Marjorie
Gee, I wonder why women get so angry about this kind of thing; I just can’t understand it.
So there you go. Shut up and take it, women.
Tip Jar
Gee, I wonder why women get so angry about this kind of thing; I just can’t understand it.
So there you go. Shut up and take it, women.
“But it’s only one guy!”
“It takes only one guy to scare all the women out of the race!”
For the last twenty years or so, there has been a strong push for movies, tv shows, theatrical productions (etc.) to have more widely representative characters and casts. Fewer male characters, more female; fewer white, more of every other ethnicity; fewer straight, more of other sexualities. It was emphasised that these characters were not to be reductive cliches. Further, this popular push emphasised that this was especially applicable to the lead role.
The reasoning was simple, and well understood by the left. People of demographic combinations other than ‘white male’ deserve to see themselves represented in movies, and not as insulting caricatures. Kids especially deserve to see their sex and/or skin colour as the hero, as the genius, as the object of desire, as the virtuoso, and so on. Broader representation was positive, perhaps even inspiring those kids to push themselves to become that themselves.
But bring up female representation in sport and all of that goes away. I’ve seen it argued for example that a person that needed to see champions demographically similar to themselves in order to be inspired to push themselves was never particularly interested in the first place. But worse is when that reasoning goes away for women but remains in force for trans women. Actual women are weak if they need someone else to feel validated and inspired, but trans women need to have visibility in sports so as to have heroes to admire and aspire to become.
Up with representation of demographics that aren’t straight white men! Then sotto voce: but feel free to forget about the female sex. Supplant them in sports, it’s a net positive because it helps males that wish they were women.
Dude’s not all that invested anyway since he has moved on to outdoor men’s rowing. It was just a lark that ruined a sport for women in that age category.
Sorry, but I have to ask. Did anyone but me say, “wait, this is a sport?”
I didn’t even notice that part. “Indoor rowing” turns out to mean “rowing on a rowing machine.” I didn’t know that was a “sport” either.
When TV is willing to carry poker as a “sport”, why not rowing on a rowing machine? Of course, I don’t even think golf is really a sport.
I’m fine with calling indoor rowing a sport. And golf. Not poker, not chess, both of which have been called “sport” in some instances. The competition needs to be physical in some way. Indoor rowing requires much conditioning, and some skill for the sake of efficiency and speed.
I think we should call Ecology a sport. When I had rotator cuff problems, one of my friends couldn’t understand why. “That’s only for atheletes”, he commented. No, there are a lot of us who use our bodies in ways that can lead to injuries of that sort.
Competitive Ecology, I’d watch that.
[…] a comment by Holms on […]
What’s needed, I think (or at least, potentially useful) is to track numerous transwomen as they switch their designation, within a number of different sports. Show how little their performance numbers (times, distances, etc) are negatively affected by transition, in comparison to how greatly their standing (ranking and records) is enhanced.
It would undermine, I hope, the continuous cry that it’s rare for transwomen to actually win the competitions (even if it’s becoming increasingly common, as more exploitative asses make the jump)–make it clear it’s not just about winning, but also about perpetually bumping women down in the rankings up and down the boards.
It turns out that USA Powerlifting has determined that athletes who go through adolescencs as males do not lose any advantage in strength over women and so are not allowed to compete as women:
https://www.usapowerlifting.com/transgender-participation-policy/
There are two links included in the blockquotes, I’ll add them separetely below:
https://www.usapowerlifting.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/USA-Powerllifting-TUE-Committee-Report-2019.pdf
https://youtu.be/370OHWNTsqs
The FAQs on this page are fun to read, there is some exasperation hinted in the responses from someone who is apparently “TERF,” (Tired of Explaining Realitiy to Fuckwits.)