If it’s about who might get hurt, maybe we should divide things up by something other than gender. I know plenty of women who could do a ton of damage with their fists and they aren’t even boxers.
It’s one thing to work within the limits of your physique to become stronger, better, etc. It’s another thing to have a totally different physique that gives you a starting point higher than can be achieved naturally by anyone else.
So put those women in a higher class. There are plenty of women with “masculine” physiques… or are you going to claim Brittney Griner is also not a woman?
So many sports are entirely about the physique you inherited though. Yes there is some technique to swimming and obviously you have to train hard. But these are just prerequisites, not differentiators. If we start saying that winning because of your physique is no victory, then really half of the events become meaningless. To a large extent, the Olympics does measure inherited traits and I think we ought to recognize that that is its point. If you think back all those centuries, it was very obviously the point to prove that your people are genetically superior to their people.
Boxing has weight classes. As do most other martial arts.
The problem is not a 50kg men fighting a 70kg women in terms of injuries and power imbalance. And in that set up the women most likely wins. The problem is the typical situation of a 80-100 kg men smacking down on a 50-60kg women. And that is the image the demagogues try to conjure.
So if your full blown men is a 60kg feather to be able to compete against another 60kg women, the whole trope falls apart.
Removed by mod
If it’s about who might get hurt, maybe we should divide things up by something other than gender. I know plenty of women who could do a ton of damage with their fists and they aren’t even boxers.
This is the correct answer. Divide competitors up by class, skill level, or anything else besides perceived sexual anatomy.
It’s one thing to work within the limits of your physique to become stronger, better, etc. It’s another thing to have a totally different physique that gives you a starting point higher than can be achieved naturally by anyone else.
So put those women in a higher class. There are plenty of women with “masculine” physiques… or are you going to claim Brittney Griner is also not a woman?
So many sports are entirely about the physique you inherited though. Yes there is some technique to swimming and obviously you have to train hard. But these are just prerequisites, not differentiators. If we start saying that winning because of your physique is no victory, then really half of the events become meaningless. To a large extent, the Olympics does measure inherited traits and I think we ought to recognize that that is its point. If you think back all those centuries, it was very obviously the point to prove that your people are genetically superior to their people.
Boxing has weight classes. As do most other martial arts.
The problem is not a 50kg men fighting a 70kg women in terms of injuries and power imbalance. And in that set up the women most likely wins. The problem is the typical situation of a 80-100 kg men smacking down on a 50-60kg women. And that is the image the demagogues try to conjure.
So if your full blown men is a 60kg feather to be able to compete against another 60kg women, the whole trope falls apart.
Can you cite an example of this?