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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   35664 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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I want to take issue with the first part of this.

The quote from the Atlantic article is cherry-picked- Yes, it's dumb. Yes, the article used the silly "but gender and sex is a complex issue that isn't so cut and dry" gambit, but if you actually read the article, it's arguing (couched in progressive applause lights and signalling) that sports should have weight/size divisions rather than sex-based divisions, which I entirely agree with. Divisions based on physical attributes neatly sidesteps the transgender problem, it's more obviously fair, it would be fun to watch - it's a fantastic solution. We could split up divisions based on attributes that fit the sport- height or leg length for running, size and weight for football or boxing and so on. Large, muscular women would square off in the higher categories against men, while underweight men would compete against women their own size.

I read through a few comments, and no one seems to have clicked through to the source article and read it - everyone is just using the quote as a jumping-off point to bitch about their issues with modern academia or with those damn progressives that are ignoring biology.

EDIT: fixing some weird phrasing

but if you actually read the article, it's arguing (couched in progressive applause lights and signalling) that sports should have weight/size divisions rather than sex-based divisions, which I entirely agree with.

Sounds kind of like arriving at the correct answer to a math problem through the wrong method.

I think they got to the correct answer by the correct method (it's fair, merit-based, avoids sex-related questions/trans stuff etc), and then tried to decorate the reasoning process with language that would make it palatable to their readers. Reading it gave me a bit of mental whiplash.

I can't argue against an anecdote from your life, because (obviously) I wasn't there. I will say that I don't think anecdotes are a slam-dunk argument against weight classes in sports and that I've met women (rarely) who were stronger than I am. I'm not a small or a weak man.

Lastly, if we imagine a system like what I've described- if larger men reach weight requirements by gaining fat rather than muscle and then compete against smaller men who are stronger, they just lose. If a woman did the same then she would lose. She would either need to lose weight to fit into a lower weight category or spend the time to gain enough muscle to hold her own in the category that she wants to compete in.

Convince me that men are mostly stronger than women? I'm already convinced, man. Convince me that divisions based on measurements are worse (in some way) than divisions based on sex? I'm honestly not sure. If women who are the same weight, height, body fat etc. lose at very high rates when competing against men, that would do it- I'm not sure how you get that data without actually setting up widespread non-sex based competitions and then tracking win rates for a while.

Hey, let me add to the anecdotes: I am a small and weak man and I never met a woman stronger than myself despite doing mixed-gender martial arts for years.

Which makes me wonder: What kinds of women are these strong ones you mentioned? Must one imagine them as female strongmen who spend every waking moment lifting weights, or do they work tough physical jobs, or what else?

I don't know how the women I mentioned became strong- I wasn't close with them. There were several in the military and a few since that could out-lift me along various dimensions- mostly squats. Only one, maybe two that were stronger in the upper body than I was, although I may be stronger now than they were then.

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