Women in the Open?

Zombrex

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/golf/4485047.stm

The Royal and Ancient Club, the organisers of the world oldest golf tournment, the Open, have voted to allow, in theory, women to apply to qualify to play in the tournament.

I play on a mix-gender softball team and very quick the sterotypes of women and sports fall apart. You have girls hitting the ball out of the park. Personally I think the only rational left to have segreated sports is if they are contact sport in which phsyical size is really important. Even then I have met some scary womens rugby players who could kick most of mates asses.

I can't think of any reason why golf should not be a mix sport.

Is it time that a lot more sports become mixed sports?

seamus

I don't see any reason why a lot of sports wouldn't be allowed to be mixed. However, the rationale that "They could beat a team made of me and my mates anyday" is flawed.
Women are weaker than men, period. When you get to professional level in many sports, the difference between men and women is the same as it would be between two non-atheletes. Golf is quite a physical sport. How far a person can hit the ball has a lot to do with form, but physical strength also plays a big part. At professional level, women simply cannot hit the ball as far as men, simple as that. A woman did play in one of the Major tournaments last year, amid much wowing and brow furrowing, but she didn't do too great at all in the end. She did set a precedent.

In golf, or any non-contact sport, I don't see any reason why women should be refused the right to participate in the Men's competition - after all, tougher competitions encourage better performance - but separate tournaments and separate trophies should still be held.

In contact sports, such as rugby or soccer, I'm not entirely sure about allowing women to compete. I guess that would be up to the players themselves. If I played rugby, I could see myself having trouble, on a personal level, tackling or scrumming with a woman.

Other sports have no real need for separation at professional level, as the difference between men and women is minimal. Cross-country running for example. Even in this case, mixing the two would probably encourage better performance from the women if they have to compete against very marginally stronger men.

Zombrex

seamus wrote:

Women are weaker than men, period. When you get to professional level in many sports, the difference between men and women is the same as it would be between two non-atheletes.

In most games such as soccer, it is more a question of skill than physical strength. Because women have traditionally not played "male" sports, such as football, the skill base to select to players from is a lot smaller. But as more and more women get involved in sport like football, it would not be strange to find women with a skill level as high as the top males. You can see that in places such as the US where football started off with both girls and boys playing it. Now you have top women US football players with skill levels as good as the male players.

I don't think there is anything inherent about being a girl that means one cannot reach the same level of skill as the players in top clubs. It is just a question of attracting more girls to the game.

I do get your point about rugby and other contact sports though, I am not sure how comfortable people would be going into a mix-gender scrum.

Imposter

So there should be mixed competitions and female only competitions in certain sports? What about male only competitions?

I don't see any problem with having mixed sports in theory but if women expect to mix with the men in their competitions they cannot expect to continue having women's only competitions for those sports.

seamus

Wicknight wrote:

In most games such as soccer, it is more a question of skill than physical strength. Because women have traditionally not played "male" sports, such as football, the skill base to select to players from is a lot smaller.

Absolutely agreed. Particularly that men are generally encouraged to be sporty from a young age, and women not so much, the general talent pool, and the level of competition is much greater for men than it is for women. Definitely if many sports were mixed, plenty of women would eventually go on to do as well, if not better than the best men.

I do get your point about rugby and other contact sports though, I am not sure how comfortable people would be going into a mix-gender scrum.

I would even consider soccer a contact sport.

Zombrex

Imposter wrote:

So there should be mixed competitions and female only competitions in certain sports?

Who said that?

Zombrex

seamus wrote:

I would even consider soccer a contact sport.

True, but with less groin grabbing than Rugby

Sleepy

I think therein lies the danger, Imposter. By allowing women compete in the mens game, you'll find the cream of the Women's players migrating into the men's game (naturally given the higher status, sponsorship and prizemoney) so ultimately the women's game would become even more of a "second division" to the mens...

Personally, if a woman's able to compete with the men, I think she should be allowed to. Outside of golf, I'd be fine with it for any non-contact sport. I'm sure women (if many had the interest, talent and dedication to training) could easily compete with men at the highest levels of sports like snooker, badminton, table tennis, darts, golf, F1 etc. (i.e. sports that require more skill/finesse than brute strength).

Contact sports raise the question of negatively affecting the men's performance, as Wicknight pointed out, most men would have a problem about tackling a woman in a game of rugby, all (I hope) would have a problem in fighting one in a boxing ring.

Simply put where a woman can compete with a man, without negatively affecting the sport, she should be let.

Sleepy

seamus wrote:

I would even consider soccer a contact sport.

Soccer hasn't been a proper contact sport for years. The new breed of big girls blouses playing the game have ruined it tbh.

Imposter

Wicknight wrote:

Who said that?

It was a question for discussion, not neccesarilty in response to anything specific said by anyone.

Again (perhaps clearer), if there seems like there should be no impediment to females competing on the same level as men then I have no problem with women competing alongside the men in all competitions. This however would mean that female only competitions should not be allowed.


To use part of Sleepys example:
In snooker, darts etc women should be perfectly capable of competing on an equal footing with men, but to allow them to do so while still having their own female-only competitions, which allow for greater prizes than a male-only competition, at a similar level of performance, is wrong.

Zombrex

Imposter wrote:

It was a question for discussion, not neccesarilty in response to anything specific said by anyone.

Again (perhaps clearer), if there seems like there should be no impediment to females competing on the same level as men then I have no problem with women competing alongside the men in all competitions. This however would mean that female only competitions should not be allowed.


To use part of Sleepys example:
In snooker, darts etc women should be perfectly capable of competing on an equal footing with men, but to allow them to do so while still having their own female-only competitions, which allow for greater prizes than a male-only competition, at a similar level of performance, is wrong.

I see what you mean now. Yes, naturally it would a combination of the womens and male leagues rather than all the women moving to the "male" league but keeping the seperate "female" league going at the same time, which would be rather pointless IMHO

I think the problem is that if women are allowed play with the men it is still going to be considred women playing on the male team, rather than just the team.

Take for example football. At the moment there is the male World Cup and the female World Cup. If national football teams were mixed there should just be the World Cup, not the Male World Cup now with added women.

An example would be current mix gender sports. I play softball in Dublin. If you want to join softball that plays in the ISA leagues you have to join a team, a team that happens to be mixed. There is just one league, not a "proper" league and a female only league. There is no concept of "well is this a male team that lets women play, or a womens team that lets men play" .. it is just the team.

Imposter

Wicknight wrote:

An example would be current mix gender sports. I play softball in Dublin. If you want to join softball that plays in the ISA leagues you have to join a team, a team that happens to be mixed. There is just one league, not a "proper" league and a female only league. There is no concept of "well is this a male team that lets women play, or a womens team that lets men play" .. it is just the team.

Is there a restriction on the number of males or females that can play on the team though? Can you select a full team of males or females? If not then it's not equal.

Zombrex

Imposter wrote:

Is there a restriction on the number of males or females that can play on the team though? Can you select a full team of males or females? If not then it's not equal.

You have to have a certain number of girls and a certain number of fellas. You can't field a a team of all men or all women.

I wouldn't support a rule like that in something professional like football. The player should get the position based on their skill not a quota. The reason they do it in softball is because it is more about the "fun" of the game, they are mostly company teams

Sleepy

I think that in reality, this is something that would have to be decided upon in a sport by sport basis. Certain sports are fare more suitable to being mixed than others.

While I see your point about having a mixed and a women only league as being an unfair advantage to women in one respect, in another, having only a mixed league would be an unfair disadvantage to them in a sport like Golf where, while it's far from the be all and end all, strength does play a factor in ability.

It situations like these, I think there should probably be some sort of division based on ability (like a premier league and a secondary league). This would cause a lot of problems though as I think it's a fair assumption that it would actually result in more men, and less women, competing at a professional level.

pickarooney

Wicknight wrote:

In most games such as soccer, it is more a question of skill than physical strength.

Anything but. There's no end of highly skilled kids who look like they'll be world-beaters but who just don't have the strength to compete against the big boys. Professional football requires an awful lot of strength and speed, as well as aggression.

Formula one has no rules regarding the gender of its participants, though only one woman has ever made it to a Grand Prix team so far (Giovanna Amati of, I think Brabham in the early 90s). She wasn't much use, but the same can be said for a lot of the pay-per-play drivers in F1. She won the seat at Brabham on the strength of her performances in the women's European Championship.


[edit]There have actually been 5 female F1 drivers so far[/edit]

Zombrex

pickarooney wrote:

Anything but. There's no end of highly skilled kids who look like they'll be world-beaters but who just don't have the strength to compete against the big boys. Professional football requires an awful lot of strength and speed, as well as aggression.

Actually it is the exact opposite .. there is no end of very fit strong footballers who simply do not have the skill needed to play against the top players. There would be very little difference between the fitness level of the 1st division and the Premeireship, each player in both divisions would be at the peek of physical fitness. You would have to go down a few divisions before you start to get to players who do not have the physical strength to actually play for a full 90 minutes at the top of their game. But the players in the Premeiership would be at a much higher skill level, and as such be more well regarded.

pickarooney

Let's just say it's the combination. There's no point being able to juggle the ball six ways to christmas if you're going to be pushed off the ball at the first opportunity, and there's little interest in having a deft chip-shot if you haven't the speed to get to the ball first.
You're right in that there's not much difference in fitness between the Premiership and whatever they call the second division nowadays (championship or something?), but it's still noticeable and there's still a large gulf between these players and the ones a couple of divisions down.
That said, neither skill nor strength is worth a toss if you haven't the ambition to go with it.

Zombrex

pickarooney wrote:

Let's just say it's the combination. There's no point being able to juggle the ball six ways to christmas if you're going to be pushed off the ball at the first opportunity, and there's little interest in having a deft chip-shot if you haven't the speed to get to the ball first.

The point is Premeireship players are not at a point of fitness and strength that would be impossible for a woman to achieve. Now it is true that they are at a very high level that not every woman could achieve, but not every man could achieve it either. The real thing that seperates male football from female football is the skill level. There simply is not enough "gifted" female football players out there because the skills pool is way way to small. As seen in America if the skills pool is the same size you will get top female players as good as top male players.

daveirl

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Zombrex

daveirl wrote:

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Are you sure that was the US Woman's National Team, because I looked on there website and they had a 21 game unbeaten record up till last November, and I can't find anything about them playing against a male college team.

Anyway, it doesn't really prove anything either way, Man United can lose to a 2nd division team on a bad day.

daveirl

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pickarooney

daveirl wrote:

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So women's teams should start recruiting men whose parents were women?