Should we stop splitting sports by gender and just let everybody compete together?
Should we stop splitting sports by gender and just let everybody compete together?
No more men's and women's league, no more "gender eligibility" requirements, a common dresscode, same standards and rules for all.
Edit: since it looks like people missing the word let: the suggestion isn't to force desegregation. It's to allow it or even make it the default. Someone else made a good suggestion: segregate by attributes specific to the sport. In boxing it's weight class, in basketball it could be height, in biking it could even be doped and non doped. Sex and gender need not be the very first thing to segregate by.
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In Finland we have lower physical requirements for women to get into the police academy. I think it's safe to say that with equal requirements we wouldn't have a single female police officer in the entire country.
I'd expect a similar thing to happen in sports. When it comes to physical strenght men have a massive advantage over women. It would be the women who this screws over.
Does Finland not have divisions, leagues, and classes in male sports? You don't think that an all male team in the last division can compete against an all female team in the top division? You don't think there are some sports where women are on equal footing where strength is not an advantage (archery, shooting, diving, etc.)? You don't think there is overlap in some sports?
Most if not all of the highest divisions would be men only. The highest ranking females would be competing against some minor league men on games that nobody would be interested in even watching.
Obviously there would be some number of genetic outliars but that wouldn't change the overall trend.
That is your assumption. You cannot know that across all sports. It would most certainly be true for sports limited or focused on physical strength, but beyond that, there's no way to know for certain.
If you've played any sport, you'll know that brute strength isn't the sole determining factor for success. Technique is very important too. Tactics cannot be ignored either. In football for example, just play "try to get the ball" in a square where one chases the ball. You might be the fastest player on the team but never catch the ball even against players who don't move.
Also, competing against stronger opponents is how people learn and "level up". You learn how to deal with different, faster, slower, more technical, stronger, even more intelligent opponents. Again, if you've ever played sports (or just games), you'll know what it feels like to think you're the best, then get decimated by an opponent, but in doing so realize what you were doing wrong - especially when competing against that opponent multiple times. Women and men might have a higher ceiling than they think, but unless they compete against each other continuously, they won't know.
Sure. I can't know the outcome for sure but I'd be stunned if the trend ended up being male players being humiliated by women. I just cannot imagine this being the case. I have nothing against it per se but I have a strong feeling it would come at the expense of women.
My only personal experience on this is sparring against a purple belt female in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu while I was still a complete novice myself. She put up a good fight but she didn't stand a chance. Granted I was also bigger and stronger than her. On the other hand, sparring against a smaller but more experienced male I stood no chance myself. He'd beat me every single time without an exception.