Should men and women compete against each other in athletics?

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tornACL2012
tornACL2012 Posts: 38
in Fitness and Exercise
Does it work better in some sports like soccer, but not work for things like martial arts?
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  • lishie_rebooted
    lishie_rebooted Posts: 2,973 Member
    edited February 2015
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    I took krav for a few months. One of the strongest people in the room was a woman who is about 5'10 and 120lbs. She was routinely paired with males and was able to defeat them.

    At my 10mi road race, most of the female finishers in the top 3 for the 20-40ish age groups were faster tham their male counterparts

    ETA: I'm faster and stronger than most of my male coworkers. And many people in my running club say they want to run with me if we're attacked since I have the strength and explosion (plus viciousness and anger) to fend off an attacker.
  • lishie_rebooted
    lishie_rebooted Posts: 2,973 Member
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    I want to add and I'm too lazy to edit...
    It all depends on the determination of the people.
    The weak-willed will always fail regardless of gender.
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
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    lishie_rebooted wrote: »
    I want to add and I'm too lazy to edit...
    It all depends on the determination of the people.
    The weak-willed will always fail regardless of gender.

    So how does that translate on an elite level?
  • scorpio516
    scorpio516 Posts: 955 Member
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    tornACL2012 wrote: »
    Does it work better in some sports like soccer, but not work for things like martial arts?

    Funny, you picked two that work exactly opposite than you said - martial arts is a great example of something for even footing.
    Soccer, and other team sports, on the other hand are different.

    At the pointy end, nothing prevents a woman from besting a man at martial arts, or anything else technique based.
    At the pointy end, physiology prevents a woman from besting a man at most team sports and athletics. The 5000m at London was won by a man at 13:41. The fastest woman ran a 15:04.

    But, if your not competitive, nothing matters either way.
  • lishie_rebooted
    lishie_rebooted Posts: 2,973 Member
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    3dogsrunning wrote: »
    lishie_rebooted wrote: »
    I want to add and I'm too lazy to edit...
    It all depends on the determination of the people.
    The weak-willed will always fail regardless of gender.

    So how does that translate on an elite level?

    I don't think someone who is mentally weak would even make it that far
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
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    lishie_rebooted wrote: »
    3dogsrunning wrote: »
    lishie_rebooted wrote: »
    I want to add and I'm too lazy to edit...
    It all depends on the determination of the people.
    The weak-willed will always fail regardless of gender.

    So how does that translate on an elite level?

    I don't think someone who is mentally weak would even make it that far

    Kind of my point. I didn't think this post was limited to just the average person.
    I mean, when I run a local road race, we may have male/female winners and age groupers, but we compete against each other as well regardless of gender. But if we are going to eliminate those, wouldn't it transfer over to the elite level.
    And if we don't compete against each other at elite levels, why not and why should we at lower levels?
  • dougpconnell219
    dougpconnell219 Posts: 566 Member
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    In most sports, men just have an insurmountable size advantage.

    All other things being equal, size usually wins.

    Running? Every stride a taller male takes eats up more ground. A shorter woman has to take x number more strides to cover the she ground.

    Martial arts? The larger man has a reach advantage, and is probably more able to throw his lighter female opponent than vice versa.

    There are probably some sports where it could work though. Tennis? Golf?
  • Lumpy52403
    Lumpy52403 Posts: 187 Member
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    Definitely not in sports that require bodily contact with each other, such as wrestling or football. Performing those sports requires physical contact that is inappropriate between people of the opposite sex.
  • uconnwinsnc1
    uconnwinsnc1 Posts: 902 Member
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    dougpconnell219 wrote: »
    In most sports, men just have an insurmountable size advantage.

    All other things being equal, size usually wins.

    Running? Every stride a taller male takes eats up more ground. A shorter woman has to take x number more strides to cover the she ground.

    Martial arts? The larger man has a reach advantage, and is probably more able to throw his lighter female opponent than vice versa.

    There are probably some sports where it could work though. Tennis? Golf?

    Tennis no. Golf no. Men in tennis hit harder and are quicker. In golf, men hit the ball father and can get to the green sooner.
  • MoiAussi93
    MoiAussi93 Posts: 1,948 Member
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    No, at least not in contact sports. Men have a size and strength advantage. While a specific woman could be faster or stronger than a specific man, the strongest and fastest are always men.
  • myfelinepal
    myfelinepal Posts: 13,000 Member
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    Because at the physical pinnacle, men would beat women every time in most sports. There's records to prove it and everything. For instance, Flo Jo's world record is almost a second slower than Usain Bolt's.

    That would then lead to women not getting sponsorship/funding at all because there's no chance of them being in the elite and you would see women in sports becoming even less visible than they are currently.

    That's not to say that some sports (think pub sports e.g. darts, snooker) women could compete as equals to men. Horse racing has had more female jockeys introduced recently, for instance. Formula 1 and other motorsports also have the ocassional women drivers.

    But, out and out physical sports it would ruin women within that sport because they'd have no chance to be best in the world.

    That would include tennis (30 mph difference in fastest serve speed) and probably golf (35 yd average driving distance difference.)

    My resources are google and wikipedia, so not gospel, but you get the idea.
  • myfelinepal
    myfelinepal Posts: 13,000 Member
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    Lumpy52403 wrote: »
    Definitely not in sports that require bodily contact with each other, such as wrestling or football. Performing those sports requires physical contact that is inappropriate between people of the opposite sex.

    What if they're gay?
  • DopeItUp
    DopeItUp Posts: 18,771 Member
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    lishie_rebooted wrote: »
    I took krav for a few months. One of the strongest people in the room was a woman who is about 5'10 and 120lbs. She was routinely paired with males and was able to defeat them.

    At my 10mi road race, most of the female finishers in the top 3 for the 20-40ish age groups were faster tham their male counterparts

    ETA: I'm faster and stronger than most of my male coworkers. And many people in my running club say they want to run with me if we're attacked since I have the strength and explosion (plus viciousness and anger) to fend off an attacker.

    Thank you for this hilarious post, I had to re-read it a few times to catch the full impact of what I was looking at.
    myfelinepal wrote: »
    Because at the physical pinnacle, men would beat women every time in most sports. There's records to prove it and everything. For instance, Flo Jo's world record is almost a second slower than Usain Bolt's.

    That would then lead to women not getting sponsorship/funding at all because there's no chance of them being in the elite and you would see women in sports becoming even less visible than they are currently.

    That's not to say that some sports (think pub sports e.g. darts, snooker) women could compete as equals to men. Horse racing has had more female jockeys introduced recently, for instance. Formula 1 and other motorsports also have the ocassional women drivers.

    But, out and out physical sports it would ruin women within that sport because they'd have no chance to be best in the world.

    That would include tennis (30 mph difference in fastest serve speed) and probably golf (35 yd average driving distance difference.)

    My resources are google and wikipedia, so not gospel, but you get the idea.

    Pretty much all of this. Off the top of my head, there are some women that have done pretty well in auto racing. In fact, being small is generally an advantage if not a requirement. Trying to fit into one of those F1 cockpits for example is not for 6'4" dudes. Lighter means faster too as oftentimes the minimum race weight is just for the car, not including the driver.

    But yeah, to the OP, anything involving athletics would be silly to pit men against women. It's not an insult, it's just reality.
  • dougpconnell219
    dougpconnell219 Posts: 566 Member
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    uconnwinsnc1 wrote: »
    dougpconnell219 wrote: »
    In most sports, men just have an insurmountable size advantage.

    All other things being equal, size usually wins.

    Running? Every stride a taller male takes eats up more ground. A shorter woman has to take x number more strides to cover the she ground.

    Martial arts? The larger man has a reach advantage, and is probably more able to throw his lighter female opponent than vice versa.

    There are probably some sports where it could work though. Tennis? Golf?

    Tennis no. Golf no. Men in tennis hit harder and are quicker. In golf, men hit the ball father and can get to the green sooner.

    With golf, I was assuming ladies tees were employed.
  • AllanMisner
    AllanMisner Posts: 4,140 Member
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    Yes, they should. I played three on three sand volleyball today, the other team had woman. She was far better skilled than me in back court, which gave her team a competitive advantage over us. Women have always been given crutches, many use them even when they don’t need to. I’d take a committed woman over an uncommitted man any day.
  • uconnwinsnc1
    uconnwinsnc1 Posts: 902 Member
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    AllanMisner wrote: »
    Yes, they should. I played three on three sand volleyball today, the other team had woman. She was far better skilled than me in back court, which gave her team a competitive advantage over us. Women have always been given crutches, many use them even when they don’t need to. I’d take a committed woman over an uncommitted man any day.

    Obviously, but that isn't really a fair comparison. At the highest level of any sport requiring athleticism, men are the better bet to win. If we are going to do a true comparison in athleticism, it makes no sense to bring dedicating and commitment into it since those are really unmeasurable traits.
  • dbmata
    dbmata Posts: 12,950 Member
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    tornACL2012 wrote: »
    Does it work better in some sports like soccer, but not work for things like martial arts?

    Why not? We're equal.

    I'd like to see Junior Dos Santos against... well... anyone.
  • dbmata
    dbmata Posts: 12,950 Member
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    DopeItUp wrote: »
    Thank you for this hilarious post, I had to re-read it a few times to catch the full impact of what I was looking at.
    Confusion paired with I dunno... unrealistic views of the world?

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