Buy Walking VideosWhy Women Should Be Allowed To Compete
If you missed it, there has been a heated discussion about why women should be allowed in the NFL on my previous entry:
I believe all sports should be integrated and women should be allowed to compete with men and against men. Adjusting the rules of team sports games to be more like softball where there must be an equal number of men and women on a team is probably the most efficient way to accomplish this.
Segregating the sports isn’t the answer. Women’s football doesn’t provide as much access to corporate sponsorship because it doesn’t get equal time on television. Women’s basketball is filled with amazing athletes that aren’t allowed access to the financial opportunities that the players in the NBA are.
If you don’t believe this, log on to ESPN.com and try to find women’s sports. There is no mention of the WNBA on the front page at all. You have to hunt and search for it. Hunt and search ESPN.com for NWFA (National Women’s Football Association), and you will find NOTHING. So much for separate but equal.
In the end, segregation HURTS sports.
There are women who would have been the next Michael Jordan, but they were discouraged from entering sports because, “No one will watch you play,” or “There’s no money in that for women.” Just like when racial integration took sports to a whole new level, gender integration will do the same. Excluding half of the human race from participating in a sport makes the sport “gene pool” smaller, less diverse and ultimately poorer for it.
Just saying it amazes me. Half of the human race is not allowed to even try out for the NFL, the NBA or major league baseball. It doesn’t matter how good they are, they are just not allowed to play. How did we let it get to this point?
Every father who has a daughter should boycott all sports until they allow women to compete. How could we support an institution that rejects half of all our children just based on a 1-6 inch flap of skin?
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December 23rd, 2006 at 2:19 pm
you girls are not strong enough or fast enough to play with us men.or big enough……..woman are just simply not good enough to play with the boys.. the only reason for the Segregating that is happening is for the safty of woman… they would really get hurt!!
December 23rd, 2006 at 2:23 pm
If we’re not strong enough, then let us try out. Let us compete. If for the first few years the men take all the race trophies and first string spots, then that’s fine with me. How come no one worries when I small quarterback goes against those fullbacks? I’ve known women who could take a linebacker’s spot and hold her own. Why didn’t she go into the NFL and get big money? Because she’s not allowed…
It’s discrimination and it’s time for it to end.
January 3rd, 2007 at 1:06 pm
I am currently in ninth grade at my high school. Last year during my eight grade year in middle school I tried out for football. From the first time I said I was going to try out I heard complaits from boys saying I could never live and they didn’t believe for a seond that I was accually going to try out. Well I did try out, even though all of the girls and boys thought I was crazy, and I made it. I did well and my coach was always telling me he was proud. You would think I would be happy that he said that, but that doesn’t matter to me. He was always saying he was proud of me and he didn’t say that to anyone else, but the thing is I didn’t look at myself any differently so I didn’t like being treated differently. I wanted it to hurt, as crazy as it sounds, and thats what I eventually got. I felt hurt, pain, and much more, but I went on saying I could go through it. I did and it was pretty fun and rewarding. I just worked from the pain, and I think that it taught me to be a better person as a whole. Right now I am currently doing a persuasive essay on how women should be in the NFL. I stand by that statement strongly. If they can hold their own and can make it in, then they should be allowed to play. I mean who really cares about the gender if the person is good? Not me.
January 4th, 2007 at 7:02 am
i think that women should never be allowed to comete with me in football because they would just get competly destroyed they would never last
January 4th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Girls playing football against men would be just a stupied dission this is because the fact that guys have the muscle and the speed over the girls, they also have the weight…. this just would not be fare at all and no fun to watch.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Johann,
Quite frankly, anyone who can’t spell “stupid” or “decision” isn’t really qualified to know what is stupid or not…
Laura
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:27 pm
I found this topic quite interesting, even though I disagree with your position. I apologize for the length of my reply; what started as a paragraph grew and grew as I realized that this topic required a good bit of explanation and support. Please do not be insulted by the tenor of my reply – I intend no disrespect. I have tried to comment directly on excerpts from your article. Thank you for allowing people to respond.
“Just saying it amazes me. Half of the human race is not allowed to even try out for the NFL, the NBA or major league baseball. It doesn’t matter how good they are, they are just not allowed to play. How did we let it get to this point?â€
Are women actually legally prohibited from participating in the NFL, NBA, NHL, or any other major professional league in North America? If these laws exist, you should cite them in your blog. Are there female athletes who have attempted to try out for these leagues but have been barred simply because of their gender? You should list them also. I strongly suspect however, that reason that you don’t see female athletes competing with males in these leagues is because they are simply inferior athletes or too small physically, not because they are legally prohibited from participating or are denied opportunities. This especially holds true for contact sports such as football and hockey, or with sports such as basketball where physical stature is a significant factor.
I have read that FIFA (the governing body for international soccer) recently prohibited a woman from attempting to play for a male professional team in Mexico. Again, I’m not sure if this ban extends to North American soccer leagues or if other North American sports have similar bans. I do not agree with this law as I think people should still be given the opportunity to pursue their goals, unrealistic as they may be. I think the law is unnecessary, as I seriously doubt that any woman could ever compete at a high level with men in soccer (or any other major team sport). The best female soccer players (the Mexican woman notwithstanding) readily admit this, because it can be empirically shown that women cannot presently compete at elite male levels. For example, the US women’s national team, which represents the highest level of female soccer in the world, will often scrimmage and get beaten by high school-aged boys (such as the U-16 boy’s national team, or local club teams of teenage boys). They play these boys because they represent the next step up in competition (in the same way that female marathon runners will use male pacers to push their limits); even as immature youths the boys are already athletically superior to the best women players around. Although this scarcely needs pointing out, observe that the best male professional players are several magnitudes better than these high school boys (only an ultraminority of these boys will ever be good enough to play pro soccer at any level). So what is the rationale for thinking that women can compete with elite men on the soccer field in the near future? Tennis also has illustrative examples. An often cited and grossly misunderstood example is the so-called “Battle of the Sexes†tennis match that took place in the early 70s between the top female player, Billie Jean King, and a male player, Bobby Riggs. Billie Jean won, however, she was in her 20’s and at her peak. Bobby, on the other hand, was 55 years old. The shelf life for tennis players rarely extends beyond their early 30s. So, I should hope that the best female player could beat a 55 year-old man. Even so, before the King match Bobby had comprehensively beaten another top female player, Margaret Court, in straight sets. So this 55 year-old man could probably have competed effectively on the female tour.
In 1992, a retired Jimmy Connors (40 at the time) played a still active Martina Navratilova (36 at the time) in a tennis exhibition. Despite handicaps imposed on Jimmy (he was not allowed a second serve and Martina was allowed to hit in the doubles area of the court) he still beat her in straight sets. A year later, Martina was still good enough among women to beat the #1 ranked female player, Monica Seles, in the Paris Open.
In January 1998, a young Serena Williams played a set against male player Karsten Braasch. At that time, Serena had already defeated two top ten women players. By the end of the year she herself would be ranked in the women’s top ten (she would soon become the best female player in the world). Braasch was 30 years old and ranked number 226 in the world among men. He beat Serena 6-1.
“Every father who has a daughter should boycott all sports until they allow women to compete. How could we support an institution that rejects half of all our children just based on a 1-6 inch flap of skinâ€
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the differences between male and female physiology. The morphological and physiological differences between the sexes are more than merely cosmetic. Humans, like most primates, are sexually dimorphic, meaning there are inherent and largely immutable physical differences in males and females. A listing of just some of these is as follows:
The typical man is both taller and heavier than the typical female. This larger physical stature allows him to support more lean muscle tissue (especially in the upper body with his proportionately larger shoulder girdle). In addition, even when controlling for bodyweight a man tends to have a more robust skeletal structure, indicating a greater tolerance for contact sports and exercise in general.
Men have greater amounts of circulating anabolic hormones (testosterone), allowing much greater potential for the development of lean muscle, especially when exposed to strenuous exercise. These hormones also aid in recovery from strenuous exercise.
The average man has about 10% less body fat than a female. His lower levels of body fat give him a superior bodyweight-to-strength ratio and explain why he preserves his strength advantage over women even when gross bodyweight is controlled for. A female’s higher body fat levels equate to an excess load that has to be carried (fat does not contribute to movement as muscle does), and therefore impedes speed, agility, explosiveness, and endurance.
Men have proportionately narrower pelvis and longer Achilles tendon, both of which enhance running speed. The wider female pelvis degrades speed and is a factor that predisposes her to knee injuries (for example, women have several times the rate of ACL tears than men).
Cardiovascular performance (usually measured by VO2 max) is about 10% less in women than in men, even in similar sized men and women.
A man has 20% greater blood volume than a women with the same body mass. For the same amount of blood, a man has 10% more hemoglobin (the molecule responsible for carrying oxygen to the muscles). This translates into obvious aerobic advantages for the male athlete.
Neurologically, males also appear to have advantages in gross motor functioning and reaction time.
These and other physical differences manifest themselves in athletic performance and are the best explanation for why, after puberty, elite males outperform elite females in almost every athletic endeavor. If you doubt this, or think that there are better, non-physiological reasons (such as social conditioning) for differential performance in men and women, just look around and consider the very obvious changes that happen to males and females as they mature into adults. All across the United States, 6-12 year old girls are playing with and against 6-12 year old boys in a variety of sports (including football) and are competing quite effectively – there is no significant differential performance to speak of, especially at the younger ages. Now fast forward past puberty a bit and compare the performances. Pick any sport, and you will see that the athletic performances of the best 16 year old boys are well ahead of those of the best 16 year old girls. These boys are also now larger, leaner, more muscular, and so forth. What happened? Did we undertake a massive campaign to systematically under nourish and emotionally discourage the girls after they reach 13? Did we all of a sudden train these boys day and night to become super athletes? Or did some fundamental changes happen in the boys’ and girls’ bodies as a part of sexual maturity, such as wider hips and more body fat for the girls, and growth spurts and facial hair for the boys. These changes are indeed significant and not immaterial. Some of these changes, such as higher body fat levels and wider hips, negatively impact athletic performance in virtually every sport. Other changes, such as more red blood cells and increased muscle mass, enhance athletic performance in virtually every sport. The changes that enhance athletic performance are much more characteristic of male puberty than female puberty; in fact just about every aspect of male puberty is either an enhancement to athletic performance, or athletically neutral (such as facial hair). Not the case for females; other than a modest increase in size very few aspects of female puberty appreciably enhance athletic performance. Given these facts, superior male athletic performance in most sports is not only adequately explained but in fact reasonably expected. As a corollary, these physical differences also explain exactly why, in a few athletic events, women compete effectively with men. It is no surprise that women often beat men in ultra long distance swimming, as a women’s higher level of body fat suddenly becomes a great advantage (body fat is more buoyant and a better insulator than muscle). Even in shorter distances, a woman’s relatively narrow shoulder girdle cuts through the water more efficiently and helps to offset her lower power output. This explains why the smallest gaps in Olympic performance between men and women are often in swimming events (though men still have an advantage). In competitive climbing, a smaller, lighter female frame is useful for a variety of reasons. But again, for almost all other sports and certainly the major team sports, women are at a significant physical disadvantage.
You still be inclined to counter that ok, there are a lot of differences that favor men, but they only represent averages and cannot be applied to individuals. For instance, even though men are on average larger and stronger than women, we have all seen individual women that are larger and stronger than the average man, and men that are smaller and weaker than the average woman. You may quiet correctly point out that both male and female athletic and physical attributes would tend to be distributed normally (as in a bell curve), and therefore we would expect some overlap. I would agree that the best female athletes (say the top 1%) would, in many sports, outperform perhaps 85-90% of the male population. However, there is an upper tale of male athletes that outperform everyone, including the best females, and these are the men you see in the elite sports leagues. Simply put, the innate male physical advantages simply extend the athletic potential of the best male athletes beyond that of the best female athletes. To use an extreme example, suppose I take two populations, elite male weightlifters and female orangutans. Due to certain anatomical and physiological differences, orangutans of both sexes have, on average, many times the upper body strength of humans. We could conceive that the strength of the largest, most powerful male weightlifters could possibly exceed that of an juvenile, old, or sick female orangutan, but it would be irrational to believe that the weightlifter could ever match the strength of a healthy, adult female orangutan. The upper tail on the bell curve of human strength simply does not extend that far.
Elite men outperform elite women:
A brief listing of world record holders in some feats of athleticism which illustrate the gap in elite male and female performance
100-meter dash: Men Women
800 meter run: Men Women
1 min 41 sec 1 min 53 sec
Clean and jerk (Olympic weightlifting), all weights in kilos:
Athlete’s amount lifted – amount lifted -weight Men Women
156 263
120 182 77 210 75 169
69 197 157 62 182
56 168 140
Long jump:
Marathon: Men Women
A couple of points:
For the 100 yard dash, note that this time difference represents more than 7 meters in distance. This is significant in team sports where just a few steps separate fast players from slow players. Also note that the top woman’s time would not have beaten any men in the field in the 2004 Olympics 100 meters. In fact, women have yet to match the fastest recorded high school boy (10.08 sec). For weightlifting, note that even when bodyweights are held constant, the male lifter is still stronger. Note that the 62 kg (136 lbs) man can lift as much as the 120 kg (264 lbs) woman. Furthermore, note that the largest male lifter is both bigger and stronger than the largest female lifter. You may suspect that I selected only the events in which males outperformed females. I did not, and seriously doubt that there is any Olympic event in which the current top performer is a female. Outside of the long distance swimming contests that I mentioned before (and some quasi-athletic contests such as race car driving, horse racing, darts, target shooting, etc.) there are virtually no activities that we would define as athletic in which women outperform men.
“Women’s basketball is filled with amazing athletes that aren’t allowed access to the financial opportunities that the players in the NBA are. If you don’t believe this, log on to ESPN.com and try to find women’s sports. There is no mention of the WNBA on the front page at all. You have to hunt and search for it. Hunt and search ESPN.com for NWFA (National Women’s Football Association), and you will find NOTHING. So much for separate but equalâ€
ESPN is a business. Its content is driven by the interest levels of its consumers, which right now don’t include the WNBA and NWFA. If no one is interested in the WNBA or NWFA, then ESPN cannot be expected to force feed these sports onto the sports public. If the WNBA (which is already subsidized by the NBA) or NWFA really did represent a desirable product, we would see networks battling for coverage and major corporations paying for some big air time. Why would major media outlets and advertisers throw large sums of money at a product that nobody watches, if hopes that this will somehow generate interest, when they already have proven events to spend money on? The financial opportunities that the players in the NBA have are the result of the value that we in the sports public place on their product. The WNBA does not produce near the level of basketball that the NBA does (at least in the eyes of the public), and therefore the revenue just isn’t there. It has absolutely nothing to do with “not being allowed accessâ€. And no, the NBA should not have to give over half of its wealth to a league that far fewer people watch. If a woman were capable of actually playing in the NBA, she would certainly be allowed access to all of those opportunities as well. If you must blame anybody, blame the sports public, or better yet, blame the WNBA and NWFA for not producing a better product. Would more money and exposure improve the WNBA and NWFA? Perhaps temporarily, but simply throwing money at something does not automatically create demand. And every successful sports league that has ever existed has had to attract its own investors and backers, weather all the ups and downs of any new business, and produce a product people want to see before they could command a lot of money. The ones that didn’t went out of business or have remained obscure. Why should the WNBA and NWFA be exempt from this process and not stand on their own? Don’t expect profitable business and leagues to risk financial ruin by subsidizing them simply out of charity. There is no “separate but equal†when we are talking about male and female athletes. Separate leagues are an open admission that these two groups of people are quite unequal. WNBA athletes are only amazing when compared with other females; put them on the court with NBA level men and they would be woefully inadequate. Separate leagues exist precisely because very few, if any, women could compete with male athletes. Womens only leagues therefore give women more opportunities to compete than they would have if forced to compete with men.
“I believe all sports should be integrated and women should be allowed to compete with men and against men. Adjusting the rules of team sports games to be more like softball where there must be an equal number of men and women on a team is probably the most efficient way to accomplish this.â€
You also seem to think that professional sports should operate as some sort of utopia where every group in society is fairly represented. Why should there be an “equal number†of men and women on a team? What if all of the available female players are terrible? What if all of the available male players are terrible? Why not four men and one woman, if that is how the best starting line-up shakes out? For argument’s sake, suppose I coach a co-ed basketball team where my best five players are women. If I cared about producing the highest level of basketball, I would absolutely start the five women and play them as much as I could. If the men weren’t good enough to start or play significant minutes, then tough luck. The only thing there “should†be is the best players competing. Professional sports are about showcasing the highest level of talent available; they are under no obligation to make sure that their team reflects an accurate distribution of the population. This is also why so many of us enjoy pro sports – for all of their faults, they are about as close to a true meritocracy as you will find. Appx 70% of the NBA is African-American; as a white male should I be complaining that this is not “fair†because African Americans only compose about 15% of the population? Of course not. If they are there on merit (which they are), I don’t care if the league is 100% black or 100% Chinese. I want to see the best performers.
As a counterargument, a very valid question would be to ask me if I would explain African-American domination of the NBA (and over most pro sports in North America) in the same way I would explain superior male athletic performance over female (i.e. in terms of inherent and largely immutable physical advantages). I would answer that the reason for the superior African-American performance in say, basketball, is similar to the reason that you see very few black hockey players or swimmers – exposure (or lack of it). Black kids, especially urban black kids, experience a much more intense and frequent exposure to basketball than North American suburban white kids. However, white European or Asian players (see Dirk Novitski, Manu Ginobli, Yao Ming) who have been exposed to frequent and rigorous basketball training as youngsters have shown that they can excel in the NBA, or even beat our best in international play. At this point, you may be tempted to explain inferior female athletic performance in terms of lack of exposure. Unfortunately, this does not follow, as women still lag behind men even when exposed to the same level of training and resources. For instance, during the decades of the state-sponsored Soviet sports machine, thousands of talented men and women were selected as children for sports (team and individual) and exposed to the best available coaching, training, nutrition, (and ignominiously in some cases, performance-enhancing drugs). This system, as draconian as it was, produced some of the most exceptional athletes the world had ever seen. However, despite continued access to the same resources as the men, the women never outperformed their male counterparts in any contest. In other words, even with this level playing field, women were not able to overcome their inherent, post-pubescent physical disadvantages and match male performance at the elite level.
“Just like when racial integration took sports to a whole new level, gender integration will do the same.â€
Your analogy is a very poor one. Black athletes had already objectively demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that their physical prowess was equivalent to whites (see Jesse Owens, Jack Johnson, Satchel Paige, and many others) before sports became integrated. They did not and do not suffer from any physical disadvantages. In objective comparisons between male and female performance over many decades, and despite millions invested in women’s athletics, women have not demonstrated that they can overcome their inherent physical limitations and compete effectively with elite men or “take the sports to another levelâ€.
“How come no one worries when a small quarterback goes against those fullbacks?â€
Probably because fullbacks and quarterbacks are both offensive players and would never “go against†each other. And quarterbacks, although usually smaller than the linebackers and defensive lineman that try to sack them, are not small men by any means. Most quarterbacks in the NFL are well over 6 feet tall and over 200lbs, significantly bigger than the average man and much larger than 99% of the women walking around today.
“I’ve known women who could take a linebacker’s spot and hold her own. Why didn’t she go into the NFL and get big money? Because she’s not allowedâ€
Again, you have to show where women are legally denied entry to the NFL. Even if this is true, then find one woman who is actually remotely capable of playing linebacker in the NFL. In fact, I am 99.99% sure that you are very mistaken in this point. I looked at the some of the combine stats for aspiring NFL linebackers. Your average recruit out of college for the linebacker position is 6’2â€-6’5†tall, weighs between 220 and 260 pounds, has a body fat of 10-13%, can run a 40 yard dash in 4.4 to 4.7 seconds, can bench press 225 pounds 20 to 35 times, and has a 30-35 inch vertical leap. Those are just some of the raw physical characteristics. Also keep in mind that there are no 5 foot 7, 160lb or 170lb linebackers, so no matter how much “heart†or “skill†you may have there are physical requirements that must be met. So you really know 6’2†to 6’5â€, 220-260lb women with 13% body fat and with the aforementioned levels of speed, strength, and power? Have you actually seen them perform these feats? Do you know how rare it is to find men with this collection of freakish athletic attributes, much less women? A woman with a 4.4 40 would have Olympic level speed. A woman who could bench press 225 even once, much less 20 times, would have extraordinary upper body strength for a female. A woman with 13% bodyfat would be very close to the lower threshold of bodyfat for a healthy woman (very unlikely in 200+ woman). If you really know women such as this, I would be truly amazed. Please give me their names so I can forward them to Marvin Lewis.
If even a minority of female professional athletes were capable of playing with the men in the elite leagues, would we not already see them on the court/field? After all, we live in a country with unprecedented opportunities for women, not some backward nation. What owner, if presented with an opportunity to have even a modestly talented female on his team, would not jump at the chance (think of the increase in media coverage, ticket sales, etc.)? If there really were legal barriers to entry, would we not see a rash of lawsuits filed by these female athletes in a litigious society such as ours and with all of the money they stand to lose by remaining quiet? Not to mention the fact that these lawsuits would certainly have merit under the numerous anti-discrimination laws already in place. Why do the women of the WNBA of WNFA settle for a pittance if they can really compete in the NBA or NFL?
When the WUSA folded, why wasn’t there a mass exodus of female players to the MLS, the A-league, or any of the other men’s professional leagues? Again, in the absence of women even attempting to break into male leagues, you have to seriously wonder if they have the capability. Why did these women chose to curtail their careers until a new women’s league could be formed if they even had a snowball’s chance in heck of competing with men?
Finally, don’t you realize that the greatest opponents to integrated sports would be the female athletes themselves? If tennis, for example, were integrated, then the earning opportunities of the female players would be eradicated overnight. The number one female tennis player would now be ranked somewhere in the 200s, possibly lower, and would never see another Grand Slam tourny again. Getting an Olympic medal would now be a near impossibility for a woman. Ask a woman marathoner how it would feel to go from first place to 50th. Do you really want intergender boxing?
Find a university level strength and conditioning coach and ask him or her about the real differences between the capabilties of male and female athletes. Contact the female athletes such as Anica Mercado yourself (and see if her combine results are anywhere near those of NFL level players). Ask them if they could truly compete with elite male athletes. I’m afraid that you’ll find that they are aware of the fundamental differences physically between men and women better than anyone. If one of them happens to agree with you, ask her why she is not actively pursuing a career in the big leagues with the men. If she was denied an opportunity to earn a living playing pro sports through some statute, she should be in contact with a good lawyer. See this column by women’s national team soccer player Heather Mitts (http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=326327&root=us&cc=5901). Although she says that, “I do think there are women out there who potentially could compete with menâ€, she readily admits to the difficulty a female would have competing with the men. Interestingly, she comments on the Mexican woman I referred to earlier and does not think that she could compete effectively. However, the fact that neither Heather nor any of her American colleagues are attempting play professionally with men, at any level, is telling. And who are the women she is referring to that could compete with men? What do these women think of their own chances? Why are they not trying to play with men?
I would agree that in intellectual endeavors, women are certainly on par with men and may exceed them in some areas. I believe this because there is no evidence that male physiology confers any significant innate or immutable cognitive advantage to men over women. More importantly, women have consistently and objectively demonstrated their intellectual prowess through a variety of measures (IQ tests, school performance, career success, etc.). But when we are talking about athletic performance, male physiology does confer significant advantages, and even when exposure to training is controlled for men still outperform women by any objective measure.
You also have to recognize that ultimately, all of this is really relevant only to the superminority of people that actually make their living playing sports. As a man, I have certain attributes that predispose me to being a better athlete than the average woman. Women have attributes that allow them to bear children. Which is the better gift, a faster sprint speed or the gift of life? I think women probably come out ahead here in the end. And yes, elite women athletes can still outperform the vast majority of men out there. It’s just that elite group of men that occupy pro sports I just don’t see women ever overtaking or competing with no matter how much they are trained or encouraged. If in the exceedingly unlikely event we start to see women in the NBA or NFL competing effectively with men, I will be cheering them on as much as you. But unless female physiology and morphology fundamentally change (i.e women become physically more like men), I don’t see this happening at all.
January 25th, 2007 at 9:33 am
So to the guy that had the HUGE letter! I am glad that you are so much superior to every other female on this entire planet. But there are many sports that women are better at than males. Just because we are down a few minutes in running or not enough weight lifted doesn’t mean you can take more than we can.
P.S. If your ever out on a date with someone, such as a kick butt football player (girl). Don’t bring this up unless you want to eat alone the rest of your life!
thank you so much.
January 25th, 2007 at 10:11 am
I just found it incredibly ironic that he took so many words to say,
“Boys are just better than girls.”
Okay, if that’s the case, then let us compete.
January 25th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Laura–I think you missed the point. I think “HUGE Letter” asked whether there was even a law that said women can’t play in the NFL. I don’t know the answer to this. But if there is no law, then what is stopping women from competing? And by the way, it is not clear whether you know that there is a law against women competing. I think I have to agree that, as sports are a business, they will hire anyone who is good enough to play. Just like there are women CEO’s, women presidents of Universities, women prime ministers etc.–they are hired because they are qualified. But in sports where the game is a matter of inches (e.g., in football, a receiver beating a defensive back is literally a matter of seconds and inches), these things matter. And if a man is faster and stronger than a woman (even by a very little bit), they will hire the man. If there is a fast and strong woman out there who wants to play football, and there is no law against it, then I can’t see why she isn’t out there playing.
January 25th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Ok….I didn’t mean for it to be the way I said. I meant that the reason a lot of girls don’t go out for the sports are because we are told that we will never make it. Being told that breaks it all down. You want to, but when you see that others don’t want you too then you don’t want to do it. Also, we don’t always go out for it, some just say they want to and never take any action to trying out. So you can’t really say that they are better than us. Some women do the same jobs that some men do, yet we sometimes get paid less than the guys do. Guys also have more training opportunity than we do, we say that we want to try out and some of the coaches just look at you and say your a girl you can’t do this. Give them a chance…if they get hurt, they get hurt. They will always be able to say they tried.
bp
January 25th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Perhaps you guys haven’t seen the lingerie bowl, or watched much foxy boxing lately. Those broads can play. And as a retort to the “Some women do the same jobs that some men do, yet we sometimes get paid less than the guys do.”…Read “Why Men Earn More” by Warren Farrell. Very interesting stuff written by a VERY left wing academic who actually sits on the board of directors at NOW showing that the so called “wage gap” between men and women has not existed since at far back as the 1940’s. (He gives very easily understood and telling reasons for why women seem to make less money than men in this country) If you can find women working the same job with the same experience with the same education and getting paid less, let me know…’Cause we’re gonna win the F’in Nobel Prize in Economics. Whoooo!
January 26th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Women should never be allowed in the NFL. Nobody likes to watch them, and if they ever played in a league with men, men would not play as hard so they don’t hurt the women; its common courtesy. Also, seeing women tackle each other is pathetic, not to mention barbaric. Men have been this way since the dawn of time, so there is no reason for them to stop acting the way they have for centuaries. Oh, and don’t call me sexist because im a girl, and seeing women act like a pack of wolves is embarrassing.
February 6th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
i think that girls should be able to play with the men just because were girls doesnt mean were not strong like com’on you at least have to give us a chance i know a girl who cold kill you guys and you no what yes shes strong and stuff but just because were girls doesnt mean were not good enough
February 9th, 2007 at 7:50 am
Women should not be aloud to play because the women player could not stand a chance against the best men players and that is simply the truth and in the pros that is what they are the best.
February 10th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
GiRLS SHOULD BE ABLE TO PLAY FOOTBALL WITH THE BOyS BECAUSE WE ARE JUST AS GOOD AND SOME BOYS ARE SO STUCK UP THAT WE CANT PLAY WiTH THEM BECAUSE THEY THiNK THEY ARE BETTER THEN US BUT THEY’RE SO NOT. 🙂 WELL THATS ALL I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THAT
February 14th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
This topic is very intersting. First of all the law states under OHRC,section 1, in Ontario Human Rights Code that “Every person has a right to equal treatment with respect to services, goods, and facilities, without discrimation because of race, ancestry, place of orgin, colour, ethnic orgin, citizenship, creed, sex, age, marital status or hanicap”. This basically says that women are allowed to play. BUT this does NOT apply for PRIVATE insitutions. So therefore, people who own their own company and spent their own money such as NFL can have their own rules. I believe Laura Moncur is right. Just because men have a faster time or they lift more weights does not mean that they are “better” then women. If women were allowed to participate in the same sports, women can place 2nd or 3rd even if the time is off by seconds. That will make a difference right?. Also it is a proven fact the women are stronger than men. Did you know that men cannot handle the pressure of carrying and delivering babies. This is because their bodies are not capable or carrying such heavy weight for 9 months. DO you know that men take drugs to enchane and build up on thier muscles. Well the whole point is that women can compete with men. This is why they should have integrated sports events in which men and women compete with and against, each other. This way, we will find out whether women can or cannot play in the NFL or what ever sports.
February 15th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Against my better judgment, I have to respond to Rajee.
“First of all the law states under OHRC,section 1, in Ontario Human Rights Code that…..”
I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think that a Canadian law applies to a U.S. league such as the NFL.
Also, in the good old U.S.A. here, we have Title VII, part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which “prohibits both intentional employment discrimination and practices that have the effect of discriminating on the basis of race, religion, sex or national origin.” It covers all PRIVATE employers, state and local governments and public and private educational institutions that employ 15 or more individuals. So I think it would be very difficult for any American sports league, even private ones, to explicitly prohibit women. This is probably why no one on this thread has been able to answer the very simple question – DOES THE NFL, NBA, MLB, CANADIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE, OR WHATEVER, HAVE A LAW THAT SPECIFICALLY EXCLUDES WOMEN FROM PLAYING. Until someone can actually cite such a law (and not just conjecture about the possibility of one), I will consider the answer to this question to be “no”.
“Just because men have a faster time or they lift more weights does not mean that they are “better†then women”
No one (at least not me) said that men were “better” than women. All I said, and backed up with data, was that the best male athletes outperform the best female athletes. This is a very specific claim about elite athletes only.
“If women were allowed to participate in the same sports, women can place 2nd or 3rd even if the time is off by seconds. That will make a difference right?”
Wrong. As I wrote in my admittedly long post, the fastest woman Olympian would be beaten by the entire field of male athletes in just about any event you could name. Those few seconds mean much more than just a few places. For those of you who like facts, here is one more example:
2004 Olympics – 5000 meter run
1st-man-13:14.39 last-man-14:02.01 1st-woman-14:45.65
It’s the same for the 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters…, the fastest woman can’t, except on very rare occasions, beat even the slowest man (even some dude who can’t break 14 minutes in the 5000), and never places among the top three men.
“Also it is a proven fact the women are stronger than men. Did you know that men cannot handle the pressure of carrying and delivering babies.”
A proven fact? Where? How are you defining “stronger”? I also think that the ability to carry a baby to term has more to do with having a uterus than anything else. After all, a guy with a good sized pot belly (and we have a lot of them here in the States) is carrying more than 10 lbs of adipose tissue around his abdomen all of the time. Also, since no man in history has ever gotten pregnant, you certainly couldn’t have based your statement about men “not being able to handle the pressure of having babies” on any actual facts. No offense, but this might be the dumbest statement I have read in a long time.
“DO you know that men take drugs to enchane and build up on thier muscles. Well the whole point is that women can compete with men.”
Not only do female athletes also take performance-enhancing drugs, they also receive a greater relative benefit than the men do due mainly to the low level of testosterone in females. In fact, women can receive a significant benefit from drugs even in small, more easily concealed doses, which makes it more likely that more female athletes can abuse these drugs than men. And as drug testing has gotten more sophisticated, it is female performance that has leveled off much more sharply than men’s in recent years.
No objective anlysis of male and female athletic performance, which we have plenty of these days, indicates that women could compete regularly (or at all) with elite men (NOTICE THE WORD “ELITE”).
February 16th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
i just cannot see a woman being successful in the Nfl. Many of you say that you know a woman who could kill us in sports…well where the hell are they????Obviously not challenging the 6’4 270lb pro players, or even the smaller semi-pro players. Im only in the tenth grade and we had a junior girl on our varsity team (whom of which never got in) she could even catch the ball better than some boys, however we played alot of D-1 prospects and there was no way she could keep up with a good cornerback and even if she did imagine a blind-sided hit by a d-1 prospect linebacker some of these guys could knock reggie bush off his rocker they may have literally killed her
February 17th, 2007 at 2:20 am
To M. David:
I came across your comments while searching for something entirely unrelated, and am curious as to your academic (or professional) background. Have you studied this subject before? If your interest is of an amateur nature, I find your command of the relevant data highly impressive.
February 18th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
If men and women were ever allowed to compete against each other in a sport requiring physical contact, women should be prepared for some major consequences. If boys and girls grow up beating each other up on the football field and hockey rink, do you not think this will affect relationships between boys and girls?
For example, men have been taught to never hit a women, no matter the circumstances and no matter what she does to provoke you (obviously, there is a ton of domestic violence, and anyone who engages in that is despicable. I, myself, struck a woman one time in my life, which irreparably harmed a relationship, and I am still paying to this day for that dire mistake).
However, I have also struck males on 6 or 7 other occasions, and have zero remorse about it. Obviously, violence is not the answer, but in the middle of a heated argument, when a guy gets in your face, or threatens you, sometimes fisticuffs are the result. I am far from a saint, but on these 6 or 7 occasions, I was not the aggressor; I was threatened and my physical space was invaded, and I believe I was justified in throwing a punch.
Now, if it was a girl who had got in my face or threatened me, I would have walked away as I was told NEVER EVER to hit a girl, no matter the circumstances (obviously if she had a knife or a gun that would be an exception).
But, if I was a 15 year old kid who lost out on a roster spot on the high school hockey team to a girl (the only girl on the team), and a girl after school is acting tough and gets in my space and says (if, even jokingly) “I could kick your ass”, I don’t think I would have any problem hitting a girl. Now, if it was a guy who was in my face and made that threat, my punch would be considered justifiable. But, since it is a girl, is the punch now a felony or a major crime?
Also, you feminists never consider the guys viewpoint. 98 percent of men do not want to compete against women. If you grow up beating the crap out of women on the sports field, are you really going to want to have an affectionate relationship with one of those same women??
Of course, heterosexual males will still want to have sex with women, but will they want to “cuddle” or just lay next to these women who 5 hours earlier had tried to check them into the glass. Sounds kind of like an animalistic relationship to me; fufill the opposite gender’s sexual urges, then go on with your daily business.
And what about locker rooms–do girls get separate locker rooms? It is okay for them to take a roster spot from a guy, to tackle a guy, and to forechek a guy, but they cannot undress in front of a guy. I played sports thru college and locker room commrodary was a important factor in success.
It is simply unnatural for men and women to compete in PHYSICAL CONTACT SPORTS only. This is one instance where separate but equal makes sense.
March 1st, 2007 at 8:38 am
its only fair that women get ot play football. im a dude and i suport it highly
March 1st, 2007 at 8:38 am
go grls
March 1st, 2007 at 8:40 am
I dont agree with that stupid kid at the top who cant spell “stupid” i love this sight go WNFL
March 1st, 2007 at 8:41 am
WNFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 6th, 2007 at 10:24 am
I think guys are just dumb for saying that they’re better. Almost every girl in my school says that we can easily keep up with you boys. I’m doing a report about how women should be able to compete with boys in professional tennis. I have a lot of support. So you boys can stop saying that you’re better!
March 26th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I think that women should definetly be able to play with men in sports. I myself play on an all boys team (besides me) and I am just as good as everyone else. Well, maybe not the really good players but I’m better than some and just as good as most. If people want to say that women arent as good as men in any way, then they can. But my grade 8 class covered discrimination in class and saying that men are better than women in any way is discrimination and is just as bad as calling someone a nasty name if they’re black!
So I hope that everyone realizes that and that you think before you say something deragatory about women. If you think about it, who’s the stronger gender? The one who has to watch football or the one who has to carry around a baby for 9 months?
April 4th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I am disgusted by some of the stuff that I have read on here, even from some of the girls (Theresa Shawiki). That sounds like ignorance to me. I know that on average women have not proven/ have not been given a chance to prove that they are just as good as men. I am writing a paper for my college class saying that there should be an ESPN dedicated to womens sports 100% of the time, and when talking to my male peers, they all jeered and laughed at it. Maybe the reason that women are not allowed to play with the men is because of society – women have always been told that it is wrong for them to be strong, to “act like boys” and be competative and tough. They get called tom-boys, which has a negative conotation. Maybe when that kind of ignorant thinking stops, women will have a true chance and will be able to play sports like football, and act barbaric like the men (since when is it ok for men to act one way and for women to be held to a different standard?). It is people saying things like “Nobody wants to watch them” (Theresa Shawiki) that gives girls the mentality that it is not ok for them to compete with boys, that they shouldnt even try, and to think that it is our OWN SEX saying that and being deragatory to women really blows my mind. I hope when I have kids that they don’t have to face this kind of mentality. Let them play. See what can happen.
April 7th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
im a girl and i always thought that some girls are equally skilled as boys but i think that we should be reasonable .. i mean a girl can skateboard just as good and many times better than guys and thats a fact, but just imagine a really good football player (girl) being checked by a 300 pound male. she could die!! it doesnt matter how skilled she is, i mean she could be as fit as the fittest girl but still get hurt. I think that women should be able to compete with and against men in every sport in the world except where her physical well being is threatened. If theres a woman out there who can take a cold knock out from some 300 pound guy.. go 4 it im all for you!
April 8th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Has anyone really looked at other factors like who created sports, who mostly watch sports, who play sports more, who’s more likely to be aggressive and competitive towards one another(if this element wasn’t there then sports would be nothing)? If most women had the same killer instinct like most men, then this sport equal thing won’t even be discussed, but since there’s a hand full of females like this (and we know what that’s about and it’s not the “L” word. It more about the chemicals), and the majority rather be female, Houston there’s a problem, and will continue to be one as long as men and women are different. Another point. After seeing the NBA, NFL, why do I wanna see a copy cat version anyway even if the women are imitating men? I don’t think listening to stories about the women schooling dudes ,or getting the best of men, or exploiting men to make the women game look good on t.v., and daddy training daughters in man’s ways will cause me to tune in either. I will be more like what, I know I definitely won’t tune in for that stuff. Somebody think that would work, how? The battle of the sexes is really to showcase women and gas up little girls. How long will that last with a mostly male audience (give or take few “Captain Courageous” who feel the need to be a sucker)? Plus the jacked up message saying it’s cool to forearm females and put your nuts in their face cause it’s “just a game”? Bleep out of here. We know sports are blueprints for war. C’mon now. I don’t care if a female get hurt because if she’s doing the same thing as men against men, then she might receive the same effects as men. To each their own, PEACE
April 14th, 2007 at 10:48 am
I have still not seen any law or clause that specifically bars women from trying out for any major sports league. I believe women should be given an adequate opportunity to compete with men, and I believe they are given the opportunity, however are unable to compete, physically. And in the WTA(womens tennis association), the winner of each slam is now making just as much as the men’s winner. So much for, “not being given equal wconomic opportunities”
I also happen to find Laura Moncur to be nlinded from logic, by her feminist views
April 14th, 2007 at 10:54 am
I also have to add: I throw shot put, and as a freshman guy, I can out throw the best varsity girl in California. I do not know any other sport that best demonstrates strength, and intensity, and also as correlative to playing on the line in football. I have never seen any female compete with as much intensity as a male, and intensity is what football is all about
April 14th, 2007 at 11:17 am
I think that everyone has lost sight of the question
“Should women be allowed to compete?”,,Is that not what fueled this article?
The answer is, yes, they should, and they are. There was a kicker for the University of Colorado a while back, and this particular kicker was missing the aforementioned “1-6 inch flap of skin”. If this girl was good enough, she would havbe entered the NFL draft, however she was terrible, and only caused controversy for the team, with an alleged rape. She was, however given the opportunity to compete at the elite levels.
April 14th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Women’s sports are so sloppily played, I hate to watch women’s basketball. It is a travesty to sports to even have females on the field
May 8th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
i think it would be great letting women play with us men, because it would make it more interesting, and it would also turn me on when women tackle me, and maybe i’d slip a few stinkers in.