that possibility. I dont get why males and females cant just be seperated in a competition, its individual anyways.
On November 20 2011 13:13 cmen15 wrote: Kinda funny back when I use to wrestle, I went to the NY state champs some years ago and i got matched up vs a girl in the third round. I refused to wrestle her and went to the loser bracket. Next round she had to go against the state champ and this kid beat the shit out of her.... I didn't have it in me, to nice of a person lol.
Telling a girl "I refuse to allow you to compete with me, girls are not on the same level as boys and should be separated from us" is being nice to her? I think she would disagree. I guarantee you she has way more respect for the state champ than for you.
On November 21 2011 09:57 Marcus420 wrote: It clearly says they dont have a boys league. Its not their fault they have too, they have no other option to do what they love.
Are you implying that there is no boys swimming in that state? Other posts "clearly say" that there are other options that do not ruin the competition for females.
No? Sorry, maybe they dont have a car or something to make it to the next city where there is a "boys team". I never implyed that at all.
Ok. I'm not trying to pin the blame on the boys in this case though. I highly doubt they've done anything wrong. I believe the problem comes from higher up, in the institution that runs HS sports in that state.
On November 20 2011 13:29 qrs wrote: The sensible thing to do here would be to revise the system so that schools could send individual swimmers to compete in regional and state meets, regardless of whether the school officially had a "girls team" or a "boys team". If that were how it worked, then you'd be right about the whole thing being irrelevant. That's currently not how it works, though.
This is exactly how the situation should be handled.
It is blatantly stupid to have boys directly competing against the girls in swimming events. If a girl practices hard, swims a great race and beats all the other girls, and has to take 2nd place because there happened to be a boy in the event... it's completely unfair, and is a worse offense than banning boys from competing.
However, banning boys is wrong too... just as wrong as banning girls from wrestling or football. The boys should be able to join the team and compete, but their results should fall in a separate category for boys.
I suppose it's tougher with team events... should boys be banned from being on relay teams? Should boys be banned from field hockey teams? I would say "yes" but I could understand allowing it as well. It's just a situation with no fair solution, someone is going to have to get the short end of the stick.
On November 21 2011 11:33 LaNague wrote: are sports in the US always centered around the highschool? All this mixing of scholarships, highschool, competetive sports, hobbies seems awefully inapropiate.
We have all kinds of clubs here where you can join if you are interested at something. Noone is forced to join competitions, you have the ability to do so, but none of that affects education.
I always trained swimming with girls/women, but ofc in competitions i swam against other guys. Its silly not to as its about individual ability. There was almost no other male in my hometown that was my age and was interested in swimming, but this system works well enough to still allow me to do my favorite sport (which requires an expensive location and trained lifeguards and trainers) in a small town.
anyways, it is wrong to let males and females compete together in swimming, but its also wrong to not let males wim if females have that possibility. I dont get why males and females cant just be seperated in a competition, its individual anyways.
There are club sports here in America, however the majority of athletic competition at the HS age is done through the school. The school team is essentially a "club" team that consists of students of the school. Participation is voluntary and does not affect your academics, you just happen to train at your school and are often coached by one of the teachers at your school.
On November 20 2011 14:38 Blondinbengt wrote: Could someone explain how high school sports work in terms of funding, girls vs boys teams, meets etc.etc? School sports don't exist in Sweden so I have no idea how this works.
Schools have a certain amount of funding to put towards their sports team. This money is supplemented by ticket sales (meaning that popular sports like football will bring in enough money to pay for everything they need and have money left over to share with the other sports).
Sometimes there are fundraisers held to help increase the amount of money available for a certain team. Sometimes money runs short, and a team has to just use old broken-down equipment... and if it runs really short, the school stops having a team for that sport. If it's allowed, sometimes a team will get a local business to sponsor them, in exchange for some free advertising on the uniforms or at the event somewhere.
High schools then send their teams out to compete against the teams of other high schools in the area. It's just like any local sports league. Nearly all of the time, the boys and girls are competing completely separately. Boys have football, basketball, soccer, basketball... girls have volleyball, gymnastics, basketball, softball... and so on.
Also, there's a law called Title IX that says there must be equal opportunity to compete in sports for both males and females. Schools can't heavily fund their boys' teams and spend on special training, pay for travel expenses to compete at national level competitions... and then spend next to nothing on the girls.
This also means that girls must be allowed to play on any boys' sports team, if they're good enough to qualify for it. And lately, boys have discovered it also means they're allowed to play on the girls' teams if there's no male equivalent team.
As a swimmer, I think that this is ridiculous. There is no way in hell that the competition between boys and girls is at all fair. Boys are naturally faster than girls (think muscle density, strength, testosterone), and will always be faster. Also, look at that guy on the podium. He's just a huge pack of muscle. Now look at the girls. Does that look fair to you?
For example, take me, an average swimmer: I can swim faster for a particular event, the 100 breastroke, than a girl (who is the state champion for girls in backstroke events). I'm merely average, as I don't have any championships under my belt, and I am not even close to the all-American time. It's not fair to allow males to compete with females.
On November 20 2011 13:10 Fenrax wrote: lol
There is a reason why this is only practiced in Massachusetts: Common sense. Also these boys are a bunch of sissys. "Competing" with girls in a sport that requires muscle power? Probably even proud when they won.
I don't understand what you're saying. Are you insulting the boys? If you are, stop shitting out your mouth. No male takes pride in beating females in strength-based sports.
The solution for this is to get a boys team. The boys team can train with the girls team, but just competes separately in meets. I'm not really sure why Massachusetts does it this way.
And as a side note, that guy in the article is slow. 23.91 lol (it's close to all-American for females, but not at all for males). And this is Massachusetts?!?!? Wow, my puny midget of a state has faster swimmers.
On November 21 2011 12:06 PenguinWithNuke wrote: As a swimmer, I think that this is ridiculous. There is no way in hell that the competition between boys and girls is at all fair. Boys are naturally faster than girls (think muscle density, strength, testosterone), and will always be faster. Also, look at that guy on the podium. He's just a huge pack of muscle. Now look at the girls. Does that look fair to you?
For example, take me, an average swimmer: I can swim faster for a particular event, the 100 breastroke, than a girl (who is the state champion for girls in backstroke events). I'm merely average, as I don't have any championships under my belt, and I am not even close to the all-American time. It's not fair to allow males to compete with females.
There is a reason why this is only practiced in Massachusetts: Common sense. Also these boys are a bunch of sissys. "Competing" with girls in a sport that requires muscle power? Probably even proud when they won.
I don't understand what you're saying. Are you insulting the boys? If you are, stop shitting out your mouth. No male takes pride in beating females in strength-based sports.
The solution for this is to get a boys team. The boys team can train with the girls team, but just competes separately in meets. I'm not really sure why Massachusetts does it this way.
And as a side note, that guy in the article is slow. 23.91 lol (it's close to all-American for females, but not at all for males). And this is Massachusetts?!?!? Wow, my puny midget of a state has faster swimmers.
I know right? But I'm thinking that their league is a division for smaller schools, that would explain the lack of enough people for a boys team, and also the slow times. I think i was around 22.5 my senior year in the 50 and got still something like 3rd or 4th in my district. The serious club swimmers compete for the larger high schools in order to get the glorious AAAA state records. Basically I think this is definitely unfair to girls, but not really a problem in the bigger picture; high school swimming isn't really where the competition is.
On November 21 2011 05:07 brokor wrote: Different leagues for boys/girls in sports is segregation(undisputable). segregation is wrong(undisputable. even as a greek i have read about brown vs the board of education to know that). end of discussion for me
You have an insane lack of common sense. It's hard to even respond to these young males who somehow have got the idea in their heads that gender equality means there are no differences between genders. Equality comes in giving an equal opportunity to compete, learn, etc. It is also hilariously ignorant when people in this thread say that there are no physical differences between boys and girls at 16-17. At 16 I had run an 800m race faster than all but 3 women in the history of track and field, and I wasn't even close to the best in my state.
This school does not have a men's swimming team due to a lack of funding and interest amongst students. In 95% of cases like this, the individuals interested in the sport are able to communicate with their state high school sports association and gain the right to compete for another nearby school. Why that isn't the case here is beyond me. Of course the boys should be allowed to train with their women's team, that is not the issue. There are alternatives for competition, and the state HS association has failed these young men (and women) by not addressing the issue in another way.
Title IX is an imperfect law that creates tons of problems like this. The issue hasn't been properly addressed, however it is certainly preferable to the previous situation where there were few opportunities for young women to better themselves through competition at the collegiate level and anemic programs for them at the high school level.
It seems many people in this thread simply don't care about high school sports. That's fine, there are tons of extra-curriculars and hobbies that can be just as fulfilling as a HS sport. For many people though, high school sports can be a life-changing, character building experience. I remember a thread a while back where a track and field coach in Korea was interviewed and was judged by this forum to have been condescending and dismissive of e-sports. He was rightfully torn apart by angry starcraft players who were upset over his lack of perspective and appreciation for an activity that many people enjoy. If you are one of those people posting that HS sports don't matter, or that everyone should "get over it", get some perspective and think about how upset you would be if your opportunity to play starcraft was taken away from you or severely limited because somebody arbitrarily decided it didn't matter.
Yo you are mixing it up again. noone said anything about limiting their access to swimming. we all want them to practise their favourite hobby. you are saying "if your opportunity to play starcraft was taken away from you or severely limited because somebody arbitrarily decided it didn't matter". well it is nothing like that. i never said dont let them swim. i said dont compete at swimming. all these young boys and girls swim for the exercise and because it is fun for them. this never has to change. it is the competition aspect i have a problem with. so i do not know where your post came from. noone said to stop hs sports. just the competition that usually comes with it.
Also, i bet in the 50's there was someone thinking just like you only instead of "gender difference" he was talking about "race difference" and that's the reason why universities and schools were segregated.
equality doesnt mean there are no differences between genders (or race,nationality, w/e). it means that the state treats them all equally, no matter what those differences are. even if these differences are well known and akcnowledged equality means different groups are treated as if those differences weren't there. if we tailor society and state affairs to everyone's differences we are back to the dark ages. i bet some decades ago there were "documented differences" between races aswell. thankfully society has moved past that. let's hope we can aswell in the subject of gender equality.
Equality does not mean that the state ignores differences between genders. That is absurd and unintelligent to even claim that. Equality means that the state does what it can to provide equally in spite of differences - aka women deserve the same funding for hs sports as men, which results in some schools having to cut mens swimming because sports like football do not have the support to provide a female equivalent. The result is a mens football team and a women's swimming team - an imperfect solution but as I stated the law is not ideal at the moment.
For you to claim that pointing out gender differences is the equivalent of societal racism against minorities in the past is one of the most ignorant, offensive, and downright stupid comments I have ever read.
Cutting a men's sports team because women need to have equal funding is what is absolutely silly.
You are so concerned about people hiding from reality and pretending that gender differences do not exist then I would use that same logic to argue that all sports in school should be unisex, everyone has to tryout for whatever sport they have to play and the best who tryout make the teams. The result due to the biological differences would mean less girls are able to play sports but that should fine since it mimics the reality that they are not as good at sports as men right? Aren't we collectively putting our heads in the sand and pretending that biological differences don't exist when we give women their own sports teams, and we give them separate rankings even when the top woman might be behind the top 20 men?
Otherwise why don't we have separate basketball teams for short people and separate football and wrestling teams for skinny guys?
But this is getting off topic anyways. What the topic is about guys who want to swim and shouldn't be denied the opportunity to swim and train on a team just because they were born male. People seem to have a problem with it even though it makes no sense because their presence on the team and even at the meets has absolutely 0, that is zero, impact on the other swimmers. This is because there are no opponents at swimming competitions.
Consider sports such as swimming, bowling, golf, anything related to track and field or running etc. Let's say there is a track meet and there are separate teams for men and women. On the first day they have the women race together, then record the times for each person, then they have men race together and record times for each person. Then the next day they do the first race with half men and half women and record the scores and repeat for 2nd race. I don't see the difference. Each person will run as fast as they can and get the best time possible no matter what. The men will mostly be faster no matter what. There are no opponents so it doesn't matter who is next to who.
On November 20 2011 13:13 cmen15 wrote: Kinda funny back when I use to wrestle, I went to the NY state champs some years ago and i got matched up vs a girl in the third round. I refused to wrestle her and went to the loser bracket. Next round she had to go against the state champ and this kid beat the shit out of her.... I didn't have it in me, to nice of a person lol.
Telling a girl "I refuse to allow you to compete with me, girls are not on the same level as boys and should be separated from us" is being nice to her? I think she would disagree. I guarantee you she has way more respect for the state champ than for you.
Yes, because the person who was brought up to not hurt a woman in any way and stuck with that even though he knew it would be insulting to the girl deserves barely any respect right? Seriously, some people are taught this at an early age (like I was) and it's really hard to simply defy those teachings. The girls swimming had their spotlight taken away (for some reason, not sure why they're being compared to the boy) and this guy could have gone on through the tournament but was kicked away because he stuck to his values. And, if anything, people are saying that this racing in swimming pushes them past their limits to be the best right? So how the hell is putting a boy with the girls bad for the girls? They'd be forcing themselves to try even harder to beat this guy, thereby improving their time. The boy might be at risk, due to him not having too many people to try and overcome according to this competition, but not the girls.
On November 21 2011 05:07 brokor wrote: Different leagues for boys/girls in sports is segregation(undisputable). segregation is wrong(undisputable. even as a greek i have read about brown vs the board of education to know that). end of discussion for me
You have an insane lack of common sense. It's hard to even respond to these young males who somehow have got the idea in their heads that gender equality means there are no differences between genders. Equality comes in giving an equal opportunity to compete, learn, etc. It is also hilariously ignorant when people in this thread say that there are no physical differences between boys and girls at 16-17. At 16 I had run an 800m race faster than all but 3 women in the history of track and field, and I wasn't even close to the best in my state.
This school does not have a men's swimming team due to a lack of funding and interest amongst students. In 95% of cases like this, the individuals interested in the sport are able to communicate with their state high school sports association and gain the right to compete for another nearby school. Why that isn't the case here is beyond me. Of course the boys should be allowed to train with their women's team, that is not the issue. There are alternatives for competition, and the state HS association has failed these young men (and women) by not addressing the issue in another way.
Title IX is an imperfect law that creates tons of problems like this. The issue hasn't been properly addressed, however it is certainly preferable to the previous situation where there were few opportunities for young women to better themselves through competition at the collegiate level and anemic programs for them at the high school level.
It seems many people in this thread simply don't care about high school sports. That's fine, there are tons of extra-curriculars and hobbies that can be just as fulfilling as a HS sport. For many people though, high school sports can be a life-changing, character building experience. I remember a thread a while back where a track and field coach in Korea was interviewed and was judged by this forum to have been condescending and dismissive of e-sports. He was rightfully torn apart by angry starcraft players who were upset over his lack of perspective and appreciation for an activity that many people enjoy. If you are one of those people posting that HS sports don't matter, or that everyone should "get over it", get some perspective and think about how upset you would be if your opportunity to play starcraft was taken away from you or severely limited because somebody arbitrarily decided it didn't matter.
Yo you are mixing it up again. noone said anything about limiting their access to swimming. we all want them to practise their favourite hobby. you are saying "if your opportunity to play starcraft was taken away from you or severely limited because somebody arbitrarily decided it didn't matter". well it is nothing like that. i never said dont let them swim. i said dont compete at swimming. all these young boys and girls swim for the exercise and because it is fun for them. this never has to change. it is the competition aspect i have a problem with. so i do not know where your post came from. noone said to stop hs sports. just the competition that usually comes with it.
Also, i bet in the 50's there was someone thinking just like you only instead of "gender difference" he was talking about "race difference" and that's the reason why universities and schools were segregated.
equality doesnt mean there are no differences between genders (or race,nationality, w/e). it means that the state treats them all equally, no matter what those differences are. even if these differences are well known and akcnowledged equality means different groups are treated as if those differences weren't there. if we tailor society and state affairs to everyone's differences we are back to the dark ages. i bet some decades ago there were "documented differences" between races aswell. thankfully society has moved past that. let's hope we can aswell in the subject of gender equality.
Equality does not mean that the state ignores differences between genders. That is absurd and unintelligent to even claim that. Equality means that the state does what it can to provide equally in spite of differences - aka women deserve the same funding for hs sports as men, which results in some schools having to cut mens swimming because sports like football do not have the support to provide a female equivalent. The result is a mens football team and a women's swimming team - an imperfect solution but as I stated the law is not ideal at the moment.
For you to claim that pointing out gender differences is the equivalent of societal racism against minorities in the past is one of the most ignorant, offensive, and downright stupid comments I have ever read.
Cutting a men's sports team because women need to have equal funding is what is absolutely silly.
You are so concerned about people hiding from reality and pretending that gender differences do not exist then I would use that same logic to argue that all sports in school should be unisex, everyone has to tryout for whatever sport they have to play and the best who tryout make the teams. The result due to the biological differences would mean less girls are able to play sports but that should fine since it mimics the reality that they are not as good at sports as men right? Aren't we collectively putting our heads in the sand and pretending that biological differences don't exist when we give women their own sports teams, and we give them separate rankings even when the top woman might be behind the top 20 men?
Otherwise why don't we have separate basketball teams for short people and separate football and wrestling teams for skinny guys?
But this is getting off topic anyways. What the topic is about guys who want to swim and shouldn't be denied the opportunity to swim and train on a team just because they were born male. People seem to have a problem with it even though it makes no sense because their presence on the team and even at the meets has absolutely 0, that is zero, impact on the other swimmers. This is because there are no opponents at swimming competitions.
Consider sports such as swimming, bowling, golf, anything related to track and field or running etc. Let's say there is a track meet and there are separate teams for men and women. On the first day they have the women race together, then record the times for each person, then they have men race together and record times for each person. Then the next day they do the first race with half men and half women and record the scores and repeat for 2nd race. I don't see the difference. Each person will run as fast as they can and get the best time possible no matter what. The men will mostly be faster no matter what. There are no opponents so it doesn't matter who is next to who.
You sure posted a lot of words considering you didn't take a minute to read a single one of mine. I've said several times that biological differences do exist. The fact that you somehow quoted that post and accused me of pretending biological differences don't exist either proves you didn't read what I wrote or that you are a complete moron.
You made up some point about cutting mens sports that has nothing to do with this thread AND I have already posted that Title IX is an imperfect law that creates these problems (but you don't know that because you haven't read the thread).
There are no opponents at swimming competitions...that is just flat out ignorant. Please refrain from spewing bullshit when you clearly have no experience in these types of sports. Any swimmer or runner will tell you that the competition in a race is one of the most important factors in achieving your best times. There is a reason that the world records in these events are set in races and not in individual time-trials. You also failed to even realize that this boy took home first place at the meet, bumping each and every girl down one slot AND denying one girl the chance to even swim in the finals.
The "result" you propose of having few-to-no women playing sports is unacceptable. Sports are a rewarding, character building experience that women deserve to have the opportunity to participate in.
There are already wrestling leagues for skinny guys, they are called...wrestling leagues. Wrestling is divided in to weight classes. Again, you're obviously talking out of your ass.
These boys shouldn't be denied the opportunity to swim (nobody is saying they shouldn't swim, but, and I feel like a broken record, you didn't read any of the previous posts) this is not the solution to the problem. There are plenty of valid alternatives other than having them compete against girls. They include allowing schools to send individuals to the state-series meets even if they do not have a team, coop programs with another school, allowing the boys to swim in seperate heats in non-state races, etc.
TLDR: Everything you have said has been responded to already, except the parts that nobody else has been dumb enough to say
On November 20 2011 13:13 cmen15 wrote: Kinda funny back when I use to wrestle, I went to the NY state champs some years ago and i got matched up vs a girl in the third round. I refused to wrestle her and went to the loser bracket. Next round she had to go against the state champ and this kid beat the shit out of her.... I didn't have it in me, to nice of a person lol.
Telling a girl "I refuse to allow you to compete with me, girls are not on the same level as boys and should be separated from us" is being nice to her? I think she would disagree. I guarantee you she has way more respect for the state champ than for you.
Yes, because the person who was brought up to not hurt a woman in any way and stuck with that even though he knew it would be insulting to the girl deserves barely any respect right? Seriously, some people are taught this at an early age (like I was) and it's really hard to simply defy those teachings. The girls swimming had their spotlight taken away (for some reason, not sure why they're being compared to the boy) and this guy could have gone on through the tournament but was kicked away because he stuck to his values. And, if anything, people are saying that this racing in swimming pushes them past their limits to be the best right? So how the hell is putting a boy with the girls bad for the girls? They'd be forcing themselves to try even harder to beat this guy, thereby improving their time. The boy might be at risk, due to him not having too many people to try and overcome according to this competition, but not the girls.
Read. The. OP.
The boy isn't just competing in the same race as the girls (which as is denies them a fair opportunity to win their race). He is competing for and winning important races - the races that these girls work year-round to perform in. This isn't some tiny little meet between a few schools, this was the sectional meet for girls. Not only was a girl denied a sectional championship, but there are 9 lanes in a proper swimming pool. That means that the 9th best girl in this sectional was denied the chance of even racing, through no fault of her own. It means that one less girl will qualify for the State meet that follows the sectional.
Do you understand why they're being compared to the boy now?
On November 20 2011 13:02 Kuja wrote: Serious question, as a girl, are you allowed to compete in Bikinis? and Speedos for guys?
For bikinis. I don't think so. I did high school swim for 3 years and only saw a girl in a bikini once, which was at practice because the chick couldn't find her actual suit that morning. Even if you could, you wouldn't want to though because it creates drag.
As for speedos, yes you are. They even have it as a uniform option. My senior year my friends and I all wore speedos for shits and giggles. Actually, scratch that. Only I wore the speedo because they chickened out. Pussies.
On November 20 2011 13:13 cmen15 wrote: Kinda funny back when I use to wrestle, I went to the NY state champs some years ago and i got matched up vs a girl in the third round. I refused to wrestle her and went to the loser bracket. Next round she had to go against the state champ and this kid beat the shit out of her.... I didn't have it in me, to nice of a person lol.
Telling a girl "I refuse to allow you to compete with me, girls are not on the same level as boys and should be separated from us" is being nice to her? I think she would disagree. I guarantee you she has way more respect for the state champ than for you.
Yes, because the person who was brought up to not hurt a woman in any way and stuck with that even though he knew it would be insulting to the girl deserves barely any respect right? Seriously, some people are taught this at an early age (like I was) and it's really hard to simply defy those teachings. The girls swimming had their spotlight taken away (for some reason, not sure why they're being compared to the boy) and this guy could have gone on through the tournament but was kicked away because he stuck to his values. And, if anything, people are saying that this racing in swimming pushes them past their limits to be the best right? So how the hell is putting a boy with the girls bad for the girls? They'd be forcing themselves to try even harder to beat this guy, thereby improving their time. The boy might be at risk, due to him not having too many people to try and overcome according to this competition, but not the girls.
Read. The. OP.
The boy isn't just competing in the same race as the girls (which as is denies them a fair opportunity to win their race). He is competing for and winning important races - the races that these girls work year-round to perform in. This isn't some tiny little meet between a few schools, this was the sectional meet for girls. Not only was a girl denied a sectional championship, but there are 9 lanes in a proper swimming pool. That means that the 9th best girl in this sectional was denied the chance of even racing, through no fault of her own. It means that one less girl will qualify for the State meet that follows the sectional.
Do you understand why they're being compared to the boy now?
I don't understand why they're being compared to the boy. Many people have brought up how the boy shouldn't be allowed in the girl's competitions, but instead be in the boy's own competition. I was talking more about him practicing with them, which some people in the thread have argued against. Do you know why in the hell they would compare him to the boy, because you gave the impression you did with your last line.
On November 21 2011 05:07 brokor wrote: Different leagues for boys/girls in sports is segregation(undisputable). segregation is wrong(undisputable. even as a greek i have read about brown vs the board of education to know that). end of discussion for me
You have an insane lack of common sense. It's hard to even respond to these young males who somehow have got the idea in their heads that gender equality means there are no differences between genders. Equality comes in giving an equal opportunity to compete, learn, etc. It is also hilariously ignorant when people in this thread say that there are no physical differences between boys and girls at 16-17. At 16 I had run an 800m race faster than all but 3 women in the history of track and field, and I wasn't even close to the best in my state.
This school does not have a men's swimming team due to a lack of funding and interest amongst students. In 95% of cases like this, the individuals interested in the sport are able to communicate with their state high school sports association and gain the right to compete for another nearby school. Why that isn't the case here is beyond me. Of course the boys should be allowed to train with their women's team, that is not the issue. There are alternatives for competition, and the state HS association has failed these young men (and women) by not addressing the issue in another way.
Title IX is an imperfect law that creates tons of problems like this. The issue hasn't been properly addressed, however it is certainly preferable to the previous situation where there were few opportunities for young women to better themselves through competition at the collegiate level and anemic programs for them at the high school level.
It seems many people in this thread simply don't care about high school sports. That's fine, there are tons of extra-curriculars and hobbies that can be just as fulfilling as a HS sport. For many people though, high school sports can be a life-changing, character building experience. I remember a thread a while back where a track and field coach in Korea was interviewed and was judged by this forum to have been condescending and dismissive of e-sports. He was rightfully torn apart by angry starcraft players who were upset over his lack of perspective and appreciation for an activity that many people enjoy. If you are one of those people posting that HS sports don't matter, or that everyone should "get over it", get some perspective and think about how upset you would be if your opportunity to play starcraft was taken away from you or severely limited because somebody arbitrarily decided it didn't matter.
Yo you are mixing it up again. noone said anything about limiting their access to swimming. we all want them to practise their favourite hobby. you are saying "if your opportunity to play starcraft was taken away from you or severely limited because somebody arbitrarily decided it didn't matter". well it is nothing like that. i never said dont let them swim. i said dont compete at swimming. all these young boys and girls swim for the exercise and because it is fun for them. this never has to change. it is the competition aspect i have a problem with. so i do not know where your post came from. noone said to stop hs sports. just the competition that usually comes with it.
Also, i bet in the 50's there was someone thinking just like you only instead of "gender difference" he was talking about "race difference" and that's the reason why universities and schools were segregated.
equality doesnt mean there are no differences between genders (or race,nationality, w/e). it means that the state treats them all equally, no matter what those differences are. even if these differences are well known and akcnowledged equality means different groups are treated as if those differences weren't there. if we tailor society and state affairs to everyone's differences we are back to the dark ages. i bet some decades ago there were "documented differences" between races aswell. thankfully society has moved past that. let's hope we can aswell in the subject of gender equality.
Equality does not mean that the state ignores differences between genders. That is absurd and unintelligent to even claim that. Equality means that the state does what it can to provide equally in spite of differences - aka women deserve the same funding for hs sports as men, which results in some schools having to cut mens swimming because sports like football do not have the support to provide a female equivalent. The result is a mens football team and a women's swimming team - an imperfect solution but as I stated the law is not ideal at the moment.
For you to claim that pointing out gender differences is the equivalent of societal racism against minorities in the past is one of the most ignorant, offensive, and downright stupid comments I have ever read.
Cutting a men's sports team because women need to have equal funding is what is absolutely silly.
You are so concerned about people hiding from reality and pretending that gender differences do not exist then I would use that same logic to argue that all sports in school should be unisex, everyone has to tryout for whatever sport they have to play and the best who tryout make the teams. The result due to the biological differences would mean less girls are able to play sports but that should fine since it mimics the reality that they are not as good at sports as men right? Aren't we collectively putting our heads in the sand and pretending that biological differences don't exist when we give women their own sports teams, and we give them separate rankings even when the top woman might be behind the top 20 men?
Otherwise why don't we have separate basketball teams for short people and separate football and wrestling teams for skinny guys?
But this is getting off topic anyways. What the topic is about guys who want to swim and shouldn't be denied the opportunity to swim and train on a team just because they were born male. People seem to have a problem with it even though it makes no sense because their presence on the team and even at the meets has absolutely 0, that is zero, impact on the other swimmers. This is because there are no opponents at swimming competitions.
Consider sports such as swimming, bowling, golf, anything related to track and field or running etc. Let's say there is a track meet and there are separate teams for men and women. On the first day they have the women race together, then record the times for each person, then they have men race together and record times for each person. Then the next day they do the first race with half men and half women and record the scores and repeat for 2nd race. I don't see the difference. Each person will run as fast as they can and get the best time possible no matter what. The men will mostly be faster no matter what. There are no opponents so it doesn't matter who is next to who.
You sure posted a lot of words considering you didn't take a minute to read a single one of mine. I've said several times that biological differences do exist. The fact that you somehow quoted that post and accused me of pretending biological differences don't exist either proves you didn't read what I wrote or that you are a complete moron.
You made up some point about cutting mens sports that has nothing to do with this thread AND I have already posted that Title IX is an imperfect law that creates these problems (but you don't know that because you haven't read the thread).
There are no opponents at swimming competitions...that is just flat out ignorant. Please refrain from spewing bullshit when you clearly have no experience in these types of sports. Any swimmer or runner will tell you that the competition in a race is one of the most important factors in achieving your best times. There is a reason that the world records in these events are set in races and not in individual time-trials. You also failed to even realize that this boy took home first place at the meet, bumping each and every girl down one slot AND denying one girl the chance to even swim in the finals.
The "result" you propose of having few-to-no women playing sports is unacceptable. Sports are a rewarding, character building experience that women deserve to have the opportunity to participate in.
There are already wrestling leagues for skinny guys, they are called...wrestling leagues. Wrestling is divided in to weight classes. Again, you're obviously talking out of your ass.
These boys shouldn't be denied the opportunity to swim (nobody is saying they shouldn't swim, but, and I feel like a broken record, you didn't read any of the previous posts) this is not the solution to the problem. There are plenty of valid alternatives other than having them compete against girls. They include allowing schools to send individuals to the state-series meets even if they do not have a team, coop programs with another school, allowing the boys to swim in seperate heats in non-state races, etc.
TLDR: Everything you have said has been responded to already, except the parts that nobody else has been dumb enough to say
I did read the thread and your post.
You complain about people pretending that biological differences don't exist then you support having separate sports and rankings for females to try to hide the biological differences. You need to pretend to an extent that biological differences do not exist in order to pretend that a girl being the best girl swimmer deserves as much reward as the best boy swimmer even if there are 10 faster boys. I'm pointing out that on the one hand you criticize people for wanting forced equality of one kind while you support forced equality of another kind.
Think about the spirit of title ix rather than it's flawed implementation. They want everyone to have an equal chance to play sports, where girls used to have a hard time because of so many all male sports. But it is clearly within the spirit of the law to allow a boy to swim with the girls if there is no boys team. That is what this is really about...boys who want to swim.
These boys shouldn't be denied the opportunity to swim (nobody is saying they shouldn't swim, but, and I feel like a broken record, you didn't read any of the previous posts) this is not the solution to the problem. There are plenty of valid alternatives other than having them compete against girls. They include allowing schools to send individuals to the state-series meets even if they do not have a team, coop programs with another school, allowing the boys to swim in seperate heats in non-state races, etc.
Who cares if they compete against girls? As long as they all get to participate and do their best. The girls aren't the best, they weren't, and they wont be regardless of what number or skill level of boys on the team. I don't think it should matter so much for them to compete only against other girls. You see people are saying it is unfair because the best girl on the team might be outclassed by an average guy..but this happens all the time in sports anyways. You can look at any sport in any era and find someone who is #2 who would have been #1 in another era. Imagine if you were the best on your boys basketball team and a very strong 7 foot tall kid transfers to your school and starts playing, then you are suddenly #2. Do you say no, it is not fair, he should only be allowed to play with other tall kids? But there is no tall kids team cause he is the only 7 foot kid in the school so you let him play on the team that is available.
And I agree with this: The "result" you propose of having few-to-no women playing sports is unacceptable. Sports are a rewarding, character building experience that women deserve to have the opportunity to participate in.
If a boy likes to swim and there is a girls swim team and not a boys swim team then he should be allowed to swim with the girls team. So what if he wins a lot? The sport should still provide all of the benefits that you just listed for all of the participants right?
And then you use wrestling as your example which is the one sport that comes close to doing it right by using weight classes. There are still issues cause some boys don't like the idea of "fighting" a girl but if a girl wrestles then she will wrestle boys who are in the same weight class.
Tender affection for equality of result shown here. Hey, if you make and enforce laws like this state-wide, you gotta be prepared to accept the consequences.
State law mandates this in the name of "equal opportunity", but really it's anything but.
And herein lies the source of all this discussion: confusion about equal opportunity. It really is equal opportunity, it's just you have a pretty notion of what results you should get afterwards. Hear this all the time about male/female CEO's and the pay gap. Equality of oppotunity yet no equality of result. Therefore, complain about the results and put a little fix in there to ensure you get what you like. Tricky thing about freedom right there.
If a boy likes to swim and there is a girls swim team and not a boys swim team then he should be allowed to swim with the girls team. So what if he wins a lot? The sport should still provide all of the benefits that you just listed for all of the participants right?
No. There should be, and are, alternative measures for allowing the boy to swim. They have been mentioned. Putting him in the girls competition is unacceptable. The girls in this sectional meet are swimming at a very high level. At this level these girls are swimming for more than just fun - the times they are swimming suggest a competitive passion and dedication that deserves to be properly rewarded with success. Two girls will miss out on the experience of competing in the biggest HS girls swim meet because of this. One lost a sectional championship.
What's next? Do you propose we eliminate age grouping in athletics? Sure, toss the 9 year olds in with the teenagers. As long as they can participate and try their best! There is no solution to height advantage in basketball - every sport has some trait that it favors and it is unavoidable. Luckily we have enough sports where there is always a competitive outlet for any given body type, except that in nearly every sport (gymnastics is the off-the-top-of-my-head exception) men are advantaged over women. By separating sports by gender, we allow for women to have the same options that men do, to be able to find an athletic endeavor that suits them.
Competition is what drives people to succeed. This places a massive obstacle in the way of women trying to compete in swimming, and if it was widespread would curb their involvement.
On November 21 2011 14:59 Danglars wrote: Tender affection for equality of result shown here. Hey, if you make and enforce laws like this state-wide, you gotta be prepared to accept the consequences.
State law mandates this in the name of "equal opportunity", but really it's anything but.
And herein lies the source of all this discussion: confusion about equal opportunity. It really is equal opportunity, it's just you have a pretty notion of what results you should get afterwards. Hear this all the time about male/female CEO's and the pay gap. Equality of oppotunity yet no equality of result. Therefore, complain about the results and put a little fix in there to ensure you get what you like. Tricky thing about freedom right there.
Pay gaps are irrelevant to this discussion. We are discussing well documented and proven biological differences that result in women being disadvantaged in swimming. Their results will be lower. Until there is definitive proof that men are more intelligent and capable in business than women, pay gaps among CEOs will be a legitimate discussion. For the time being there is no definitive proof that women are inferior in intelligence or business acumen than men, so inequality in "results" or pay can't reflect that. You'd need your own thread to have a sociological discussion about why female CEOs make less than men, and there could be several differing but legitimate arguments. This case is much more clear-cut.
On November 21 2011 15:01 Runnin wrote: If a boy likes to swim and there is a girls swim team and not a boys swim team then he should be allowed to swim with the girls team. So what if he wins a lot? The sport should still provide all of the benefits that you just listed for all of the participants right?
No. There should be, and are, alternative measures for allowing the boy to swim. They have been mentioned. Putting him in the girls competition is unacceptable. The girls in this sectional meet are swimming at a very high level. At this level these girls are swimming for more than just fun - the times they are swimming suggest a competitive passion and dedication that deserves to be properly rewarded with success. Two girls will miss out on the experience of competing in the biggest HS girls swim meet because of this. One lost a sectional championship.
What's next? Do you propose we eliminate age grouping in athletics? Sure, toss the 9 year olds in with the teenagers. As long as they can participate and try their best! There is no solution to height advantage in basketball - every sport has some trait that it favors and it is unavoidable. Luckily we have enough sports where there is always a competitive outlet for any given body type, except that in nearly every sport (gymnastics is the off-the-top-of-my-head exception) men are advantaged over women. By separating sports by gender, we allow for women to have the same options that men do, to be able to find an athletic endeavor that suits them.
Competition is what drives people to succeed. This places a massive obstacle in the way of women trying to compete in swimming, and if it was widespread would curb their involvement.
edit: butchered the nested quotes, removed them
You've suggested alternatives but nothing that guarantees the boys will have the same access to reward and success. By separating sports by gender, we allow for women to have the same options that men do, to be able to find an athletic endeavor that suits them.
This goes back to why and how I responded to you in the first place? Why is it so important to balance options available to men vs women but not big vs small, weak vs strong, smart vs stupid. You are the one who wanted to point out the biological differences that give men an advantage...so taking that into account it doesn't make sense to expect that females should be (as a gender, not individually) equally rewarded for something that they are not as good at.
Give me a skinny nerd football league so I can have a chance to be the best and earn an athletic scholarship to school for the kids who are the best football players (in the league of course).
Well, if a guy want to swim and the only way he can do that is on a girls team then it only seems fair to let him. I feel like when you get to state level competitions you need to put the boys in the mens competition though. Imagining a guy winning a girls state race is absurd
On November 21 2011 16:36 itkovian wrote: Well, if a guy want to swim and the only way he can do that is on a girls team then it only seems fair to let him. I feel like when you get to state level competitions you need to put the boys in the mens competition though. Imagining a guy winning a girls state race is absurd
Sometimes reality needs to give idealism a good smack in the head to keep it from straying too far.
I suggest boys take advantage of this ruling to score crazy sports scholarships from the idealistic administrators and politicians who are disconnected with reality and the biological difference between the innies and outies.
On November 21 2011 15:01 Runnin wrote: If a boy likes to swim and there is a girls swim team and not a boys swim team then he should be allowed to swim with the girls team. So what if he wins a lot? The sport should still provide all of the benefits that you just listed for all of the participants right?
No. There should be, and are, alternative measures for allowing the boy to swim. They have been mentioned. Putting him in the girls competition is unacceptable. The girls in this sectional meet are swimming at a very high level. At this level these girls are swimming for more than just fun - the times they are swimming suggest a competitive passion and dedication that deserves to be properly rewarded with success. Two girls will miss out on the experience of competing in the biggest HS girls swim meet because of this. One lost a sectional championship.
What's next? Do you propose we eliminate age grouping in athletics? Sure, toss the 9 year olds in with the teenagers. As long as they can participate and try their best! There is no solution to height advantage in basketball - every sport has some trait that it favors and it is unavoidable. Luckily we have enough sports where there is always a competitive outlet for any given body type, except that in nearly every sport (gymnastics is the off-the-top-of-my-head exception) men are advantaged over women. By separating sports by gender, we allow for women to have the same options that men do, to be able to find an athletic endeavor that suits them.
Competition is what drives people to succeed. This places a massive obstacle in the way of women trying to compete in swimming, and if it was widespread would curb their involvement.
edit: butchered the nested quotes, removed them
You've suggested alternatives but nothing that guarantees the boys will have the same access to reward and success. By separating sports by gender, we allow for women to have the same options that men do, to be able to find an athletic endeavor that suits them.
This goes back to why and how I responded to you in the first place? Why is it so important to balance options available to men vs women but not big vs small, weak vs strong, smart vs stupid. You are the one who wanted to point out the biological differences that give men an advantage...so taking that into account it doesn't make sense to expect that females should be (as a gender, not individually) equally rewarded for something that they are not as good at.
Give me a skinny nerd football league so I can have a chance to be the best and earn an athletic scholarship to school for the kids who are the best football players (in the league of course).
Seriously, do you actually believe what you write? I have been sitting here literally facepalming at every single one of your posts. First and foremost, many sports actually do have seperate championships for people of different body types. They are called weight classes. So if you weight only 60kg, and want to be a boxer, you still can, and you still have a fair surrounding to compete in. Furthermore, it is always fair to compete in higher weight classes, as that means you are actually accepting a handycap.
In my opinion, in a sport that is based on competition, you should have a fair league to compete in. If you just throw everybody into one bin, that effectively means that you deny the right to compete to a lot of people. In this case, you deny the right to compete in a fair competition to all females. If you allow males into a swimming competition, the males will win it almost every single time . Which is absurdly retarded considering it is a female swimming competition. Furthermore, it actively encourages schools to get rid of their male swimming team, just to be able to fill up their female swimming team with males, who then procede to win the female championships against other males from other schools, who compete for their female swimming team.
Thus, the logical result of this is: You have no more male swimming teams at schools. You have female swimming teams filled with the male swimmers. You have male swimmers winning the female competitions against other males. You don't even have a male competition anymore, since schools are forced to disband their male teams to have their males compete in the female championship. Females do not have a championship anymore, because which sane female team would ever take a female in it, when males produce far better results.
If this does not sound retarded to you, i don't know anymore. It does not make any sense at all, AND it effectively removes the female swimming league.
This is a reason why competing up a weight class is no problem, but competing down is. Which is effectively the same as this. If, for example, boxers were allowed to compete in a lower bracket, that takes away that lower bracket from the people who actually fit it, and want to compete in it. If you allow a 60kg boxer to compete with the 120kg guys, that does not become a problem, because 60kg guys will never push the big guys out of their bracket, but the big guys could easily push the smaller guys out of their bracket if they are allowed to.
Note that i am not saying that these boys should not be allowed to swim, or to compete. They should just compete in the male bracket, and train with the females. I still don't see what the problem about that would be.
Yes, Simberto, until every woman is complaining men are dominating women's competitions because of idealistic bureacracy and force them to accept the retardness of it all, like the day men were allowed into the kitchen and basically took over it resulting in chefs and restaurants.
I agree my boys swim team I'n high school had like 6-8 boys each year. We won bi-county all 4 years and wrc 3 years straight. Also for anyone saying that there is not a big difference between girls and boys times I'n high school your crazy. At my school there is Iike a 10 sec difference I'n some events. That's quite large I'n swimming.
On November 21 2011 16:36 itkovian wrote: Well, if a guy want to swim and the only way he can do that is on a girls team then it only seems fair to let him. I feel like when you get to state level competitions you need to put the boys in the mens competition though. Imagining a guy winning a girls state race is absurd
Sometimes reality needs to give idealism a good smack in the head to keep it from straying too far.
I suggest boys take advantage of this ruling to score crazy sports scholarships from the idealistic administrators and politicians who are disconnected with reality and the biological difference between the innies and outies.
rofl
Over here innies and outies mean your belly button. Just wanted to throw that out there.
On November 20 2011 13:02 Syth wrote: So you're saying those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim then?
Seriously, it's school swimming. Who actually cares if boys are competing with girls.
Competition is competition. Trust me, people care.
And I'm saying that those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim on the girls' team. If that means that they can't swim for the school at all, because there isn't a boys team, well that's too bad, but it's no worse than not being able to swim because your school doesn't have any swim team. Which, for instance, my high school didn't. It's really not as tragic as you're making it out to be.
Put it differently, suppose that for whatever reason there was a swimming program in a middle school but not the associated high school. Would you say that high schoolers should be able to swim against middle schoolers because of "fairness"? That's a pretty backwards way to look at it, imo.
Remember, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be able to use the pool. Just that they shouldn't be able to compete against girls in state-sanctioned competition. To me that seems like common sense.
If this would have happened with the sexes reversed, I feel like you wouldn't be making this argument.
On November 21 2011 12:06 PenguinWithNuke wrote: As a swimmer, I think that this is ridiculous. There is no way in hell that the competition between boys and girls is at all fair. Boys are naturally faster than girls (think muscle density, strength, testosterone), and will always be faster. Also, look at that guy on the podium. He's just a huge pack of muscle. Now look at the girls. Does that look fair to you?
For example, take me, an average swimmer: I can swim faster for a particular event, the 100 breastroke, than a girl (who is the state champion for girls in backstroke events). I'm merely average, as I don't have any championships under my belt, and I am not even close to the all-American time. It's not fair to allow males to compete with females.
There is a reason why this is only practiced in Massachusetts: Common sense. Also these boys are a bunch of sissys. "Competing" with girls in a sport that requires muscle power? Probably even proud when they won.
I don't understand what you're saying. Are you insulting the boys? If you are, stop shitting out your mouth. No male takes pride in beating females in strength-based sports.
I am questioning their decision to abuse that hole in the rules. I am just a white guy with the nicest parents possible but I am sure they'd have something not so nice to say to me if I decided to participate in a woman's tournament and steal their Gold medals...
Also take a look at the pic on the front page. He looks very proud on the podium.
On November 20 2011 13:02 Syth wrote: So you're saying those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim then?
Seriously, it's school swimming. Who actually cares if boys are competing with girls.
Competition is competition. Trust me, people care.
And I'm saying that those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim on the girls' team. If that means that they can't swim for the school at all, because there isn't a boys team, well that's too bad, but it's no worse than not being able to swim because your school doesn't have any swim team. Which, for instance, my high school didn't. It's really not as tragic as you're making it out to be.
Put it differently, suppose that for whatever reason there was a swimming program in a middle school but not the associated high school. Would you say that high schoolers should be able to swim against middle schoolers because of "fairness"? That's a pretty backwards way to look at it, imo.
Remember, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be able to use the pool. Just that they shouldn't be able to compete against girls in state-sanctioned competition. To me that seems like common sense.
If this would have happened with the sexes reversed, I feel like you wouldn't be making this argument.
You're right, I wouldn't be, because boys aren't disadvantaged by having to compete against girls.
On November 20 2011 13:02 Syth wrote: So you're saying those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim then?
Seriously, it's school swimming. Who actually cares if boys are competing with girls.
Competition is competition. Trust me, people care.
And I'm saying that those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim on the girls' team. If that means that they can't swim for the school at all, because there isn't a boys team, well that's too bad, but it's no worse than not being able to swim because your school doesn't have any swim team. Which, for instance, my high school didn't. It's really not as tragic as you're making it out to be.
Put it differently, suppose that for whatever reason there was a swimming program in a middle school but not the associated high school. Would you say that high schoolers should be able to swim against middle schoolers because of "fairness"? That's a pretty backwards way to look at it, imo.
Remember, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be able to use the pool. Just that they shouldn't be able to compete against girls in state-sanctioned competition. To me that seems like common sense.
If this would have happened with the sexes reversed, I feel like you wouldn't be making this argument.
That's where the concept of competing 'up' vs 'down' comes in. As someone already pointed out, competing up a weight class is fine because you are putting an extra burden on yourself. Competing down a weight class is making things easier on yourself and thus isn't allowed.
The same thing works here. A girl competing in a boys event makes things more difficult for her, while boys competing in girls events makes things easier for them.
On November 21 2011 15:01 Runnin wrote: If a boy likes to swim and there is a girls swim team and not a boys swim team then he should be allowed to swim with the girls team. So what if he wins a lot? The sport should still provide all of the benefits that you just listed for all of the participants right?
No. There should be, and are, alternative measures for allowing the boy to swim. They have been mentioned. Putting him in the girls competition is unacceptable. The girls in this sectional meet are swimming at a very high level. At this level these girls are swimming for more than just fun - the times they are swimming suggest a competitive passion and dedication that deserves to be properly rewarded with success. Two girls will miss out on the experience of competing in the biggest HS girls swim meet because of this. One lost a sectional championship.
What's next? Do you propose we eliminate age grouping in athletics? Sure, toss the 9 year olds in with the teenagers. As long as they can participate and try their best! There is no solution to height advantage in basketball - every sport has some trait that it favors and it is unavoidable. Luckily we have enough sports where there is always a competitive outlet for any given body type, except that in nearly every sport (gymnastics is the off-the-top-of-my-head exception) men are advantaged over women. By separating sports by gender, we allow for women to have the same options that men do, to be able to find an athletic endeavor that suits them.
Competition is what drives people to succeed. This places a massive obstacle in the way of women trying to compete in swimming, and if it was widespread would curb their involvement.
edit: butchered the nested quotes, removed them
You've suggested alternatives but nothing that guarantees the boys will have the same access to reward and success. By separating sports by gender, we allow for women to have the same options that men do, to be able to find an athletic endeavor that suits them.
This goes back to why and how I responded to you in the first place? Why is it so important to balance options available to men vs women but not big vs small, weak vs strong, smart vs stupid. You are the one who wanted to point out the biological differences that give men an advantage...so taking that into account it doesn't make sense to expect that females should be (as a gender, not individually) equally rewarded for something that they are not as good at.
Give me a skinny nerd football league so I can have a chance to be the best and earn an athletic scholarship to school for the kids who are the best football players (in the league of course).
Seriously, do you actually believe what you write? I have been sitting here literally facepalming at every single one of your posts. First and foremost, many sports actually do have seperate championships for people of different body types. They are called weight classes. So if you weight only 60kg, and want to be a boxer, you still can, and you still have a fair surrounding to compete in. Furthermore, it is always fair to compete in higher weight classes, as that means you are actually accepting a handycap.
In my opinion, in a sport that is based on competition, you should have a fair league to compete in. If you just throw everybody into one bin, that effectively means that you deny the right to compete to a lot of people. In this case, you deny the right to compete in a fair competition to all females. If you allow males into a swimming competition, the males will win it almost every single time . Which is absurdly retarded considering it is a female swimming competition. Furthermore, it actively encourages schools to get rid of their male swimming team, just to be able to fill up their female swimming team with males, who then procede to win the female championships against other males from other schools, who compete for their female swimming team.
Thus, the logical result of this is: You have no more male swimming teams at schools. You have female swimming teams filled with the male swimmers. You have male swimmers winning the female competitions against other males. You don't even have a male competition anymore, since schools are forced to disband their male teams to have their males compete in the female championship. Females do not have a championship anymore, because which sane female team would ever take a female in it, when males produce far better results.
If this does not sound retarded to you, i don't know anymore. It does not make any sense at all, AND it effectively removes the female swimming league.
This is a reason why competing up a weight class is no problem, but competing down is. Which is effectively the same as this. If, for example, boxers were allowed to compete in a lower bracket, that takes away that lower bracket from the people who actually fit it, and want to compete in it. If you allow a 60kg boxer to compete with the 120kg guys, that does not become a problem, because 60kg guys will never push the big guys out of their bracket, but the big guys could easily push the smaller guys out of their bracket if they are allowed to.
Note that i am not saying that these boys should not be allowed to swim, or to compete. They should just compete in the male bracket, and train with the females. I still don't see what the problem about that would be.
I've addressed the points you've made already and you are ignoring the larger point.
There are boys who want to swim and they don't have their team so they swim with the girls. People are getting butt hurt over that because it is supposedly unfair to girls. Other people responded by pointing out it is matter of equality and equal access. The person I responded to initially was talking some nonsense about people pretending males and females are biologically the same (even though no one was trying to argue that) so I carried on his logic to ask why he should care if females have their own protected classes in sports to begin with...since rewarding top female athletes the same as top male athletes is just another way of pretending that there is equality where there isn't.
So it is not that I think there should not be boys and girls sports, I was showing why I think his reasoning is flawed.
As I've said before, boys winning a swimming competition with girls means absolutely nothing because there are no opponents. Starcraft has opponents, football has opponents, chess has opponents, baseball has opponents, running, swimming, cycling, golfing etc do not. So if you really care about the poor girls losing their imaginary first place then you can solve the problem simply by recording top male and top female times separately. Why is this a big deal? Now he said that the best times are recorded during competition and not during practice..fine...then they should be even faster when they know they have to beat a potentially faster boy. No problem there.
But really these girls just have to get over it, just like the boys who don't want to wrestle girls have to forfeit a match if they can't deal with it and you know if a girl swam on a boys team and got first place no one would be making a big stink about the poor boy who isn't going to get to compete in the boys championship competitions.
Thus, the logical result of this is: You have no more male swimming teams at schools. You have female swimming teams filled with the male swimmers. You have male swimmers winning the female competitions against other males. You don't even have a male competition anymore, since schools are forced to disband their male teams to have their males compete in the female championship. Females do not have a championship anymore, because which sane female team would ever take a female in it, when males produce far better results.
And that is simply not true. The boys are swimming on the girls team because of 2 possible reasons. 1) there are not enough boy swimmers to make their own team or 2) the school can't fund the boys team because boys sports such as football, baseball and basketball already eats up funding and they have to follow stupid law of equally funding boys and girls sports teams even if the interest level and cost per participant in various sports is not the same. The aim obviously being to "balance" out each gender but I don't care about genders I care about individuals and if an individual wants to play a sport that is offered at a school then they should allowed to, it is that simple.
It's not anymore wrong than male wrestling teams that have a girl on them lots of guys aren't willing to wrestle a girl so they will refuse to wrestle imo everything should be kept segregated both men and womens sports if their is no team for that gender at that particular school then the other gender can compete as long as they aren't taking a position away from someone of the proper gender.
On November 21 2011 15:01 Runnin wrote: If a boy likes to swim and there is a girls swim team and not a boys swim team then he should be allowed to swim with the girls team. So what if he wins a lot? The sport should still provide all of the benefits that you just listed for all of the participants right?
No. There should be, and are, alternative measures for allowing the boy to swim. They have been mentioned. Putting him in the girls competition is unacceptable. The girls in this sectional meet are swimming at a very high level. At this level these girls are swimming for more than just fun - the times they are swimming suggest a competitive passion and dedication that deserves to be properly rewarded with success. Two girls will miss out on the experience of competing in the biggest HS girls swim meet because of this. One lost a sectional championship.
What's next? Do you propose we eliminate age grouping in athletics? Sure, toss the 9 year olds in with the teenagers. As long as they can participate and try their best! There is no solution to height advantage in basketball - every sport has some trait that it favors and it is unavoidable. Luckily we have enough sports where there is always a competitive outlet for any given body type, except that in nearly every sport (gymnastics is the off-the-top-of-my-head exception) men are advantaged over women. By separating sports by gender, we allow for women to have the same options that men do, to be able to find an athletic endeavor that suits them.
Competition is what drives people to succeed. This places a massive obstacle in the way of women trying to compete in swimming, and if it was widespread would curb their involvement.
edit: butchered the nested quotes, removed them
You've suggested alternatives but nothing that guarantees the boys will have the same access to reward and success. By separating sports by gender, we allow for women to have the same options that men do, to be able to find an athletic endeavor that suits them.
This goes back to why and how I responded to you in the first place? Why is it so important to balance options available to men vs women but not big vs small, weak vs strong, smart vs stupid. You are the one who wanted to point out the biological differences that give men an advantage...so taking that into account it doesn't make sense to expect that females should be (as a gender, not individually) equally rewarded for something that they are not as good at.
Give me a skinny nerd football league so I can have a chance to be the best and earn an athletic scholarship to school for the kids who are the best football players (in the league of course).
Seriously, do you actually believe what you write? I have been sitting here literally facepalming at every single one of your posts. First and foremost, many sports actually do have seperate championships for people of different body types. They are called weight classes. So if you weight only 60kg, and want to be a boxer, you still can, and you still have a fair surrounding to compete in. Furthermore, it is always fair to compete in higher weight classes, as that means you are actually accepting a handycap.
In my opinion, in a sport that is based on competition, you should have a fair league to compete in. If you just throw everybody into one bin, that effectively means that you deny the right to compete to a lot of people. In this case, you deny the right to compete in a fair competition to all females. If you allow males into a swimming competition, the males will win it almost every single time . Which is absurdly retarded considering it is a female swimming competition. Furthermore, it actively encourages schools to get rid of their male swimming team, just to be able to fill up their female swimming team with males, who then procede to win the female championships against other males from other schools, who compete for their female swimming team.
Thus, the logical result of this is: You have no more male swimming teams at schools. You have female swimming teams filled with the male swimmers. You have male swimmers winning the female competitions against other males. You don't even have a male competition anymore, since schools are forced to disband their male teams to have their males compete in the female championship. Females do not have a championship anymore, because which sane female team would ever take a female in it, when males produce far better results.
If this does not sound retarded to you, i don't know anymore. It does not make any sense at all, AND it effectively removes the female swimming league.
This is a reason why competing up a weight class is no problem, but competing down is. Which is effectively the same as this. If, for example, boxers were allowed to compete in a lower bracket, that takes away that lower bracket from the people who actually fit it, and want to compete in it. If you allow a 60kg boxer to compete with the 120kg guys, that does not become a problem, because 60kg guys will never push the big guys out of their bracket, but the big guys could easily push the smaller guys out of their bracket if they are allowed to.
Note that i am not saying that these boys should not be allowed to swim, or to compete. They should just compete in the male bracket, and train with the females. I still don't see what the problem about that would be.
I've addressed the points you've made already and you are ignoring the larger point.
There are boys who want to swim and they don't have their team so they swim with the girls. People are getting butt hurt over that because it is supposedly unfair to girls. Other people responded by pointing out it is matter of equality and equal access. The person I responded to initially was talking some nonsense about people pretending males and females are biologically the same (even though no one was trying to argue that) so I carried on his logic to ask why he should care if females have their own protected classes in sports to begin with...since rewarding top female athletes the same as top male athletes is just another way of pretending that there is equality where there isn't.
So it is not that I think there should not be boys and girls sports, I was showing why I think his reasoning is flawed.
As I've said before, boys winning a swimming competition with girls means absolutely nothing because there are no opponents. Starcraft has opponents, football has opponents, chess has opponents, baseball has opponents, running, swimming, cycling, golfing etc do not. So if you really care about the poor girls losing their imaginary first place then you can solve the problem simply by recording top male and top female times separately. Why is this a big deal? Now he said that the best times are recorded during competition and not during practice..fine...then they should be even faster when they know they have to beat a potentially faster boy. No problem there.
But really these girls just have to get over it, just like the boys who don't want to wrestle girls have to forfeit a match if they can't deal with it and you know if a girl swam on a boys team and got first place no one would be making a big stink about the poor boy who isn't going to get to compete in the boys championship competitions.
Thus, the logical result of this is: You have no more male swimming teams at schools. You have female swimming teams filled with the male swimmers. You have male swimmers winning the female competitions against other males. You don't even have a male competition anymore, since schools are forced to disband their male teams to have their males compete in the female championship. Females do not have a championship anymore, because which sane female team would ever take a female in it, when males produce far better results.
And that is simply not true. The boys are swimming on the girls team because of 2 possible reasons. 1) there are not enough boy swimmers to make their own team or 2) the school can't fund the boys team because boys sports such as football, baseball and basketball already eats up funding and they have to follow stupid law of equally funding boys and girls sports teams even if the interest level and cost per participant in various sports is not the same. The aim obviously being to "balance" out each gender but I don't care about genders I care about individuals and if an individual wants to play a sport that is offered at a school then they should allowed to, it is that simple.
But don't you agree that from the perspective of a school that wants to get the maximum amount of prestige by winning a lot of stuff, the ideal choice of action would be to simply overfund one male team, like f.E. football, and spend all of the other money on girls teams for varying sports where males are physically favored, and then fill those girls teams up with males who "sadly" have to compete in the womens league because the school "sadly" does not have a males team for that sport? And is that situation not inheretly absurd?
Also, you seem to have that strange notion that there is not competition between people in individual sports. I have no idea where you got that idea, but it is simply not true. You don't just race to improve your own time. You race to beat other people. You want to win that race, not improve your own time by 0.08 seconds. Of course, you could handle that by throwing everyone into a bin, and then sort the results afterwards. Or you could be sensible and just arrange it so that the people who are actually competing with each other are racing each other, and have no need to sort stuff out afterwards. I have the feeling that you never actually competed in such a sport, and thus have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
You also absolutely don't seem to get the difference between competing in a higher weight class, and competing in a lower one. The one is accepting a disadvantage to compete in a more prestigous league, the other is taking an unfair advantage to grab easy wins. Thus, one is acceptable, the other is not.
Not to mention that absurdly warped logic you are sporting of "You acknowledge that males and females have bodily differences which are advantageous for males and certain sports, and by accepting that fact and having different leagues, you promote the idea that they are exactly the same." I don't even know how to react to that. It just makes no sense, so i don't even see how i would argue with that, since there is simply no sense in it, at all.
On an unrelated note, i take an instant disliking to anyone using the word "butthurt".
Another thing: Why don't you just use quotes like everyone else? It makes it much easier to follow what is your statement, and what is the one you are replying to when compared to that bolding stuff you use.
The problem is that having a female team to allow for female access to sports, is equivalent to having a weakling male team for weakling male access to sports.
Instead of having weight classes or gender classes, sport compettions should be in ability classes. (similar to Chess). Weight and Gender can be what constitutes the initial placement. After that, every time you win you move up in "ability rating". and may find yourself competing with higher levels
School sports teams are then open to All ability levels (still able to get kicked off the team for slacking or bad behavior, and probably separate girls boys locker rooms)
On November 22 2011 04:09 Krikkitone wrote: The problem is that having a female team to allow for female access to sports, is equivalent to having a weakling male team for weakling male access to sports.
Instead of having weight classes or gender classes, sport compettions should be in ability classes. (similar to Chess). Weight and Gender can be what constitutes the initial placement. After that, every time you win you move up in "ability rating". and may find yourself competing with higher levels
School sports teams are then open to All ability levels (still able to get kicked off the team for slacking or bad behavior, and probably separate girls boys locker rooms)
Oh, it is not like that in the states? Sorry, i was just assuming that a system like that is already in place. Basically every competative sport here has many different leagues, starting from very small regional ones which usually also have multiple layers, and when you win a lot, you can move up into higher leagues like statewide, or country-wides. Those where it makes sense are still divided in male and female and/or weight classes, though, so that might not have been what you meant.
On November 22 2011 04:47 Blardy wrote: I see no problem in guy's joining a girl's swim team as girls occasionally join men teams.
The real problem is that the difference in speed a top level female swimmer can do vs a average male swimmer is none.
For example view the diffrence in times for the michigan state meet the diffrence in time is noticible in every event and thats of swimmers of equal skill from each sex having to hit those times. Now imagine your a girl who worked really really hard to get your 500yd Free down below 5:20 and then a guy shows up at your meet and swims a time below 5:00 with the same technique JUST BECAUSE HE'S BIGGER THEN YOU it's not fair.
How is this thread still growing? I thought this would stop back when I posted on page 6. But alas, this is once again near the top of the general forum... I've been trying to understand the arguments which are pro mixing. I'm still confused. I've heard about funding and also how it doesn't really matter since swimming is an individual sport.
About funding, I'm not sure why that's a reason. Music departments can't afford new music instruments; art departments can't afford new brushes; computer departments can't afford better software; science departments can afford chemicals... I can keep going. If the budget does not allow for another swim team, some choices have to be made. Do some fund raising or wtvr but it's no reason to enter a co-ed team into a non-co-ed competition.
As for the whole individual thing, it's not. If you're competing, it's not entirely individual. Unless each swimmer was awarded by improvement, how can anyone possibly make the argument that no one has any advantage? Additionally, if the gender didn't matter, why didn't the school enter the co-ed team into a male swimming competition?
My girlfriend's little sister made the cut for olympic trials. She's one of the fastest sprinters for her age (17) currently alive. I've gotten an inside look at the world of competition swimming, and it disgusts me. Personally, I swim for my own personal gain (I'm currently the fastest lifeguard on staff, with the longest apnea distance (125 surface yards without breathing,) and have no prior swimming experience outside of scuba diving) and teach triathlon swimming to adults.
Swimming is a horrible sport to take seriously. Rotator cuff damage from butterfly? What the christ? You wind up with an awful "footballer" mentality (a-la Ryan Lochte, the ultradouche of the swimming world) and we're pushing kids into a sport that some can genuinely not afford to compete in (those "race suits" are upwards of $500, most teams won't pay for them, and they only last 2-3 meets. Not only that, many teams won't pay to fly their athletes around to the dozen or more meets that aren't local. The financial stress is literally, single handedly keeping my girlfriend's family in extreme paycheck-to-paycheck poverty with all the flights, competition suits, and 40-mile each way drive to her daily practice.)
Seriously, fuck organized sports. Berkeley is giving her a full ride scholarship for her ENTIRE education, she doesn't have great grades, a crap SAT score, no extracirricular outside of swimming, has no idea what she wants to major in, and basically every school in the nation wanted to give her a full ride. She went with berkeley because their locker room has heated floors, and whined when the contract she signed said that she had to stay at Berkeley, even if the coach left. "Why?" she said, "The coach was who recruited me..."
... You want kids that dumb being able to say they graduated from Berkeley? We need to stop this idiocracy, and make sports about self-improvement, and not asinine competition for extreme profits.
On November 21 2011 15:01 Runnin wrote: If a boy likes to swim and there is a girls swim team and not a boys swim team then he should be allowed to swim with the girls team. So what if he wins a lot? The sport should still provide all of the benefits that you just listed for all of the participants right?
No. There should be, and are, alternative measures for allowing the boy to swim. They have been mentioned. Putting him in the girls competition is unacceptable. The girls in this sectional meet are swimming at a very high level. At this level these girls are swimming for more than just fun - the times they are swimming suggest a competitive passion and dedication that deserves to be properly rewarded with success. Two girls will miss out on the experience of competing in the biggest HS girls swim meet because of this. One lost a sectional championship.
What's next? Do you propose we eliminate age grouping in athletics? Sure, toss the 9 year olds in with the teenagers. As long as they can participate and try their best! There is no solution to height advantage in basketball - every sport has some trait that it favors and it is unavoidable. Luckily we have enough sports where there is always a competitive outlet for any given body type, except that in nearly every sport (gymnastics is the off-the-top-of-my-head exception) men are advantaged over women. By separating sports by gender, we allow for women to have the same options that men do, to be able to find an athletic endeavor that suits them.
Competition is what drives people to succeed. This places a massive obstacle in the way of women trying to compete in swimming, and if it was widespread would curb their involvement.
edit: butchered the nested quotes, removed them
You've suggested alternatives but nothing that guarantees the boys will have the same access to reward and success. By separating sports by gender, we allow for women to have the same options that men do, to be able to find an athletic endeavor that suits them.
This goes back to why and how I responded to you in the first place? Why is it so important to balance options available to men vs women but not big vs small, weak vs strong, smart vs stupid. You are the one who wanted to point out the biological differences that give men an advantage...so taking that into account it doesn't make sense to expect that females should be (as a gender, not individually) equally rewarded for something that they are not as good at.
Give me a skinny nerd football league so I can have a chance to be the best and earn an athletic scholarship to school for the kids who are the best football players (in the league of course).
Seriously, do you actually believe what you write? I have been sitting here literally facepalming at every single one of your posts. First and foremost, many sports actually do have seperate championships for people of different body types. They are called weight classes. So if you weight only 60kg, and want to be a boxer, you still can, and you still have a fair surrounding to compete in. Furthermore, it is always fair to compete in higher weight classes, as that means you are actually accepting a handycap.
In my opinion, in a sport that is based on competition, you should have a fair league to compete in. If you just throw everybody into one bin, that effectively means that you deny the right to compete to a lot of people. In this case, you deny the right to compete in a fair competition to all females. If you allow males into a swimming competition, the males will win it almost every single time . Which is absurdly retarded considering it is a female swimming competition. Furthermore, it actively encourages schools to get rid of their male swimming team, just to be able to fill up their female swimming team with males, who then procede to win the female championships against other males from other schools, who compete for their female swimming team.
Thus, the logical result of this is: You have no more male swimming teams at schools. You have female swimming teams filled with the male swimmers. You have male swimmers winning the female competitions against other males. You don't even have a male competition anymore, since schools are forced to disband their male teams to have their males compete in the female championship. Females do not have a championship anymore, because which sane female team would ever take a female in it, when males produce far better results.
If this does not sound retarded to you, i don't know anymore. It does not make any sense at all, AND it effectively removes the female swimming league.
This is a reason why competing up a weight class is no problem, but competing down is. Which is effectively the same as this. If, for example, boxers were allowed to compete in a lower bracket, that takes away that lower bracket from the people who actually fit it, and want to compete in it. If you allow a 60kg boxer to compete with the 120kg guys, that does not become a problem, because 60kg guys will never push the big guys out of their bracket, but the big guys could easily push the smaller guys out of their bracket if they are allowed to.
Note that i am not saying that these boys should not be allowed to swim, or to compete. They should just compete in the male bracket, and train with the females. I still don't see what the problem about that would be.
I've addressed the points you've made already and you are ignoring the larger point.
There are boys who want to swim and they don't have their team so they swim with the girls. People are getting butt hurt over that because it is supposedly unfair to girls. Other people responded by pointing out it is matter of equality and equal access. The person I responded to initially was talking some nonsense about people pretending males and females are biologically the same (even though no one was trying to argue that) so I carried on his logic to ask why he should care if females have their own protected classes in sports to begin with...since rewarding top female athletes the same as top male athletes is just another way of pretending that there is equality where there isn't.
So it is not that I think there should not be boys and girls sports, I was showing why I think his reasoning is flawed.
As I've said before, boys winning a swimming competition with girls means absolutely nothing because there are no opponents. Starcraft has opponents, football has opponents, chess has opponents, baseball has opponents, running, swimming, cycling, golfing etc do not. So if you really care about the poor girls losing their imaginary first place then you can solve the problem simply by recording top male and top female times separately. Why is this a big deal? Now he said that the best times are recorded during competition and not during practice..fine...then they should be even faster when they know they have to beat a potentially faster boy. No problem there.
But really these girls just have to get over it, just like the boys who don't want to wrestle girls have to forfeit a match if they can't deal with it and you know if a girl swam on a boys team and got first place no one would be making a big stink about the poor boy who isn't going to get to compete in the boys championship competitions.
Thus, the logical result of this is: You have no more male swimming teams at schools. You have female swimming teams filled with the male swimmers. You have male swimmers winning the female competitions against other males. You don't even have a male competition anymore, since schools are forced to disband their male teams to have their males compete in the female championship. Females do not have a championship anymore, because which sane female team would ever take a female in it, when males produce far better results.
And that is simply not true. The boys are swimming on the girls team because of 2 possible reasons. 1) there are not enough boy swimmers to make their own team or 2) the school can't fund the boys team because boys sports such as football, baseball and basketball already eats up funding and they have to follow stupid law of equally funding boys and girls sports teams even if the interest level and cost per participant in various sports is not the same. The aim obviously being to "balance" out each gender but I don't care about genders I care about individuals and if an individual wants to play a sport that is offered at a school then they should allowed to, it is that simple.
But don't you agree that from the perspective of a school that wants to get the maximum amount of prestige by winning a lot of stuff, the ideal choice of action would be to simply overfund one male team, like f.E. football, and spend all of the other money on girls teams for varying sports where males are physically favored, and then fill those girls teams up with males who "sadly" have to compete in the womens league because the school "sadly" does not have a males team for that sport? And is that situation not inheretly absurd?
Also, you seem to have that strange notion that there is not competition between people in individual sports. I have no idea where you got that idea, but it is simply not true. You don't just race to improve your own time. You race to beat other people. You want to win that race, not improve your own time by 0.08 seconds. Of course, you could handle that by throwing everyone into a bin, and then sort the results afterwards. Or you could be sensible and just arrange it so that the people who are actually competing with each other are racing each other, and have no need to sort stuff out afterwards. I have the feeling that you never actually competed in such a sport, and thus have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
You also absolutely don't seem to get the difference between competing in a higher weight class, and competing in a lower one. The one is accepting a disadvantage to compete in a more prestigous league, the other is taking an unfair advantage to grab easy wins. Thus, one is acceptable, the other is not.
Not to mention that absurdly warped logic you are sporting of "You acknowledge that males and females have bodily differences which are advantageous for males and certain sports, and by accepting that fact and having different leagues, you promote the idea that they are exactly the same." I don't even know how to react to that. It just makes no sense, so i don't even see how i would argue with that, since there is simply no sense in it, at all.
On an unrelated note, i take an instant disliking to anyone using the word "butthurt".
Another thing: Why don't you just use quotes like everyone else? It makes it much easier to follow what is your statement, and what is the one you are replying to when compared to that bolding stuff you use.
But don't you agree that from the perspective of a school that wants to get the maximum amount of prestige by winning a lot of stuff, the ideal choice of action would be to simply overfund one male team, like f.E. football, and spend all of the other money on girls teams for varying sports where males are physically favored, and then fill those girls teams up with males who "sadly" have to compete in the womens league because the school "sadly" does not have a males team for that sport? And is that situation not inheretly absurd?
It would be absurd but it is not at all realistic, it would never happen. Boys will want to play on a boys team whenever possible. The wins wouldn't mean anything anyways if they are intentionally stacking the deck. Also there is not all that much prestige for winning high school level sports (with the exception of American football)..there is just no real incentive for schools to do what you are suggesting. Students, athletes, parents teachers, coaches, colleges..no one would allow it.
You also absolutely don't seem to get the difference between competing in a higher weight class, and competing in a lower one. The one is accepting a disadvantage to compete in a more prestigous league, the other is taking an unfair advantage to grab easy wins. Thus, one is acceptable, the other is not.
The boys aren't dropping into a "lower" league to grab easy wins. They are joining the only league that is available to them because they want to play because for one reason or another the school cannot fund a boys team. And the girls team is not strictly a "lower" league, it is more like a parallel league. In practice the results for the girls are worse than boys but that does not make it a lower league, if a girl came along who was stronger and faster than the boys and the fastest swimmer in the entire country she would still swim on the girls team...if it was a lower league then fast girls would move up into the boys team.
Not to mention that absurdly warped logic you are sporting of "You acknowledge that males and females have bodily differences which are advantageous for males and certain sports, and by accepting that fact and having different leagues, you promote the idea that they are exactly the same." I don't even know how to react to that. It just makes no sense, so i don't even see how i would argue with that, since there is simply no sense in it, at all.
Yeah you are right, now that I am reading that it is not clear at all what I was trying to say. Basically I was responding to the guy who accused people of pretending that biological gender differences do not exist, which no one argued btw. He argues to keep boys and girls sports separate because of their biological differences which make boys inherently better at physical sports than girls. He doesn't want boys on girls teams because it is unfair to girls because they might get outclassed. But there are no lower leagues or special teams for boys who are weak, short, scrawny etc In my view where I see everyone as individuals I see some of the under performing individuals allowed to play in a special team and receive equal rewards and funding as the top performing individuals (who in practice would be mostly but not entirely male) just because they are female while other under performing individuals who are not female have no opportunity to play their best and be rewarded based on their own skill level. So my questions were why is it so important that girls have their own separate chance to compete and earn titles and trophies while plenty of other groups of people for one reason or another cannot? And how can he support something like title ix which he described as imperfect..it is not imperfect it is bad and it hurts many individual athletes who just want to play the sports that are offered.
Also, you seem to have that strange notion that there is not competition between people in individual sports. I have no idea where you got that idea, but it is simply not true. You don't just race to improve your own time. You race to beat other people. You want to win that race, not improve your own time by 0.08 seconds. Of course, you could handle that by throwing everyone into a bin, and then sort the results afterwards. Or you could be sensible and just arrange it so that the people who are actually competing with each other are racing each other, and have no need to sort stuff out afterwards. I have the feeling that you never actually competed in such a sport, and thus have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
Having a couple boys in a race does not have to change anything. They will be racing vs the boys and it should encourage them to move faster just as if they were racing a girl. All of the athletes have their times recorded after a race so it is not a big deal to "sort" them out by gender since you are talking about a few boys in a pool full of girls.
Another thing: Why don't you just use quotes like everyone else? It makes it much easier to follow what is your statement, and what is the one you are replying to when compared to that bolding stuff you use
It is all the same to me but since people seem to like it this way then I'll start using the quotes. /shrug
On November 22 2011 04:09 Krikkitone wrote: The problem is that having a female team to allow for female access to sports, is equivalent to having a weakling male team for weakling male access to sports.
Instead of having weight classes or gender classes, sport compettions should be in ability classes. (similar to Chess). Weight and Gender can be what constitutes the initial placement. After that, every time you win you move up in "ability rating". and may find yourself competing with higher levels
School sports teams are then open to All ability levels (still able to get kicked off the team for slacking or bad behavior, and probably separate girls boys locker rooms)
Oh, it is not like that in the states? Sorry, i was just assuming that a system like that is already in place. Basically every competative sport here has many different leagues, starting from very small regional ones which usually also have multiple layers, and when you win a lot, you can move up into higher leagues like statewide, or country-wides. Those where it makes sense are still divided in male and female and/or weight classes, though, so that might not have been what you meant.
This is basically what I like but I see little difference in most sports to segregate by gender as long as everyone can compete at a level most suited to them but more importantly that people can play any sport that is offered and not be locked out due to gender.
On November 20 2011 13:02 Syth wrote: So you're saying those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim then?
Seriously, it's school swimming. Who actually cares if boys are competing with girls.
Competition is competition. Trust me, people care.
And I'm saying that those boys shouldn't be allowed to swim on the girls' team. If that means that they can't swim for the school at all, because there isn't a boys team, well that's too bad, but it's no worse than not being able to swim because your school doesn't have any swim team. Which, for instance, my high school didn't. It's really not as tragic as you're making it out to be.
Put it differently, suppose that for whatever reason there was a swimming program in a middle school but not the associated high school. Would you say that high schoolers should be able to swim against middle schoolers because of "fairness"? That's a pretty backwards way to look at it, imo.
Remember, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be able to use the pool. Just that they shouldn't be able to compete against girls in state-sanctioned competition. To me that seems like common sense.
If this would have happened with the sexes reversed, I feel like you wouldn't be making this argument.
You're right, I wouldn't be, because boys aren't disadvantaged by having to compete against girls.
yes they are. just because some boys are above even the best girls, the vast majority of people can easily find a girl more physically capable than them. yet theres no special effort made for 5ft and under boys. maybe there should be but there isnt, and its the same situation as being born a girl.
Seriously, fuck organized sports. Berkeley is giving her a full ride scholarship for her ENTIRE education
While that is terrible, surely she still won't be able to get a job with said grades? So it will hurt her eventually?
@Holykitty
Sports exist to get viewers. There is a market to watch girls compete. Same with disabled. But people who are merely disadvantaged? No one would show up to watch.
On November 20 2011 12:57 qrs wrote: [center] Norwood’s Will Higgins, center, recently took first place in the 50-yard freestyle at the Girl’s South Sectional MIAA meet.
lmao at the skinny dude at the bottom flexing when he got beaten by a bunch of girls
this is so silly... i mean stop saying its fair to do so. guys and girls are physiologically different and thus shouldn't compete in equal arenas, without any trace of sexism. and when you let the guys compete, there's going to be that girl in 2nd who should have been 1st, forever only able to be 2nd because a guy who shouldn't even have swam took 1st, and thats just heartbrekaing
On November 22 2011 08:05 CeriseCherries wrote: holy shit lol. Best idea ever... -.-
this is so silly... i mean stop saying its fair to do so. guys and girls are physiologically different and thus shouldn't compete in equal arenas, without any trace of sexism. and when you let the guys compete, there's going to be that girl in 2nd who should have been 1st, forever only able to be 2nd because a guy who shouldn't even have swam took 1st, and thats just heartbrekaing
Did you read the thread?
The boys are joining the girl teams because the schools don't want to fund a boys team.
blame the shitty state governments and their poor funding of the US education system.
On November 22 2011 08:05 CeriseCherries wrote: holy shit lol. Best idea ever... -.-
this is so silly... i mean stop saying its fair to do so. guys and girls are physiologically different and thus shouldn't compete in equal arenas, without any trace of sexism. and when you let the guys compete, there's going to be that girl in 2nd who should have been 1st, forever only able to be 2nd because a guy who shouldn't even have swam took 1st, and thats just heartbrekaing
Did you read the thread?
The boys are joining the girl teams because the schools don't want to fund a boys team.
blame the shitty state governments and their poor funding of the US education system.
Or, more appropriately, blame Title IX. More males want to participate in sports than females, but we have to have balance regardless.
While that is terrible, surely she still won't be able to get a job with said grades? So it will hurt her eventually?
She doesn't need an education. She will make so much money swimming professionally that it won't even matter. She ruined her family financially and is emotionally and educationally stunted beyond all belief (she throws temper tantrums. Literally. On the ground, kicking and screaming.)
Yeah, sports are all about personal growth. She never has, and never will, take responsibility for anything in her life.
lmao at the skinny dude at the bottom flexing when he got beaten by a bunch of girls
lmao at people who think those girls couldn't kick their asses. Have you ever seen competitive swimmer girls? They're horrifying. Built like dumptrucks with shoulders like incontrol's. I met a girl from Berkeley that was wearing a shirt so tight her biceps were literally bulging out of it, like the fabric itself was about to give way, all she-hulk style.
Let him swim on the team. Give him access to the training and experience. He should not be allowed to compete. He looks like he has a 20 - 30 pound muscle advantage just for starters.
lmao at the skinny dude at the bottom flexing when he got beaten by a bunch of girls
lmao at people who think those girls couldn't kick their asses. Have you ever seen competitive swimmer girls? They're horrifying. Built like dumptrucks with shoulders like incontrol's. I met a girl from Berkeley that was wearing a shirt so tight her biceps were literally bulging out of it, like the fabric itself was about to give way, all she-hulk style.
Guys have a humongous advantage over girls. For example, the qualifying time to make the girls' State-wide competition in Washington is something like 28 seconds for 50 meter freestyle. It's 26 seconds for boys. On a typical boy's team, 28 seconds is usually the average time for the worst swimmer. In other words, the average high school boy who knows little about swimming could easily become one of the top swimmers on a girls team given enough instruction on his form and some weight lifting.
There is really no good reason to allow boys to compete in girls events, where they are likely to dominate. The whole point of segregating the sexes is to give girls a chance to compete in events; that is equality, not assuming away physical differences between girls and boys. If the high school doesn't offer a boys swim team, then they can go swim with their club swim team.
But don't you agree that from the perspective of a school that wants to get the maximum amount of prestige by winning a lot of stuff, the ideal choice of action would be to simply overfund one male team, like f.E. football, and spend all of the other money on girls teams for varying sports where males are physically favored, and then fill those girls teams up with males who "sadly" have to compete in the womens league because the school "sadly" does not have a males team for that sport? And is that situation not inheretly absurd?
It would be absurd but it is not at all realistic, it would never happen. Boys will want to play on a boys team whenever possible. The wins wouldn't mean anything anyways if they are intentionally stacking the deck. Also there is not all that much prestige for winning high school level sports (with the exception of American football)..there is just no real incentive for schools to do what you are suggesting. Students, athletes, parents teachers, coaches, colleges..no one would allow it.
I agree, that argument was pretty hyperbolic, i also somehow more and more get the feeling that i simply don't understand how sports work in america at all. All those school sport teams with strange rules and laws, sport scholarships and stuff like that don't really make a lot of sense to me.
You also absolutely don't seem to get the difference between competing in a higher weight class, and competing in a lower one. The one is accepting a disadvantage to compete in a more prestigous league, the other is taking an unfair advantage to grab easy wins. Thus, one is acceptable, the other is not.
The boys aren't dropping into a "lower" league to grab easy wins. They are joining the only league that is available to them because they want to play because for one reason or another the school cannot fund a boys team. And the girls team is not strictly a "lower" league, it is more like a parallel league. In practice the results for the girls are worse than boys but that does not make it a lower league, if a girl came along who was stronger and faster than the boys and the fastest swimmer in the entire country she would still swim on the girls team...if it was a lower league then fast girls would move up into the boys team.
I think that the comparision between a female league, and a league for a lower weight class is pretty good. In both cases, you have a direct disadvantage. Sure, there could be some very good boxer that can still beat people one class higher. But he has to be far better than them to do so. And from what i read in this thread, apparently average competing male swimmers get times similar to the top females. Sure, there might be a girl that is just that incredibly extraordinary good that she could beat the best boys, but she would have to be an outstanding talent to be able to do that even in a mediocre competition. It is not a lower league as there is no ascendence, that is right. But it still makes sense to split the competition, just like it makes sense to split the competition into weight classes for some sports. This way, both can have a fair competition with people who have a similar handicap.
And to be honest, female sports does usually not grant the same rewards as male ones, simply because it is usually far less popular among the viewers, and thus does rewards both less fame and less money.
Not to mention that absurdly warped logic you are sporting of "You acknowledge that males and females have bodily differences which are advantageous for males and certain sports, and by accepting that fact and having different leagues, you promote the idea that they are exactly the same." I don't even know how to react to that. It just makes no sense, so i don't even see how i would argue with that, since there is simply no sense in it, at all.
Yeah you are right, now that I am reading that it is not clear at all what I was trying to say. Basically I was responding to the guy who accused people of pretending that biological gender differences do not exist, which no one argued btw. He argues to keep boys and girls sports separate because of their biological differences which make boys inherently better at physical sports than girls. He doesn't want boys on girls teams because it is unfair to girls because they might get outclassed. But there are no lower leagues or special teams for boys who are weak, short, scrawny etc In my view where I see everyone as individuals I see some of the under performing individuals allowed to play in a special team and receive equal rewards and funding as the top performing individuals (who in practice would be mostly but not entirely male) just because they are female while other under performing individuals who are not female have no opportunity to play their best and be rewarded based on their own skill level. So my questions were why is it so important that girls have their own separate chance to compete and earn titles and trophies while plenty of other groups of people for one reason or another cannot? And how can he support something like title ix which he described as imperfect..it is not imperfect it is bad and it hurts many individual athletes who just want to play the sports that are offered.
I don't know what that title ix does or how it works, so i won't comment on that part. However, from what i read, you both seem to agree that it does really work well, you just choose to use different words for that. Also, a lot of this paragraph seems to refer to strange american systems i don't really understand, so i will not talk about most of it. I find that in most cases, if there is something which would be both impossible to change for the person and important for the result of the competition, there is a seperate league for it. For example, you can only change your mass in a good way(muscles, not fat) to some degree, so there are different weight classes in many sports. You can not suddenly stop to be female, and it obviously has a large effect on the results through physiology (I am pretty sure that breasts alone are pretty annoying in many sports) so there is a female league. If you are physically or mentally handicapped, there are basically dozens of different leagues regarding what exactly your problem is. This is especially true for individual sports, in team sports it is different, but we are not talking about those anyways.
Also, you seem to have that strange notion that there is not competition between people in individual sports. I have no idea where you got that idea, but it is simply not true. You don't just race to improve your own time. You race to beat other people. You want to win that race, not improve your own time by 0.08 seconds. Of course, you could handle that by throwing everyone into a bin, and then sort the results afterwards. Or you could be sensible and just arrange it so that the people who are actually competing with each other are racing each other, and have no need to sort stuff out afterwards. I have the feeling that you never actually competed in such a sport, and thus have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
Having a couple boys in a race does not have to change anything. They will be racing vs the boys and it should encourage them to move faster just as if they were racing a girl. All of the athletes have their times recorded after a race so it is not a big deal to "sort" them out by gender since you are talking about a few boys in a pool full of girls.
It does change a lot. As you can see in that picture posted above, those boys actually take medals for female championships. Now that is not only absurdly idiotic, since they obviously are not female, and thus should not be able to win a medal in female swimming. Now, it would not be a problem if they would actually do it like you suggested, and sort the times afterwards, and have winners in female and male sports. This would basically only mean that you have a seperate competition for the males, which just happens to be at the same time in the same place as the one for the girls. It would probably also collide with the actual boys competition that is some place else at some different time, and where i still don't understand why they could not simply send them there, but one could probably deal with that. However, having them take medals for female sports is a big problem because of the advantage that they have. It IS a female competition after all, specifically designed for female sports.
Another thing: Why don't you just use quotes like everyone else? It makes it much easier to follow what is your statement, and what is the one you are replying to when compared to that bolding stuff you use
It is all the same to me but since people seem to like it this way then I'll start using the quotes. /shrug
Thanks. Most people use bolds for the synopsis of their posts, so i was totally confused reading yours before i realized what you were doing.
On November 22 2011 04:09 Krikkitone wrote: The problem is that having a female team to allow for female access to sports, is equivalent to having a weakling male team for weakling male access to sports.
Instead of having weight classes or gender classes, sport compettions should be in ability classes. (similar to Chess). Weight and Gender can be what constitutes the initial placement. After that, every time you win you move up in "ability rating". and may find yourself competing with higher levels
School sports teams are then open to All ability levels (still able to get kicked off the team for slacking or bad behavior, and probably separate girls boys locker rooms)
Oh, it is not like that in the states? Sorry, i was just assuming that a system like that is already in place. Basically every competative sport here has many different leagues, starting from very small regional ones which usually also have multiple layers, and when you win a lot, you can move up into higher leagues like statewide, or country-wides. Those where it makes sense are still divided in male and female and/or weight classes, though, so that might not have been what you meant.
This is basically what I like but I see little difference in most sports to segregate by gender as long as everyone can compete at a level most suited to them but more importantly that people can play any sport that is offered and not be locked out due to gender.
Yes, this again seems to be a case of me simply not understanding how stuff works in America. Being completely locked out from performing a sport you want to perform is simply not something that happens here at all. If you are not good enough, you might not get to compete in team sports a lot if you join a team that is better than you, but many clubs have a second or third team for such a thing, and if you behave like a total asshole you might get kicked out of a club (though i have never seen that happen in my time in sports clubs), but i am pretty sure that i could find a club for pretty much every sport i can imagine. Of course, you have to pay a membership fee in those, but usually these are not very high unless you want to do something very special.
The point why seperation of genders is a good idea in many sports is because it gives a goal. If it were not there, no women could ever be champion in most sports, simply because of biology. This way, you have a best male and a best female sportsmen. Even though the male probably has a better result then the female, this still does not diminish her accomplishment of being the best female at something.
On November 22 2011 04:09 Krikkitone wrote: The problem is that having a female team to allow for female access to sports, is equivalent to having a weakling male team for weakling male access to sports.
Instead of having weight classes or gender classes, sport compettions should be in ability classes. (similar to Chess). Weight and Gender can be what constitutes the initial placement. After that, every time you win you move up in "ability rating". and may find yourself competing with higher levels
School sports teams are then open to All ability levels (still able to get kicked off the team for slacking or bad behavior, and probably separate girls boys locker rooms)
Oh, it is not like that in the states? Sorry, i was just assuming that a system like that is already in place. Basically every competative sport here has many different leagues, starting from very small regional ones which usually also have multiple layers, and when you win a lot, you can move up into higher leagues like statewide, or country-wides. Those where it makes sense are still divided in male and female and/or weight classes, though, so that might not have been what you meant.
No, not for school sports (which I personally think are a bad idea) In those you compete by grade/gender groupings. weight for something like wrestling. The German system definitely sounds preferable.
On November 22 2011 08:42 domovoi wrote: Guys have a humongous advantage over girls. For example, the qualifying time to make the girls' State-wide competition in Washington is something like 28 seconds for 50 meter freestyle. It's 26 seconds for boys. On a typical boy's team, 28 seconds is usually the average time for the worst swimmer. In other words, the average high school boy who knows little about swimming could easily become one of the top swimmers on a girls team given enough instruction on his form and some weight lifting.
There is really no good reason to allow boys to compete in girls events, where they are likely to dominate. The whole point of segregating the sexes is to give girls a chance to compete in events; that is equality, not assuming away physical differences between girls and boys. If the high school doesn't offer a boys swim team, then they can go swim with their club swim team.
You misinterpreted me, broceratops. I was just making fun of the guy saying that it's shameful to be beaten by a girl in the pool. I'm 23 and in fantastic shape (Summited Mt. Rainier without a single day of practice or preparation beyond putting my pack together) and my girlfriend's little sister (17 years old) is a full minute faster than me in any stroke imaginable, doing a 500. I could probably take her in fisticuffs, but she's seriously buff and could definitely deal some damage. Most TL-ers would be scared of her. To put things in perspective, she qualified for her first olympic trials at THIRTEEN in the 100m butterfly. That's REAL olympics, swimming with 26 year olds. her 100 fly, at age 13, was 3 seconds faster than michegan state's cut for the open men's bracket.
I don't care about competition, I think it's fucked up and sad to even think that we need to consider this in the first place. I don't care if boys compete with girls, or vice versa. I would just do it as a personal growth scenario. The best form of competitive team aspects I ever had was the marching band in high school. We were some of the best in the state. But it was all about you and your peers doing something you felt proud of. When we were working our way up from one of the worst to one of the best, we had lots of middle-of-the-road ratings, but we NEVER gave a crap what the judges thought. We were proud of our work, and that's what our director stressed we focus on. We pushed ourselves to the limit for ourselves and nobody else, and even when that resulted in a less-than-perfect review by the judges, when we were on the way home, we were just as proud of ourselves as if we'd come in first.
Long-winded rant aside, I think a fair solution would be to just have the boy swim with the girls in training and then just shuttle him over to another school's team to swim in competition. That, or he could do a club-swim (which I hate for the above reasons, but it's an alternative)
I just hate that we care about what place people finish in. I'd be more impressed if we did it timestamps style, like drag racing, where a lowly honda civic can beat a twin turbo dodge viper because his times are more consistent, not faster. I know that's not ideal (stifles pursuits for faster times) but it'd be better than the way it is now, because the money and the focus we have on professional and college sports is outright PATHETIC. And below that, we have kids who basically ruin their entire lives and social/educational development in the pursuit of a possibility that may never occur.
The only "real" sport I approve of is golf and certain racing circuits (World rally, touring cars, etc.)
On November 22 2011 08:05 CeriseCherries wrote: holy shit lol. Best idea ever... -.-
this is so silly... i mean stop saying its fair to do so. guys and girls are physiologically different and thus shouldn't compete in equal arenas, without any trace of sexism. and when you let the guys compete, there's going to be that girl in 2nd who should have been 1st, forever only able to be 2nd because a guy who shouldn't even have swam took 1st, and thats just heartbrekaing
Did you read the thread?
The boys are joining the girl teams because the schools don't want to fund a boys team.
blame the shitty state governments and their poor funding of the US education system.
Or, more appropriately, blame Title IX. More males want to participate in sports than females, but we have to have balance regardless.
Ding ding ding. Such a stupid system. Rutgers University had to cut the mens swim and diving teams because there's no girls equivalent for football, etc. so they have to keep it "equal."
On November 22 2011 08:42 domovoi wrote: Guys have a humongous advantage over girls. For example, the qualifying time to make the girls' State-wide competition in Washington is something like 28 seconds for 50 meter freestyle. It's 26 seconds for boys. On a typical boy's team, 28 seconds is usually the average time for the worst swimmer. In other words, the average high school boy who knows little about swimming could easily become one of the top swimmers on a girls team given enough instruction on his form and some weight lifting.
There is really no good reason to allow boys to compete in girls events, where they are likely to dominate. The whole point of segregating the sexes is to give girls a chance to compete in events; that is equality, not assuming away physical differences between girls and boys. If the high school doesn't offer a boys swim team, then they can go swim with their club swim team.
You misinterpreted me, broceratops. I was just making fun of the guy saying that it's shameful to be beaten by a girl in the pool. I'm 23 and in fantastic shape (Summited Mt. Rainier without a single day of practice or preparation beyond putting my pack together) and my girlfriend's little sister (17 years old) is a full minute faster than me in any stroke imaginable, doing a 500. I could probably take her in fisticuffs, but she's seriously buff and could definitely deal some damage. Most TL-ers would be scared of her. To put things in perspective, she qualified for her first olympic trials at THIRTEEN in the 100m butterfly. That's REAL olympics, swimming with 26 year olds. her 100 fly, at age 13, was 3 seconds faster than michegan state's cut for the open men's bracket.
I don't care about competition, I think it's fucked up and sad to even think that we need to consider this in the first place. I don't care if boys compete with girls, or vice versa. I would just do it as a personal growth scenario. The best form of competitive team aspects I ever had was the marching band in high school. We were some of the best in the state. But it was all about you and your peers doing something you felt proud of. When we were working our way up from one of the worst to one of the best, we had lots of middle-of-the-road ratings, but we NEVER gave a crap what the judges thought. We were proud of our work, and that's what our director stressed we focus on. We pushed ourselves to the limit for ourselves and nobody else, and even when that resulted in a less-than-perfect review by the judges, when we were on the way home, we were just as proud of ourselves as if we'd come in first.
Long-winded rant aside, I think a fair solution would be to just have the boy swim with the girls in training and then just shuttle him over to another school's team to swim in competition. That, or he could do a club-swim (which I hate for the above reasons, but it's an alternative)
I just hate that we care about what place people finish in. I'd be more impressed if we did it timestamps style, like drag racing, where a lowly honda civic can beat a twin turbo dodge viper because his times are more consistent, not faster. I know that's not ideal (stifles pursuits for faster times) but it'd be better than the way it is now, because the money and the focus we have on professional and college sports is outright PATHETIC. And below that, we have kids who basically ruin their entire lives and social/educational development in the pursuit of a possibility that may never occur.
The only "real" sport I approve of is golf and certain racing circuits (World rally, touring cars, etc.)
tl;dr - sports should be about feeling good about yourself and not winning? There's no reason they can't be about both imo.
I don't understand why the meet doesn't allow for male and female events, even if there were no male teams. Or even open events, but with male and female rankings. The meet organizers didn't do a very good job.
On November 22 2011 08:42 domovoi wrote: Guys have a humongous advantage over girls. For example, the qualifying time to make the girls' State-wide competition in Washington is something like 28 seconds for 50 meter freestyle. It's 26 seconds for boys. On a typical boy's team, 28 seconds is usually the average time for the worst swimmer. In other words, the average high school boy who knows little about swimming could easily become one of the top swimmers on a girls team given enough instruction on his form and some weight lifting.
There is really no good reason to allow boys to compete in girls events, where they are likely to dominate. The whole point of segregating the sexes is to give girls a chance to compete in events; that is equality, not assuming away physical differences between girls and boys. If the high school doesn't offer a boys swim team, then they can go swim with their club swim team.
You misinterpreted me, broceratops. I was just making fun of the guy saying that it's shameful to be beaten by a girl in the pool. I'm 23 and in fantastic shape (Summited Mt. Rainier without a single day of practice or preparation beyond putting my pack together) and my girlfriend's little sister (17 years old) is a full minute faster than me in any stroke imaginable, doing a 500. I could probably take her in fisticuffs, but she's seriously buff and could definitely deal some damage. Most TL-ers would be scared of her. To put things in perspective, she qualified for her first olympic trials at THIRTEEN in the 100m butterfly. That's REAL olympics, swimming with 26 year olds. her 100 fly, at age 13, was 3 seconds faster than michegan state's cut for the open men's bracket.
I don't care about competition, I think it's fucked up and sad to even think that we need to consider this in the first place. I don't care if boys compete with girls, or vice versa. I would just do it as a personal growth scenario. The best form of competitive team aspects I ever had was the marching band in high school. We were some of the best in the state. But it was all about you and your peers doing something you felt proud of. When we were working our way up from one of the worst to one of the best, we had lots of middle-of-the-road ratings, but we NEVER gave a crap what the judges thought. We were proud of our work, and that's what our director stressed we focus on. We pushed ourselves to the limit for ourselves and nobody else, and even when that resulted in a less-than-perfect review by the judges, when we were on the way home, we were just as proud of ourselves as if we'd come in first.
Long-winded rant aside, I think a fair solution would be to just have the boy swim with the girls in training and then just shuttle him over to another school's team to swim in competition. That, or he could do a club-swim (which I hate for the above reasons, but it's an alternative)
I just hate that we care about what place people finish in. I'd be more impressed if we did it timestamps style, like drag racing, where a lowly honda civic can beat a twin turbo dodge viper because his times are more consistent, not faster. I know that's not ideal (stifles pursuits for faster times) but it'd be better than the way it is now, because the money and the focus we have on professional and college sports is outright PATHETIC. And below that, we have kids who basically ruin their entire lives and social/educational development in the pursuit of a possibility that may never occur.
The only "real" sport I approve of is golf and certain racing circuits (World rally, touring cars, etc.)
I disagree with what you say. If you don't like the sport, or approve of it, then don't do it. Some people genuinely care about said sport. Sure, they may not make it to the Olympics, but it doesn't matter if you're doing what you care about.
Could you explain why you hate club-swimming? I don't really see what you're saying.
Also, I'd like to point out that swimming is a sport in which there are really only two things (we're not counting the pool conditions, sure they might matter a little bit, but at a major competition, it'll be peachy-keen. Same goes for the atmosphere -- swim meets are pretty well mannered in my experience, unlike soccer games), the clock, and you. You advocate for personal growth. Well, swimming does this pretty well. Swimmers are always looking to improve their times: it doesn't matter about the person in the lane next to you, because they can't affect your race. At the end of the day, it's you and the clock.
On November 21 2011 12:06 PenguinWithNuke wrote: As a swimmer, I think that this is ridiculous. There is no way in hell that the competition between boys and girls is at all fair. Boys are naturally faster than girls (think muscle density, strength, testosterone), and will always be faster. Also, look at that guy on the podium. He's just a huge pack of muscle. Now look at the girls. Does that look fair to you?
For example, take me, an average swimmer: I can swim faster for a particular event, the 100 breastroke, than a girl (who is the state champion for girls in backstroke events). I'm merely average, as I don't have any championships under my belt, and I am not even close to the all-American time. It's not fair to allow males to compete with females.
On November 20 2011 13:10 Fenrax wrote: lol
There is a reason why this is only practiced in Massachusetts: Common sense. Also these boys are a bunch of sissys. "Competing" with girls in a sport that requires muscle power? Probably even proud when they won.
I don't understand what you're saying. Are you insulting the boys? If you are, stop shitting out your mouth. No male takes pride in beating females in strength-based sports.
I am questioning their decision to abuse that hole in the rules. I am just a white guy with the nicest parents possible but I am sure they'd have something not so nice to say to me if I decided to participate in a woman's tournament and steal their Gold medals...
Also take a look at the pic on the front page. He looks very proud on the podium.
The proudness of the person on the podium is an irrelevant/unprovable point (IMO, he looks neutral). So let's drop that (my bad for brining it up a bit. Though you share the blame for claiming that the boy was indeed proud).
Where in the article does it say that they are abusing the rules? It seems more like the people being forced into a disagreeable situation. Think about it this way: this is news, on the internet. It will never go away. If you were the boy (or were in any way responsible for him), would you hang him out to dry, by putting him in a situation where he would be ridiculed for "abusing rules to steal gold medals"? Your argument doesn't quite make sense.
Also, there was no choice in the matter: either the boy didn't swim (unfair to him), or the boy swims in a women's event (unfair to the girls). And the boy didn't steal a gold medal.
And you didn't explain your part about Massachusetts and common sense. If you could, that'd be nice.
On November 22 2011 14:30 PenguinWithNuke wrote: I don't understand why the meet doesn't allow for male and female events, even if there were no male teams. Or even open events, but with male and female rankings. The meet organizers didn't do a very good job.
^ this
The YMCA system does this and does it well. Teams are male/female and train together, and this is not a problem because everyone trains differently in swimming. When it comes to events, you usually run heats separated into women's and men's. Once you hit around freshman year in high school - the difference in results is staggering except for a few talented girls.
Can't really be bothered to read the whole thread but I'll throw my two cents in, in starcraft terms.
Boy = Diamond (average time: 26 seconds) Girl = Gold (average time: 28.5 seconds) [probably not accurate times, used for example purposes anyways]
It's ok if a Silver leaguer wants to try to play in a tournament full of Diamond players, it's their choice to try to fight up in a level.
It's not ok if a Diamond leaguer wants to play in a Gold and under tournament against mostly Gold and some Silver players, since the Diamond player is almost guaranteed to win.
On November 21 2011 14:59 Danglars wrote: Tender affection for equality of result shown here. Hey, if you make and enforce laws like this state-wide, you gotta be prepared to accept the consequences.
State law mandates this in the name of "equal opportunity", but really it's anything but.
And herein lies the source of all this discussion: confusion about equal opportunity. It really is equal opportunity, it's just you have a pretty notion of what results you should get afterwards. Hear this all the time about male/female CEO's and the pay gap. Equality of oppotunity yet no equality of result. Therefore, complain about the results and put a little fix in there to ensure you get what you like. Tricky thing about freedom right there.
Pay gaps are irrelevant to this discussion. We are discussing well documented and proven biological differences that result in women being disadvantaged in swimming. Their results will be lower. Until there is definitive proof that men are more intelligent and capable in business than women, pay gaps among CEOs will be a legitimate discussion. For the time being there is no definitive proof that women are inferior in intelligence or business acumen than men, so inequality in "results" or pay can't reflect that. You'd need your own thread to have a sociological discussion about why female CEOs make less than men, and there could be several differing but legitimate arguments. This case is much more clear-cut.
I was mentioning the pay gaps as means of illustrating my qualms about how others talk about equal opportunity (and, for that matter, unintended results). If you forgot the rest of what you quoted, let me remind you here. I'll leave out the part that so offends you.
Equality of oppotunity yet no equality of result. Therefore, complain about the results and put a little fix in there to ensure you get what you like. Tricky thing about freedom right there.
I connected the two as means of an illustration. I am saddened that you did not see my meaning. So, let me say again, Runnin, if the state of Massachusetts wants to eliminate discrimination in their swim teams (Girls team with no boys team and vice versa) they must accept this result as equally valid. Just like ... wait, I better not introduce another comparison here, I don't want you attacking that as if it was my principle argument.
I had always figured that splitting up a sport into a boys' group/ season and a girls' group/ season wasn't just because of somewhat distinguishable qualities (where an actual line could be drawn- sex), but also so more people could play throughout the year. That's why each group also gets further divided into varisty, junior varsity, and sometimes less experienced groups (a,b, and c teams, for instance).
In my school, we didn't have a male volleyball option... so we just never considered volleyball as a sports option. I don't think anyone ever asked to play on the female volleyball team. We just did something else instead. Perhaps if there was a big enough group interested in it, we could have started one though. I don't know if it's fair or not that we didn't have the same exact sports available to us, but funding and popularity are realities when it comes to school life. I also know of students who transferred to other schools just because they were so good at a particular sport. I guess it's about prioritizing.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.heraldnews.com/archive/x1655832308/g2e22e20000000000000ae03aefb2d3c2159d4b35352cbe338ef24559a0.jpg)
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Lol
