A 6th grade girls team from Kentucky was set to go for the year-end championship tournament, but was told they were banned due to fears boys teams might ‘retaliate’ if they lost to the girls team.

    • Pips@lemmy.sdf.org
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      9 months ago

      There are people who firmly believe women can never outcompete men due to biology. With some outliers, this is currently true within a defined age range and only in certain sports (there are several where women routinely outclass men). In 6th grade a good chunk of the boys haven’t hit puberty yet and you can easily find girls who are stronger, faster, and more athletic than boys in their cohort because everyone is still developing. The boys getting beat right now could hit a growth spurt next week and play in the NBA.

      The point is at this age, the kids are actually pretty evenly matched. If the boys have a violence problem, they should be banned from playing till they fix it. Otherwise this league head should shut the fuck up.

        • Pips@lemmy.sdf.org
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          9 months ago

          In sixth grade at most schools? Probably most of them. That’s right around when most boys just start hitting puberty and girls tend to generally be bigger and more athletic than boys until then.

          In general? Gymnastics, figure skating, cheerleading, skiing (best downhill skier in the world is a woman)…

          • Vlyn@lemmy.zip
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            9 months ago

            That’s not how any of this works.

            For example your skiing example: Mikaela Shiffrin is the best skier in the world based on wins (as she won a fuckton of competitions in several different event types). But those were all wins against other women. If she directly competed against men she’d probably lose if it’s a 1:1 downhill race for example. This is why there are articles like this, where people are hyped that she’s ‘close’ to male skiers in times.

            There’s also instances of highschool basketball where female teams got beat by male teams several years younger than them. Of course puberty gives a boost, but it’s not this magical thing that suddenly sets males and females apart https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34032904/

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              You’re pulling out scheduling studies to defend the hyper masculinity of middle school age sports.