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“Violent movements of the body can cause a shift in the position and a loosening of the uterus as well as prolapse and bleeding, with resulting sterility, thus defeating a woman's true purpose in life, i.e., the bringing forth of strong children.” lol

With perfect timing, here's a photo that perfectly captures what's really going on with the political push to "protect women in sport" bsky.app/profile/atru...

True. The sport has moved on/changed considerably, although whether it's necessarily all for the better is probably a debate to be had somewhere else!

I'm not totally sure if this is still the case since program lengths were equalised, but in the early days of IJS, women were simply given a smaller component factor than men, meaning they earn less points for the same moves. That makes quads less valuable to develop. The inequity affects the jumps.

Yup. Complete and utter...nope. Can't say it with a straight face. I WANT to say things are changing and yet, at the weekend, a woman drove an F1 car at a private test that she'd eared on merit only to have it characterised as a "marketing stunt" by a certain segment of the population. *eyeroll*

Thank you - I was trying to find her but my Google skills were letting me down.

It was 1992, then the sport was gender segregated for the first time in 1996. bsky.app/profile/then...

It’s kind of startling that equestrian events weren’t segregated as soon as women started winning (in fact, they de-segregated at the Olympics as originally only male military officers were allowed to compete). I don’t know how that one sport (my favourite) made it through.

Also, men are on average taller, stronger and faster, all of which are characteristics which are advantageous when playing tennis. (but, if segregating, means one should sort out people based on size, strength, and speed, not gender, because the real difference comes from that)

Assumptions that women are weak; and also, resentment at Losing To A Girl™. It's misogyny all the way down. What really gets me about the whole thing is: In equestrian sports, no distiction is drawn between mares and stallions.

I used to fence (sabre) at a regional/national level and I hated that the sport was separated into mens/womens events. It's not a strength sport, and with the possible exception of épée where there is some advantage to a longer reach, I was always able to compete quite effectively against men.

It’s an opinion most strongly held by people who don’t work out in a mixed group Anyone who go to exercise classes that are not separated by sex can easily see that there are women who are stronger than men With proper form, an average woman can generate more force than a bigger man with worse form

I think it would be nice if more sports had leagues or classes that you regularly perform your way in to or out of. Like most team sports have. Either by your most resent results in the sport, or by something like weight or height. School sports already have age limits.

Thanks to society as it is right now there's definitely some virtue in segregation as a way to let women do sports at all (not because they can't compete, but because ignorant blokes will bully them out of it). Madness on this basis to exclude trans women etc, especially at amateur levels.

I think in some of the sports where size and weight are an advantage, the rules or officiating were deliberately made that way because the originators couldn't fathom women playing them. Hockey and soccer in particular get away from the large/heavy archtype to a degree.

Segregation based on measurable objectives data would be good, like boxing being separated by weight. You could separate running by lung capacity, swimming by arm reach, etc.

finally someone said it. how did you find your first clients? that initial traction is always the hardest part any surprises along the way?

Hard agree - many sports have weight or height categories because that's the real differentiating factor, and the effect of sex/gender is marginal at that level. Intentional design over broad assumptions

Oh sorry that ended up being long It's hard being a rational scientist in the current environment sigh

What exactly are we trying to achieve here? That's not obvious at all, and there is a lot of unsaid.

As a modern thing yes, there's also a historical part where women did their own things because men didn't want to let them in

In the Dark Ages when I was in grade school, Girls’ Basketball had different rules. Six players, 3 offense and 3 defense who stayed on one side of the court because running the full length was too strenuous for us.

Yeah, but the poor little darlings might hurt themselves. Or something.

Yep I'm just annoyed that people don't take the time to think things through but honestly that's par for the course those days

That was my understanding--the women only being for competitors who might not have resources to make it to the "higher" leagues due to systemic issues (I'm not convinced it's a good idea, like maybe fix the system rather than separate? Or stop using gender as proxy for a variety of access issues)

In Australia netball is largely played by women but there are competitions at a local lower level where mixed teams compete. Noticably, I am not aware of any all male competitions.