PDGA Board of Director Elections

[crd 81]

Get back to me when our society catches up and the pool of children learning sports between men and women is comparable.

I believe something like 77% of golfers are men. There is a huge pool of women out there we have never seen attempt to master the sport. Sure, there are going to be lots of reasons for this discrepancy, but one of the big ones is certainly societal expectations and norms.

Coming in here 'perplexed' by this seems a little bit like you might be a disingenuous *******.

What "societal expectation" is there placed on women in which they can't play disc golf?

 

[Dingus]

People overlook this, a lot. There are multiple sports where female/male performance is starting to converge even at the pinnacle of what is possible.

Climbing, an extraordinarily physical sport, is seeing this. There are women making ascents that I probably would have said would be impossible 10 years ago.

There is still a huge societal difference between men and women in sports. From what I am seeing lately, I would place my bets that if we keep allowing things to shift into true equality, we will see women's peak performance increase noticeably in most athletic events.

There is also a lot to be said for people just saying "men better at physical" as a blanket statement. So many people that say **** like this would get wrecked sideways by middle-tier women in whatever sport they are talking about. This world is still extremely sexist, and a lot of the sentiment in this regard is probably built on a foundation of insecurity.

There are like two sports where your statement is true, long distance swimming and rifle. And in both of those the females are benefitting from a physiological advantage, so are the exception that proves the rule.

I am a proponent of trans women competing in female sports. But to say that biological males and female performance is anywhere near equal is disingenuous.

To get deeper, of course across the broad spectrum of athletes there will be broad overlap. At the tips and tails, however, the gender differences are stark. In speaking about elite level sports, we are necessarily talking about the "tips", where the male/female differences will be hugely pronounced.

When you take middling talent like Nova P, she is competing in that population where there is broad overlap and she does not experience a huge advantage due to physiology. But if Nova P had elite level talent, her physiology would indeed allow her to compete more effectively.

And to that I say, who cares. If that is the case it means Nova has taken the time to practice and achieve elite level talent. That time and effort is rewarded. According to scientific experts and societal norms she is a woman, full stop. If her talent level allows her to leverage some physiological advantage so be it.

 

[Nova P]

When you take middling talent like Nova P, she is competing in that population where there is broad overlap and she does not experience a huge advantage due to physiology. But if Nova P had elite level talent, her physiology would indeed allow her to compete more effectively.

I'm RIGHT HERE.

 

[Dingus]

I'm RIGHT HERE.

I'm sorry I don't mean to offend, I figured since you repeatedly pointed out your tournament results it was fair game

I will also admit to be middling talent :hfive:

 

[RowingBoats]

Women ultrarunners compete against men and win. Jasmin Paris won the Montane Spine Race, obliterating the competition (the fastest man wasn't even close; a man who previously won the race had to drop out with 4 miles to go.)

Jen Thompson is a 5'5" 138lb woman who bench presses 330 lbs. Looking at some powerlifting meet results, she would beat the top male from a similar weight class, and in some instances I saw, she would have beaten the top male from the next higher weight class.

Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in straight sets in tennis, winning $100k.

Again, women have had barriers to overcome, from societal pressures and attitudes, participation bans, to downright inequality in terms of facilities, equipment, medical treatment, etc. Despite that, they have been able to overcome and are making great progress. Look at Sydney McLaughlin, pushing the world record in the 400m hurdles to the brink of breaking 50 seconds. Now, you might say that the men's record is 46 seconds. But if you consider that men's athletics has had quite a headstart with fewer barriers than women's athletics, then a more fair comparison would be accounting for the effect of those barriers. It is difficult if not impossible to quantify the effects of these barriers, but what if it means that women's sports are essentially a century behind? The men's record back then was 54 seconds. Okay, what if it isn't a century behind, what if it is only 75 years behind? The men's record back then was…50.6 seconds.

Again, impossible to quantify all these, and I'm not going to say that there are no advantages. But let's not overlook the other advantages and disadvantages on the other side of the coin. It isn't as simple as testosterone vs. estrogen.

Yep, or:

https://www.climbernews.com/laura-rogora-sends-erebor-9b-slash-plus/

Climbing is a very interesting one to me, because it makes sense why it might be a 'break-out' activity for women. When I was in the sport, the climbing gym was about the most inclusive possible place I can conceive of. The sport is not just a competition against another human, so perhaps it erodes some of the initial barriers to joining in. I think there is a lot of interesting discussion to have around this.

We are just now entering the era where lots of girls grew up in those gyms becoming outright beasts, and look at what is happening. The routes these women are putting up aren't altered to be 'women's' versions. They are seriously contending at the very pinnacle of what humans can possibly do right now.

 

[RowingBoats]

What "societal expectation" is there placed on women in which they can't play disc golf?

This is an immensely complex question that I could never hope to answer adequately.

The point is, last I heard, something like 90% of disc golfers are men. The reasons for this are varied and complex, but certainly cannot be deduced to "Well women just don't like the sport like us men do". I would imagine, however, that lots of people posting in this thread actually would say some **** like that with a straight face.

 

[crd 81]

This is an immensely complex question that I could never hope to answer adequately.

The point is, last I heard, something like 90% of disc golfers are men. The reasons for this are varied and complex, but certainly cannot be deduced to "Well women just don't like the sport like us men do". I would imagine, however, that lots of people posting in this thread actually would say some **** like that with a straight face.

The point is that there isn't anything stopping women from picking up some discs and going to play, outside of their other responsibilities. There are no unfair "societal expectations" that is stopping them.

 

[Dingus]

but certainly cannot be deduced to "Well women just don't like the sport like us men do". I would imagine, however, that lots of people posting in this thread actually would say some **** like that with a straight face.

Sure it can be. My daughters don't like disc golf and my sons do. I pushed it equally. My daughters have poorer hand eye coordination and it makes it less fun. They prefer sports that de-emphasize hand eye coordination. There are scientifically verified differences in hand eye coordination between girls and boys. My face is straight.

 

[RowingBoats]

The point is that there isn't anything stopping women from picking up some discs and going to play, outside of their other responsibilities. There are no unfair "societal expectations" that is stopping them.

For sure. There is nothing at all about behavior in our society that would cause a woman to feel differently about going to play a solo disc golf round at a course that is 90% occupied by groups of men, compared with how I would feel about doing this myself.

 

[SaROCaM]

The point is that there isn't anything stopping women from picking up some discs and going to play, outside of their other responsibilities. There are no unfair "societal expectations" that is stopping them.

Have you spoken with any women about this?

 

[gingerandhoney]

We are just now entering the era where lots of girls grew up in those gyms becoming outright beasts, and look at what is happening. The routes these women are putting up aren't altered to be 'women's' versions. They are seriously contending at the very pinnacle of what humans can possibly do right now.

MIC. DROP.

That is because they are finally getting a more level playing field right form the start. Because there is representation, and visibility, and resources, and facilities.

 

[gingerandhoney]

The point is that there isn't anything stopping women from picking up some discs and going to play, outside of their other responsibilities. There are no unfair "societal expectations" that is stopping them.

Passive discouragement of a group that already feels "othered" is enough to discourage many.
No one says there is active discouragement; passive is effective enough to achieve the same result.

How many men have rolled their eyes when they drew the one single woman present?
How many women have seen that man roll their eyes?

How many women have stayed home to look after the kids while the boyfirend or husband went out to play that tournament?
How often did the man stay home to "allow" their woman or girlfriend to go and play instead?
Even just the "allow" is enough of societal expectation and imbalance.
It's not supposed to be the woman's job raising the kid; it's a shared responsibility.

 

[RowingBoats]

Sure it can be. My daughters don't like disc golf and my sons do. I pushed it equally. My daughters have poorer hand eye coordination and it makes it less fun. They prefer sports that de-emphasize hand eye coordination. There are scientifically verified differences in hand eye coordination between girls and boys. My face is straight.

Nah, this is just more of the same bull****. Using aggregated data to make your simple-minded views feel acceptable, and then pretending the results of that data are "JUST THE WAY IT IS!!!"

You know what is not objectively, scientifically understood? The cause for this difference. One of the studies I am aware of that demonstrates your assertion concludes with:

"Although our results indicate a male advantage for manual tracking, sex differences must be interpreted cautiously, as many other (hidden) factors may encourage differences between men and women58. Indeed, we cannot exclude the possible contribution of social and environmental factors in the emergence of a male advantage. For instance, it has been suggested some of these sex differences could stem from different levels of expertise/training in video-games. Indeed, it has been previously reported that regular practice in video-games provides some advantages for visuomotor tracking59, eye-hand coordination60, as well as a general speeding of reaction times without decreases in accuracy61. Considering that women are less inclined to play video-games than men62, this may have encouraged the advantage exhibited by men seen in our task (see also59). Although the current study did not assess participants' level in video games, there are still some concerns with this line of reasoning. First, some studies reporting a male advantage in manual tracking17 and reaction time36,40 were performed before the birth of video-games. Second, a recent study performed with men and women having limited experience in video games showed a male advantage in a complex spatially-demanding video game63. Moreover, although sex differences diminished over the course of training, this study showed that the male advantage persisted even after 30 h of practice. In the current study, we found no evidence that the male advantage tended to fade away across the course of ten trials. Thus, the male advantage observed in the temporal accuracy of manual tracking appears to be both genuine across trials and robust across a large set of participants. Still, future studies confirming whether this observation holds over a larger set of trials would certainly be helpful."

So, sure, in the aggregate boys may have a slight advantage in some regards here. That still doesn't mean both of YOUR boys are superior to YOUR girls. If you actually integrate these findings in that way, I don't even know what to say to you.

 

[Hampstead]

I've played weekly doubles with Kelsey Brakel and I can't tell you how many times I've heard some variation of "You're pretty good for a girl." "I can't believe I'm getting beat by a girl." She handles it with class but it obviously annoys her.

 

[ChrisWoj]

Thanks for responding Chris. Regardless of your differences it seems disingenuous to attribute a quote to someone you know they didn't make. I recon there are ways to say the same thing without using a fake quote.

It is no more serious than PMantle continuously attributing thoughts, actions, and opinions to people that he imagines that they say. If people think PMantle would speak about himself in the way those quotes indicate, well I guess that says more about him than anything.

 

[gingerandhoney]

I've played weekly doubles with Kelsey Brakel and I can't tell you how many times I've heard some variation of "You're pretty good for a girl." "I can't believe I'm getting beat by a girl." She handles it with class but it obviously annoys her.

And rightfully so. Kelsey is consistently among the top 10-25 rated women in the world. I'm not sure she ever broke top 10 there, but I remember seeing her on #11 at some point.

and that "pretty good for a girl" is so sexist. Quite likely unknowingly so, but nonetheless sexist.

 

[Shallows]

For sure. There is nothing at all about behavior in our society that would cause a woman to feel differently about going to play a solo disc golf round at a course that is 90% occupied by groups of men, compared with how I would feel about doing this myself.

I'll take the contrarian but obviously true position that the societal expectations are certainly there, but there's very little unfair about them, in fact they're perfectly reasonable, good, and healthy.

Math, childcare, security, chess, yoga, dancing, MMA, autism, breastfeeding, call of duty, talking to one's mom for hours, building model ships, socializing, singing tenor, singing soprano, working on an oil rig, working in a kindergarten class...we all know that some of these things are more practiced by women generally and some are practiced by men, and the reasons why are quite obvious based on a dynamic mix of natural dispositions and social advantages that none of us would dispute!

 

[Dingus]

So, sure, in the aggregate boys may have a slight advantage in some regards here..

Lol, this is what we are talking about here. In aggregate. That is why some girls do play disc golf over other non hand eye coordination sports, and why some boys prefer non hand eye coordination sports. The difference is anything but slight in aggregate, btw. My children mirror the majority of children, in aggregate.

 

[Dingus]

and that "pretty good for a girl" is so sexist. Quite likely unknowingly so, but nonetheless sexist.

Why does it matter if it was knowingly? Is this kind of sexism bad? Women are clearly worse at disc golf than men, in aggregate. This is pretty much the foundation of the entire thread. In fact the main argument is that trans women suck equally as much as cis women. You yourself have advanced that argument.

 

[PMantle]

This is almost assuredly not correct. It is like asking you mom about modern slang.

Yeah, I would have no clue what's discussed on 4chan.