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.

  • Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Sports without contact mechanics I’ve always wondered why the split. Like men’s and women’s chess… what?

    But men’s and women’s football? That kind of makes sense, not saying women’s should be banned from the men’s leagues, but let them make that choice themselves

    • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Women’s chess leagues exist for women who want to compete without facing misogynistic behavior. They can also compete against men, however, unlike in other sports, and many do. If you ask me, what should have been done from the start would have been tackling the misoginy.

    • OrgunDonor@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I think it is a bit more difficult than that. I have really enjoywd watching downhill bike racing in the past, and both the men’s and women’s races are incredible.

      If you don’t know, It is a single rider time trial down incredibly technical courses on a mountain bike.

      Unfortunately I don’t think it would be good to mix men and women, because the men are faster. This year’s world champs race had the men finishing 30s faster, the fastest woman would have been 66th. Results

      I would love to see more mixed competitions in the elite level of sports where it makes sense.

      • kofe@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I often think of the Olympic skier that was interviewed by NPR a few years ago. She described how the boys around her were encouraged to do riskier jumps, whereas when she’d bring it up coaches, parents etc would all express concern about “what if you get hurt?”

        There are a lot of social factors I think we should consider before writing women off as inherently lesser in competitive sports. We don’t know how many women are held back by these narratives if they aren’t even given the chance. Even if it’s the case now, I really wonder how much is purely biological