Hard agree with everything Katie and Jesse say about the sex-segregation in sports article. I have one pedantic observation in support of Katie's comments and one question:
1. Pedantry: Boys are, on average, a little bigger than girls from birth and continue to be bigger throughout childhood, even before puberty. You can see a combined chart for infants and toddlers here: https://www.chartsgraphsdiagrams.com/HealthCharts/growth-birth-36-boys+girls.html. That's why the WHO, CDC, and your pediatrician use different charts to check boys' and girls' growth at well-child appointments. (The way this played out for me, as a child recreational soccer player, was that I could play on co-ed teams in elementary school, but neither I nor the much more skilled girls on my team were as good as most of the boys. Contrary to what that nutty study discussed on the podcast implied, size and strength matter a lot for who gets possession of the ball in soccer, and even by third or fourth grade your average girl is at some disadvantage when playing against a typical boy. That's obviously only much more true once boys hit puberty.)
2. Question: Do the people who think that females aren't disadvantaged in post-pubertal co-ed sports except by cultural factors like training think that, if a woman is overpowered by a man who sexually assaults her, that's just because she didn't have the right self-defense class or, perhaps, she didn't try hard enough to fight him off? Surely they wouldn't actually stand by this claim, but isn't that the implication of these denialist arguments?
HA hahaha. Fuuuuuck. I remember the episode of This American Life, when Ira Glass was like, this is sexism.
No. Get over yourself. You do it and it is equally annoying. Channah Jaffe-Walt's voice annoys me so much that I really cannot listen to her episodes. Let alone Zooey Chase. Alex Goldberg could be mad too
Hey. I can hate you and you can be a won an. Or man. Or white. Or black. You can be a black trans woman AND annoying af
I gave up listening to NPR last year after being a regular listener, and I remember hating Zoe Chase’s fry-- Ira Glass’s too but I didn’t listen to his show often. I put it on during a drive recently (I’ve switched to listening to podcasts most often but was curious). I had 1A on & the host was talking to a young black woman poet (only mentioning her race bc her poems were specifically focused on race), & she did a reading of a poem and she had the WORST vocal fry. You’d think a poet that performs readings of her work would work on her vocal technique. She’s going to sound like a heavy smoker by the time she’s old. It drives me crazy. Back to podcasts! (No one I listen to has a fry, just got lucky.)
The big question - and why I stopped listening to NPR - would they have interviewed her if her poetry wasn't about black pioneers? Lile if she just wrote about the beauty of Utah and happened to be black.
That’s a good question. She read one about her grandmother (I think) being a black Fraser Crane that struck me as “meh,” but I’m not a poetry aficionado so maybe it’s brilliant. 😂
To answer 2. anyone suggesting this has never played competitive team sports. They've never been in a fight, been assaulted. They live online and are the kind of people that see a game of catch happening and turn and walk away.
Same with age divisions. You're not going to have 12-year-olds playing football with 22-year-olds, because the 22-year-olds are likely going to be much larger, stronger, and more physically powerful and the 12-year-olds could get seriously hurt.
In all the sports I can think of the weight class is a ceiling, but not a floor. If you're 135 pounds and want to fight in the 140-150 class, you're allowed to.
"Yeah, your daughter might just have to compete with a male kid. Which is, again, I know we're not supposed to say that, but that is what, that, it... I think what annoys me about this is, like, attempting to rob language, from us. Like, I can't even describe why I think this might potentially be unfair, cuz you're not allowed to use the term 'male' to refer to a male person."
Serena Williams, whose GOAT status is up for debate with no one, has publicly claimed that an elite male player would wipe the floor with her in five minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hzHBsvj6C0
In no way does this lessen her own greatness. Andy Murray, the player she said would defeat her easily, is quick to point out in an interview that she shouldn't be left out conversations regarding American elite players in Wimbledon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOH-dCrV_XA
They obviously have a great deal of respect for each other and acknowledging that biology puts them in different leagues, literally, does not and should not lessen that respect.
His mother, Judy, is well regarded in the tennis coaching sphere and is very “outspoken” about males playing in female sport. I suspect that once Andy retires he’ll have more to say on the subject.
Glad that Serena is sane, but her attitude is not universal. It certainly doesn't help when female athletes, high on their own hype, state confidently that they would stand a chance against their male counterparts.
No, Ronda Rousey, you would not beat Floyd Mayweather; sorry Brittney Griner, you would not win a 1-on-1 against DeMarcus Cousins.
Margaret Court is indeed one of the greatest of all time in women's tennis. But her accomplishments absolutely pale in light of Serena's if we're comparing them. Eleven of her 24 major singles titles came at the Australian Open between 1960 and 1973, in a time when virtually none of the top women's players traveled to Australia to contest it. It wasn't anything remotely like the event is today. So, Court was defeating fields of as little as 30 mostly local Australian players (up to 48 at most) to win those titles, whereas Serena had to conquer a 128-person field for every one of her titles, and every single time all the healthy top players were also in the field. Serena's accomplishment was light-years more difficult, and should be weighted accordingly. I think there's no debate that Serena is the greatest women's player of all time.
I don't even need to check the author of the atlantic article to know they have been tweeting about believing science for two straight years. Of all the bad takes on twitter, the women/sports one is the most bewildering to me, because it is so provably false in day-to-day life. Like how could anyone who has ever carried groceries for their mom or opened a jar for their girlfriend earnestly believe there aren't biological differences between the sexes?
I once watched a women's NCAA D1 team practice against their (male) "practice team" because my friend was on the practice team. The practice team dominated them so completely it was kind of baffling to watch, I felt bad for the women. My friend was a mediocre athlete who couldn't even have played at a lower level school. That women's team played for the national championship that year.
Anyone involved in athletics at any level knows the reality here.
I have a clear memory of being in martial arts from age 11 to 15. As we went through puberty similar age boys suddenly started destroying me in sparring matches when prior we'd been evenly matched. Was quite humbling. It's possible that if I hadn't gone through that I would still believe that "girls are as strong as boys"
When the Lia Thomas controversy exploded, I figured that if a 10 year old boy identifies as a girl, let him compete in the YMCA girls swim league. But once puberty hits, forget about it.
Age 12-13 is about when the sex differences in size, speed and strength really start to manifest.
I admit I do feel sadness for a trans girl (and her family) In such a situation. Having to decide between potentially being competitive in sports (by blocking puberty) or go through puberty and be stuck probably in the C leagues of boys sports. I don’t like that kids / parents might feel the pressure TO medically transition before puberty in order to be able to stay in girls sports.
Most of us have some point in our lives when we have to face that we can't be the best at the thing we love and have spent tons of time pursuing. For me, it was music, rather than sports. I think that's a valuable part of maturing for all of us who aren't at the elite level in our avocations. It's probably a little more difficult but still valuable for natal males with gender dysphoria. I can't quite bring myself to believe that the solution is the destruction of women's sports, rather than the individual maturation process that's necessary for all but a small percentage of us.
You realize many kids get wiped out of sports at the junior high level right? Purely because they don't have the right genetics. Once your elementary school merges into middle school or junior high depending on the level you want to try and play at the competition goes up and suddenly you might not make the traveling team or play varsity sports at all in high school.
There’s another angle on that besides sports though. Just the whole “identifies as” bothers me as something I’m enrolled in reinforcing if I go along with treating them as a girl. From what I’ve read of desistance rates, it’s exactly this treating them as a girl that’s going to encourage persistence, at least pre-puberty. And the risks of suicide and self-harm in prepubertal kids are very very small. It just really bothers me to be put in a situation where I think the adults in this child’s life are leading them down a bad path and fine, that’s none of my business generally, but then I’m supposed to pretend it’s okay when it comes to interactions with my daughters. Fairness completely aside, why should I be dragooned into lying to a ten year old boy by pretending I believe they’re really a girl?
It’s really troubling to be asked to participate in something that I think is abusive. With adults, whatever, they made their bed.
I dunno, I just can’t see this holding together. Early transition is so clearly the product of parental and adult involvement that I think consciences will be reached. It’s just so fucked up to me that you would lie to a child of that age about something so consequential - whether it’s that they can literally become a girl or just that they might hope to pass, which is almost as much of a pipedream.
Both my son and daughter played D1 college sports and both were very good athletes. It's my contention that all the people claiming there is no difference between the two sexes in terms of physicality never played sports past elementary school.
Yep, I don't follow sports at all and have never quite managed to learn the rules for some of the most popular ones (sorry, I get too bored to pay attention), and even I can understand why the anti-sexual-dimorphism crowd is out of touch with reality.
And also never paid any attention to strength and speed stats of any elite athletes of either sex (even athletes of the same weight there is a significant difference), while writing authoritatively about it. That kind of willful ignorance is not acceptable in any professional publication. Truly, it is baffling that people are willfully ignoring the science and observable reality and trot this hogwash out in for elites to pretend to agree with. And thanks to epistemic closure on this issue, they are shocked that we aren't all applauding this breakthrough in "science."
I’m guessing a new generation will find out the hard way. Perhaps they’ll become angry, awakened feminists once they realize what a terrible deal they’ve been sold? I’m trying to hope this is the eventual turn, at least. Maybe they’ll still somehow blame us for not telling them loudly enough.
Haha. You brought back a great memory. I played club soccer in college. (For the uninitiated, "club" is a bunch of dudes who are half-serious, half-goofiing around with a keg on the sidelines. It's many rungs below NCAA intercollegiate competition).
We once played a scrimmage against the women's varsity team. Thirty one years later I still have vivid memories of how slow they were compared to us male slugs. Of course they were highly skilled, but any skill was negated by the lack of speed. I was the slowest guy on our team, but looked like Usain Bolt against the women.
If women were to ever play one of our major sports, the only plausible one is baseball, where size, speed and strength are slightly less important than the other sports. There was a female pitcher in the minor leagues about twenty years ago.
Speed : like wrist speed required to hit 90MPH+ baseballs? Or required to throw from the home field to home plate faster than a man can run from 3rd to home? You can be out of shape in baseball but you still need genetic speed.
I agree with you - notice that the only example I cited for female participation in baseball was a relief pitcher. (Very similar to the only female college football player being a placekicker and the only female minor league hockey player being a goaltender.)
The US women's soccer team getting beat by HS boys in a scrimmage should be far more widely known than it is - especially since Megan Rapinoe was on that same fucking team!
This point is exactly why I am annoyed by people boiling this down to "high schoolers beat the best women's team in the world!". Yes, it's absolutely significant that the top women's team lost to a team of 14-15 year old boys, it's definitively evidence of the physical disparity for sure. But then people think it means that *any* team of 14-15 year old boys could beat any women's team, which is an exaggeration in the opposite direction. FC Dallas is a top club that produces truly amazing players, this isn't just any old team of middle/high school boys. It is both true that there are hundreds of boys teams in the world that could beat any women's team in the world, and that there are many, many more boys (and mens) teams that definitely could not.
Yes, I'm well aware, but this is a weird reply unless you are somehow interpreting "hundreds of boys teams could beat any women's team" as saying that the same boys teams could also beat literally any other team, including the men's national team. They can't and nothing I said implied they could. Actually accurately gauging where competitive women lie in the field is relevant to this conversation, and doesn't boil down to "can they beat the absolute best men or not". Especially since the answer to that is almost always no.
The point I was making is that I don't know why the 14/15 year old boys being really good makes any difference? You seemed to have wanted to make that point that you were bothered by the fact they were particularly good, but I don't see why that matters at all. The women's team would have the experience, training and maturity. So then the only advantage for the boys should be gender differences. I'd argue these boys were still at an disadvantage as they weren't even the under 15 boys national team!
The best Adult Women's soccer athletes cannot beat top tier but not the best 14/15 male athletes.
The best Adult Men Athletes could easily beat top tier but not the best 14/15 make athletes.
Every year, my church does co-ed sports for the young single adults, and every year they blame the girls for having to forfeit games because not enough girls wanted to play.
They guys get competitive.
The guys try and show off to the women.
The guys get too aggressive.
The guys mansplain every time how a basketball works.
Every year a girl will get a compound fracture or black eye because some dude goes too hard playing softball. It shouldn’t be a shocker that girls prefer to play sports together.
Oof, that sounds bad enough even without the injury part. I think a key thing that gets left out of the discussion is just how not fun it is for (most) females to play sports with/against males once you hit age 10-ish. I've never been hurt playing a co-ed sport, but it just kinda sucks. It always feels like the boys/men are either showing off or condescending to you, depending on if they're playing hard or trying to be nice.
Seriously. One of my worst memories of co-ed dodgeball was being the last person on my team (my method of hiding behind other people worked) and the four guys on the other team got super competitive all of the sudden and each threw a ball directly at my head simultaneously. I could hear my ears ringing, and I was surprised I didn't get a concussion.
I played informal but regular co-ed soccer in high school. It only worked because the boys were nice and understood that they couldn't play against the girls the way they played against each other. And yes, we girls definitely got picked last after the boys had picked each other for teams. :-)
I have played very little team sport, and even less co-ed team sport ... but have a very definite memory of a touch football situation where a man had the ball and I had him cornered - he couldn't avoid me touching him except by running back towards his team's goal. So that's what he did, actually ran away rather than suffer the indignity.
Yup, that happened to my parents in a neighborhood volleyball league. Dude broke my moms friends foot cause he was covering multiple positions cause he was a competitive douche and felt she (the friend) wasn’t doing “her job”.
Every time! My mom told me a story once when her church did co-ed softball during the summer. Two of the men got angry and super competitive with each other. Finally one threw a punch, the other dodged, and he ended up hitting his own wife, breaking her nose. This was a bunch of boomers.
A girl gets injured by a guy playing co-ed softball? I'm curious as to how that happens.
I've played in multiple co-ed softball leagues. Every single league has an extra home plate and extra first base to avoid collisions. And any runner who runs over a fielder is automatically called out. Some leagues will allow the catcher to simply step on the plate even if there is no force play, to avoid having to physically tag a runner.
The people at your church organizing this league must not be aware of these very simple measures.
Do you ever wonder if the people who write these articles about how there are no sex difference between the strength of men and women genuinely believe this because the men they interact with are generally pretty self selected for soy-boy? If the vast majority of men they interact with were the general physique of Jesse and they live in a total bubble it's not difficult for me to see how they might believe this garbage.
I mean, the whole mocking-Jesse thing is good banter, but if I'm walking alone a little too late at night and a strange man is walking behind me, I make sure I can reach my phone and my keys. I don't turn around to see if the man has a computer tan.
I think a lot of women really don’t have intuition here, unless they have brothers it’s unlikely they’ve ever gone head to head against a man in any strength contest. Plus the weight and strength difference reinforce each other: A typical 165lb man with even a minimal amount of training could easily deadlift 225lb and a moderate but consistent training regime could easily get them to 315lb+ but I’d guess only a tiny percentage of 130lb women could even get close.
I always tell people that doing a coed martial arts club in college quickly illustrated the reality of biological difference and made me realize that the best self-defense for women is getting away and running like hell.
Yeah, it was a quite disheartening to be practicing headlocks with a male friend in a coed martial arts class and have him go "in real life, though, I would just to this" as he straightened up, lifting me off me feet with very little effort.
It’s weird though, making assumptions here but most of them probably have male partners or at least friends. Haven’t they tussled/wrestled/tickle fought them? I pretty quickly realized in college I was no match for my soyboy male friends including my now husband.
I always enjoy wrestling my boyfriends/husband but from what my males tell me, that’s not normal. I grew up in an mostly male household with many brothers, and winning is less about strength and more about dirty tricks.
However I’ve been severely injured during wrestling with guys, so... learned my lesson. Which is--learn even more dirty tricks.
There might not be so many. Even before the age of “toxic masculinity” I think many dudebros figured out there’s no win in wrestling a girl, especially in public. If you lose, you got housed by a girl and if you win, you’re a shit who beat up a girl. In the words of my favorite military leader, “its a trap!”.
I always find myself wondering whether these women have never had the experience of trying and failing to open a jar, and then handing it to any guy--no matter how weedy--and he just opens it like it’s nothing.
The jar thing is simply bullshit in my family at least. I have massively strong manhands and open jars for him. But I mean, arm wrestling? Tickle fighting? He wins.
Omg, you are LUCKY! When my daughter was a baby, I could never open the baby food jars. I had to run to our next door neighbor, who had been laid off from work, and ask him to open the jars for me every day. I don’t know who found it more embarrassing!
I’m also the jar opener in the house. Banging it just right against a surface works every time. (And then you can make a that’s what she said joke, and boys will be in awe)
PMC contains the normal range of human body types, stereotypes notwithstanding. One of my bosses (software engineering) was 6’5” and must have been 250lb or more.
There’s just a lot of “yass qween”/“you go girl” stuff in PMC culture pretending to think that women are just the same as men in every way, and you must be a bigot if you say otherwise (despite it being obviously untrue).
I work to keep my BMI under 30 and it’s not because I bulk up at the gym, bro. I just like ice cream and meat. My wife is significantly fitter than me. But she struggles to pick up our 30lb youngest kid now, while I can straight-arm the 70lb middle kid over my head.
One of my sisters says things like this, and she's actually very tough, athletic, and about as muscular as a woman can get without PEDs. However, she does not have much experience with men. She went to an all-girls school, she's a lesbian, and most of the guys she knows are either twinks or elderly. I think she could beat her male roommate, a diminutive, underweight man with a serious disease, in a fight. I think she could beat her 80-year-old male boss in a fight. I don't think she could beat a man who was in remotely the same physical condition as her.
Katie being secretly wholesome and not knowing what an Eiffel Tower is makes me laugh so hard. Now even when she does stuff like mention her secret college lesbian fight club I just think “I bet she brought homemade jam for everyone.”
I think sometimes we women take for granted that we have one of the insane physical advantages of them all: the ability to grow new humans inside our bodies and then release them into the world. You consider that we have that, plus the fact that we have longer on average lifespans, and you realize that it balances out pretty well for us.
I agree! I love being a woman. Having babies is the best. It's funny that being "maternal" is now declassé, so many mums in my upper middle class world make such an effort to distance themselves from the idea that being a mother is the most important thing in their lives while simultaneously killing themselves trying to do everything for their kids. It's another gap between what people say they believe and what they actually do
We also have a huge advantage when it comes to infectious diseases. Our lungs are smaller and yet we're much more likely to survive TB or Covid. If there's a sex difference in survival of an infectious disease it's rare for it not to favor females.
Jesse keeps making self-deprecating jokes but he actually seems to be reasonably athletic? He played sports in middle school, high school, and still plays casually to this day. That’s more than most people can say.
You and I can both run. You and I are not as athletic as Usain Bolt. He is a more naturally gifted athlete then we are.
The biggest difference at the professional level is the difference in athleticism. I play basketball but I cannot jump as far or as high as anyone in the NBA. This generally speaking has nothing to do with my quantity of play or even the time devoted to playing but rather the upper limits of my athleticism.
One of the major differences in long distance athletes is that genetically they have blood that carries oxygen more efficiently. They are genetically more athletic to the point where doing the same workouts compared to someone with an otherwise identical physical structure produces different results. Why? Because they are more athletic.
There's a difference between the act of playing sports and the upper limit at which you can play those sports and compete. Being athletic isn't a choice. Participating in athletics is.
Maybe this comes down to semantics but I don’t think it’s necessary to be on the same Ussain Bolt to qualify as athletic. I can call my colleague smart while knowing that they’re not on the same level as John von Neumann.
My husband is an Olympic strength and conditioning coach, and he always points out other people's athleticism, even in kids who are untrained. It has to do with proprioception, and athletic stance, quick reflexes, physical intelligence. A whole mix of things. He's really good at seeing talent.
Did anyone else listen to the latest episode of Gender A Wider Lens? The way Lior talked about gender and sex was fascinating.
The Atlantic article was...hahahaha.
Btw. Riverdale Country is crazy expensive. I thought it was misleading to say it is in the Bronx. I mean. It is. But it may as well be UES. Like these are wealthy kids, which means the parents have time for this nonsense
Leor is one of very few people critical of gender-identity ideology who really understands the contradictions within it. He understands queer theory enough to see how it actually clashes with many of the precepts of the current trans rights movement. For instance, "trans women are women" assumes a kind of stable, authentic inner identity that runs directly counter to Judith Butler's ideas in Gender Trouble. As a lefty, I wish he were not so immersed in conservative institutions - not because I think poorly of him as a result of his affiliations, but because we could use more bold, clear, nuanced thinking on the left. Then again, if he were on the left he'd probably be hiding behind partial anonymity, venting on the BARpod chat on a Friday night!
I found that fascinating. It was so insightful. For me though, as I work in the mental health profession, I really liked how he said teenage girls are just doing what they have always done. However. Due to the nature if my work, I have worked with literally hundreds of kids. And while there are plenty of c is gendered girls with severe anxiety, every single nb girl I have worked with - all have very severe anxiety, eating disorders and cutting. All.
So I think.white he is missing is that these kids, I think, are deeply unhappy. And now. It us gender. That is the cause of their unhappiness. That is why they hate their body. Indo mot think it is about queer theiru at all. It is just words to name that feeling.
But if gender were why they felt such unease, the anxiety would dissipate a bit. It does not.
And...ha. About anonymity. I would be shuuuuned at work if they knew I were here. Maybe not fired but career growth? Gone
I had a friend - had because we rarely talk now - who.was self described conservative because, in part, she felt like lwft leaning people will destroy you in a way conservatives wont
Upon lots of reflection, I think.both groups are guilty of this wherever they have more power. So. We are in NYC, where the left has power. Voila. In Nebraska it woyld be the reverse
"teenage girls are just doing what they have always done."
I wish more people would make this connection. We have hundreds of years worth of history of social contagions, and many affecting mainly girls, but this current phenomenon which looks just that, no, no, no, it's not a social contagion, gimme a break.
And the whole "people have to recognize my true, inner, authentic self"--isn't that the theme of so much of children's literature? The Ugly Duckling, Cinderella, Harry Potter, Rudolf the Reindeer, etc., where the character who is vilified and unloved becomes the savior/hero and shows the world what was hidden beneath their lowly exterior?
I just listened to the GAWL episode and was going to write pretty much everything that you already did (thanks!). I would just add: Leor eschews the term "gender ideology" precisely because it isn't just one belief system, including as it does both the postmodernist Butlerites and the gendered-soul people. I'm going to check out some of his writing now to see what else he has to say about that.
I’ve been using “gender ideology” but he made a lot of sense. It’s almost “gender ideologIES,” bc I can’t think of another term that sounds good. Didn’t he & the hosts mention another term? I’ve forgotten it.
I just went back and listened to the last part of the episode, and they do talk about alternative terms like "body affirming care" and "synthetic sex identities," but nothing that would directly replace "gender ideology" (one of them did suggest the plural though). The only substitutes I can think of are all pretty demeaning, like gender nonsense/delusion/obsession. Maybe there should be a BARpod contest to come up with a new term!
What do you think about "gender dogma"? Except that this would imply a unity and coherence of thought that isn't present, as you so aptly captured with the distinction between "the postmodernist Butlerites and the gendered-soul people."
Yeah, there has to be room under the umbrella for all the motivations people might have for believing so strongly in the importance of gender. Maybe "the gender movement" is broad enough? Or maybe "gender mythology" would capture both factions.
Yeah, I'll also recommend that Wider Lens episode. He clearly comes from a background that's philosophically conservative, but he's thoughtful and worth a listen even if you come (as I do) from a different place.
However, I do think he lumped together postwar liberalism, which I think is very much in line with classical philosophical liberalism, and more recent progressive thought, which is more influenced by Marx (distantly) and Foucault et al. (and which I would blame more for some of the messes the left is in now). I also didn't appreciate his dig at the Pragmatists, which I thought was unfair.
That Norwegian soccer skills study proves nothing about actual competition that requires speed and strength and agility.
I could take 5 WNBA benchwarmers and put them up against 5 NBA All Stars in free throw shooting. The WNBA players would likely win. So are they in any way equal?
I was unaware of that! But yeah, looks like the best free throw shooter in the WNBA is at 93%, which is unheard-of in the NBA. I bet the smaller ball partly explains it and am curious what would happen with everyone using the same ball size. I will say I haven't looked into this closely and second place on the all-time list is back in NBA range. https://www.basketball-reference.com/wnba/leaders/ft_pct_career.html
Haha. Has there ever been a goaltending call in women's hoops? Or an alley-oop? One motion Put-back dunk? I would think the women now have enough athletes to make these plays on a 9 foot rim.
On the topic of the Norwegian study, I feel the need to nitpick and point out that “soccer” (football, thank you) is a LOT more gendered in Europe than it apparently is in the US. Football is THE manly sport. Until very recently, women’s football was seen as a joke, even in feminist scandinavia where other women’s sports (eg handball) are celebrated. Boys are generally encouraged to kick balls around from a very young age (similarly, I think, to the american tradition of father-and-son baseball) and playing casual football during recess is practically mandatory for boys. The final conclusion is nonsense, but that culture is what the article is alluding to.
Yes, the idea of a girl playing football (soccer) in England 20 years ago was outrageous - it was netball or bust! The recent flowering of women’s football has really be amazing.
Hard agree with everything Katie and Jesse say about the sex-segregation in sports article. I have one pedantic observation in support of Katie's comments and one question:
1. Pedantry: Boys are, on average, a little bigger than girls from birth and continue to be bigger throughout childhood, even before puberty. You can see a combined chart for infants and toddlers here: https://www.chartsgraphsdiagrams.com/HealthCharts/growth-birth-36-boys+girls.html. That's why the WHO, CDC, and your pediatrician use different charts to check boys' and girls' growth at well-child appointments. (The way this played out for me, as a child recreational soccer player, was that I could play on co-ed teams in elementary school, but neither I nor the much more skilled girls on my team were as good as most of the boys. Contrary to what that nutty study discussed on the podcast implied, size and strength matter a lot for who gets possession of the ball in soccer, and even by third or fourth grade your average girl is at some disadvantage when playing against a typical boy. That's obviously only much more true once boys hit puberty.)
2. Question: Do the people who think that females aren't disadvantaged in post-pubertal co-ed sports except by cultural factors like training think that, if a woman is overpowered by a man who sexually assaults her, that's just because she didn't have the right self-defense class or, perhaps, she didn't try hard enough to fight him off? Surely they wouldn't actually stand by this claim, but isn't that the implication of these denialist arguments?
I feel like the last time a sizable contingent came out in defense of women was the during 2015 NPR-vocal-fry "debacle".
HA hahaha. Fuuuuuck. I remember the episode of This American Life, when Ira Glass was like, this is sexism.
No. Get over yourself. You do it and it is equally annoying. Channah Jaffe-Walt's voice annoys me so much that I really cannot listen to her episodes. Let alone Zooey Chase. Alex Goldberg could be mad too
Hey. I can hate you and you can be a won an. Or man. Or white. Or black. You can be a black trans woman AND annoying af
I gave up listening to NPR last year after being a regular listener, and I remember hating Zoe Chase’s fry-- Ira Glass’s too but I didn’t listen to his show often. I put it on during a drive recently (I’ve switched to listening to podcasts most often but was curious). I had 1A on & the host was talking to a young black woman poet (only mentioning her race bc her poems were specifically focused on race), & she did a reading of a poem and she had the WORST vocal fry. You’d think a poet that performs readings of her work would work on her vocal technique. She’s going to sound like a heavy smoker by the time she’s old. It drives me crazy. Back to podcasts! (No one I listen to has a fry, just got lucky.)
The big question - and why I stopped listening to NPR - would they have interviewed her if her poetry wasn't about black pioneers? Lile if she just wrote about the beauty of Utah and happened to be black.
That’s a good question. She read one about her grandmother (I think) being a black Fraser Crane that struck me as “meh,” but I’m not a poetry aficionado so maybe it’s brilliant. 😂
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/01/black-frasier-crane
https://the1a.org/segments/poet-rio-cortez-on-afropioneerism-and-black-settlers-out-west/
To answer 2. anyone suggesting this has never played competitive team sports. They've never been in a fight, been assaulted. They live online and are the kind of people that see a game of catch happening and turn and walk away.
Generally when I've heard this whack-a-doodle claim, the idea is that the within gender variation is far greater than the across gender.
In your example, the response would be that they're not saying every man and every women are exactly equal in every physical way.
That's just a lying by statistics argument.
I think that was the entire point. A man attacks a woman, he is obviously stronger. But somehow in sports, there aren't really any differences.?
I believe the point was the hypocrisy of certain progressive viewpoints.
Same with age divisions. You're not going to have 12-year-olds playing football with 22-year-olds, because the 22-year-olds are likely going to be much larger, stronger, and more physically powerful and the 12-year-olds could get seriously hurt.
In all the sports I can think of the weight class is a ceiling, but not a floor. If you're 135 pounds and want to fight in the 140-150 class, you're allowed to.
"Yeah, your daughter might just have to compete with a male kid. Which is, again, I know we're not supposed to say that, but that is what, that, it... I think what annoys me about this is, like, attempting to rob language, from us. Like, I can't even describe why I think this might potentially be unfair, cuz you're not allowed to use the term 'male' to refer to a male person."
It's finally dawning on Jesse! XD
Someone needs to make him eat a steak.
Serena Williams, whose GOAT status is up for debate with no one, has publicly claimed that an elite male player would wipe the floor with her in five minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hzHBsvj6C0
In no way does this lessen her own greatness. Andy Murray, the player she said would defeat her easily, is quick to point out in an interview that she shouldn't be left out conversations regarding American elite players in Wimbledon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOH-dCrV_XA
They obviously have a great deal of respect for each other and acknowledging that biology puts them in different leagues, literally, does not and should not lessen that respect.
His mother, Judy, is well regarded in the tennis coaching sphere and is very “outspoken” about males playing in female sport. I suspect that once Andy retires he’ll have more to say on the subject.
Glad that Serena is sane, but her attitude is not universal. It certainly doesn't help when female athletes, high on their own hype, state confidently that they would stand a chance against their male counterparts.
No, Ronda Rousey, you would not beat Floyd Mayweather; sorry Brittney Griner, you would not win a 1-on-1 against DeMarcus Cousins.
Margaret Court won more grand slams in 6 (I think) less years. On tour WITH OUT an entourage of support staff - and I think after having 2 kids.
Williams is great and it is a different game now but don’t ignore those who came before.
Margaret Court is indeed one of the greatest of all time in women's tennis. But her accomplishments absolutely pale in light of Serena's if we're comparing them. Eleven of her 24 major singles titles came at the Australian Open between 1960 and 1973, in a time when virtually none of the top women's players traveled to Australia to contest it. It wasn't anything remotely like the event is today. So, Court was defeating fields of as little as 30 mostly local Australian players (up to 48 at most) to win those titles, whereas Serena had to conquer a 128-person field for every one of her titles, and every single time all the healthy top players were also in the field. Serena's accomplishment was light-years more difficult, and should be weighted accordingly. I think there's no debate that Serena is the greatest women's player of all time.
I don't even need to check the author of the atlantic article to know they have been tweeting about believing science for two straight years. Of all the bad takes on twitter, the women/sports one is the most bewildering to me, because it is so provably false in day-to-day life. Like how could anyone who has ever carried groceries for their mom or opened a jar for their girlfriend earnestly believe there aren't biological differences between the sexes?
I once watched a women's NCAA D1 team practice against their (male) "practice team" because my friend was on the practice team. The practice team dominated them so completely it was kind of baffling to watch, I felt bad for the women. My friend was a mediocre athlete who couldn't even have played at a lower level school. That women's team played for the national championship that year.
Anyone involved in athletics at any level knows the reality here.
I have a clear memory of being in martial arts from age 11 to 15. As we went through puberty similar age boys suddenly started destroying me in sparring matches when prior we'd been evenly matched. Was quite humbling. It's possible that if I hadn't gone through that I would still believe that "girls are as strong as boys"
The same thing happened to me in swimming around age 11-12. Boys I used to outswim were faster than me all of a sudden.
I think most of the people making these absurd arguments are either:
1. Trans and motivated into lying to make certain points.
2. Have never played sports beyond elementary phys ed.
When the Lia Thomas controversy exploded, I figured that if a 10 year old boy identifies as a girl, let him compete in the YMCA girls swim league. But once puberty hits, forget about it.
Age 12-13 is about when the sex differences in size, speed and strength really start to manifest.
I admit I do feel sadness for a trans girl (and her family) In such a situation. Having to decide between potentially being competitive in sports (by blocking puberty) or go through puberty and be stuck probably in the C leagues of boys sports. I don’t like that kids / parents might feel the pressure TO medically transition before puberty in order to be able to stay in girls sports.
Most of us have some point in our lives when we have to face that we can't be the best at the thing we love and have spent tons of time pursuing. For me, it was music, rather than sports. I think that's a valuable part of maturing for all of us who aren't at the elite level in our avocations. It's probably a little more difficult but still valuable for natal males with gender dysphoria. I can't quite bring myself to believe that the solution is the destruction of women's sports, rather than the individual maturation process that's necessary for all but a small percentage of us.
You realize many kids get wiped out of sports at the junior high level right? Purely because they don't have the right genetics. Once your elementary school merges into middle school or junior high depending on the level you want to try and play at the competition goes up and suddenly you might not make the traveling team or play varsity sports at all in high school.
That is a good point. But also. If your 10 year old son has very severe dysphoria, it might be worth it.
There’s another angle on that besides sports though. Just the whole “identifies as” bothers me as something I’m enrolled in reinforcing if I go along with treating them as a girl. From what I’ve read of desistance rates, it’s exactly this treating them as a girl that’s going to encourage persistence, at least pre-puberty. And the risks of suicide and self-harm in prepubertal kids are very very small. It just really bothers me to be put in a situation where I think the adults in this child’s life are leading them down a bad path and fine, that’s none of my business generally, but then I’m supposed to pretend it’s okay when it comes to interactions with my daughters. Fairness completely aside, why should I be dragooned into lying to a ten year old boy by pretending I believe they’re really a girl?
It’s really troubling to be asked to participate in something that I think is abusive. With adults, whatever, they made their bed.
I dunno, I just can’t see this holding together. Early transition is so clearly the product of parental and adult involvement that I think consciences will be reached. It’s just so fucked up to me that you would lie to a child of that age about something so consequential - whether it’s that they can literally become a girl or just that they might hope to pass, which is almost as much of a pipedream.
Yes!
Both my son and daughter played D1 college sports and both were very good athletes. It's my contention that all the people claiming there is no difference between the two sexes in terms of physicality never played sports past elementary school.
Yep, I don't follow sports at all and have never quite managed to learn the rules for some of the most popular ones (sorry, I get too bored to pay attention), and even I can understand why the anti-sexual-dimorphism crowd is out of touch with reality.
And also never paid any attention to strength and speed stats of any elite athletes of either sex (even athletes of the same weight there is a significant difference), while writing authoritatively about it. That kind of willful ignorance is not acceptable in any professional publication. Truly, it is baffling that people are willfully ignoring the science and observable reality and trot this hogwash out in for elites to pretend to agree with. And thanks to epistemic closure on this issue, they are shocked that we aren't all applauding this breakthrough in "science."
I’m guessing a new generation will find out the hard way. Perhaps they’ll become angry, awakened feminists once they realize what a terrible deal they’ve been sold? I’m trying to hope this is the eventual turn, at least. Maybe they’ll still somehow blame us for not telling them loudly enough.
Haha. You brought back a great memory. I played club soccer in college. (For the uninitiated, "club" is a bunch of dudes who are half-serious, half-goofiing around with a keg on the sidelines. It's many rungs below NCAA intercollegiate competition).
We once played a scrimmage against the women's varsity team. Thirty one years later I still have vivid memories of how slow they were compared to us male slugs. Of course they were highly skilled, but any skill was negated by the lack of speed. I was the slowest guy on our team, but looked like Usain Bolt against the women.
If women were to ever play one of our major sports, the only plausible one is baseball, where size, speed and strength are slightly less important than the other sports. There was a female pitcher in the minor leagues about twenty years ago.
Speed : like wrist speed required to hit 90MPH+ baseballs? Or required to throw from the home field to home plate faster than a man can run from 3rd to home? You can be out of shape in baseball but you still need genetic speed.
I agree with you - notice that the only example I cited for female participation in baseball was a relief pitcher. (Very similar to the only female college football player being a placekicker and the only female minor league hockey player being a goaltender.)
Lol :
https://twitter.com/maggiejmertens/status/684419950291718148
Actually her Twitter was less bad than I expected and she seems to actually like sports, which surprises me
The US women's soccer team getting beat by HS boys in a scrimmage should be far more widely known than it is - especially since Megan Rapinoe was on that same fucking team!
To be fair FC Dallas has an absolutely phenomenal development program if you consider the current makeup of the mens team.
And as teenagers beat the most highly trained world dominating team of adult females.
This point is exactly why I am annoyed by people boiling this down to "high schoolers beat the best women's team in the world!". Yes, it's absolutely significant that the top women's team lost to a team of 14-15 year old boys, it's definitively evidence of the physical disparity for sure. But then people think it means that *any* team of 14-15 year old boys could beat any women's team, which is an exaggeration in the opposite direction. FC Dallas is a top club that produces truly amazing players, this isn't just any old team of middle/high school boys. It is both true that there are hundreds of boys teams in the world that could beat any women's team in the world, and that there are many, many more boys (and mens) teams that definitely could not.
...its irrelevant because incredibly 14/15 year old boys with get wiped playing against the US National teams grown men.
Yes, I'm well aware, but this is a weird reply unless you are somehow interpreting "hundreds of boys teams could beat any women's team" as saying that the same boys teams could also beat literally any other team, including the men's national team. They can't and nothing I said implied they could. Actually accurately gauging where competitive women lie in the field is relevant to this conversation, and doesn't boil down to "can they beat the absolute best men or not". Especially since the answer to that is almost always no.
The point I was making is that I don't know why the 14/15 year old boys being really good makes any difference? You seemed to have wanted to make that point that you were bothered by the fact they were particularly good, but I don't see why that matters at all. The women's team would have the experience, training and maturity. So then the only advantage for the boys should be gender differences. I'd argue these boys were still at an disadvantage as they weren't even the under 15 boys national team!
The best Adult Women's soccer athletes cannot beat top tier but not the best 14/15 male athletes.
The best Adult Men Athletes could easily beat top tier but not the best 14/15 make athletes.
Jesse, just say that you said Keffals was in Iceland because you were trying to misdirect any potential stalkers who were listening to the episode!
Yes exactly thank you
Every year, my church does co-ed sports for the young single adults, and every year they blame the girls for having to forfeit games because not enough girls wanted to play.
They guys get competitive.
The guys try and show off to the women.
The guys get too aggressive.
The guys mansplain every time how a basketball works.
Every year a girl will get a compound fracture or black eye because some dude goes too hard playing softball. It shouldn’t be a shocker that girls prefer to play sports together.
Why is coed crafting never a thing? Less chance of broken bones.
I LOVE co-ed crafting!
Oof, that sounds bad enough even without the injury part. I think a key thing that gets left out of the discussion is just how not fun it is for (most) females to play sports with/against males once you hit age 10-ish. I've never been hurt playing a co-ed sport, but it just kinda sucks. It always feels like the boys/men are either showing off or condescending to you, depending on if they're playing hard or trying to be nice.
Seriously. One of my worst memories of co-ed dodgeball was being the last person on my team (my method of hiding behind other people worked) and the four guys on the other team got super competitive all of the sudden and each threw a ball directly at my head simultaneously. I could hear my ears ringing, and I was surprised I didn't get a concussion.
I played informal but regular co-ed soccer in high school. It only worked because the boys were nice and understood that they couldn't play against the girls the way they played against each other. And yes, we girls definitely got picked last after the boys had picked each other for teams. :-)
I have played very little team sport, and even less co-ed team sport ... but have a very definite memory of a touch football situation where a man had the ball and I had him cornered - he couldn't avoid me touching him except by running back towards his team's goal. So that's what he did, actually ran away rather than suffer the indignity.
I love this story.
That checks out. 😅
Yup, that happened to my parents in a neighborhood volleyball league. Dude broke my moms friends foot cause he was covering multiple positions cause he was a competitive douche and felt she (the friend) wasn’t doing “her job”.
Every time! My mom told me a story once when her church did co-ed softball during the summer. Two of the men got angry and super competitive with each other. Finally one threw a punch, the other dodged, and he ended up hitting his own wife, breaking her nose. This was a bunch of boomers.
A girl gets injured by a guy playing co-ed softball? I'm curious as to how that happens.
I've played in multiple co-ed softball leagues. Every single league has an extra home plate and extra first base to avoid collisions. And any runner who runs over a fielder is automatically called out. Some leagues will allow the catcher to simply step on the plate even if there is no force play, to avoid having to physically tag a runner.
The people at your church organizing this league must not be aware of these very simple measures.
https://www.amazon.com/MacGregor-Recreational-Double-First-Base/dp/B000X3392U/ref=asc_df_B000X3392U/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312140936555&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5767444900334094100&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9007396&hvtargid=pla-633843349837&psc=1
Every year it’s chaos. 🤦🏻♀️
Do you ever wonder if the people who write these articles about how there are no sex difference between the strength of men and women genuinely believe this because the men they interact with are generally pretty self selected for soy-boy? If the vast majority of men they interact with were the general physique of Jesse and they live in a total bubble it's not difficult for me to see how they might believe this garbage.
I think it's that plus not understanding how much stronger even a "soy boy" is than most women: https://twitter.com/razibkhan/status/1571376896310493184.
I mean, the whole mocking-Jesse thing is good banter, but if I'm walking alone a little too late at night and a strange man is walking behind me, I make sure I can reach my phone and my keys. I don't turn around to see if the man has a computer tan.
And I give Jesse shit mostly because Katie's does. But isn't he ridiculously tall? I don't think of tall people as soy-boy much.
Jesse's as soy as it gets.
I think a lot of women really don’t have intuition here, unless they have brothers it’s unlikely they’ve ever gone head to head against a man in any strength contest. Plus the weight and strength difference reinforce each other: A typical 165lb man with even a minimal amount of training could easily deadlift 225lb and a moderate but consistent training regime could easily get them to 315lb+ but I’d guess only a tiny percentage of 130lb women could even get close.
I always tell people that doing a coed martial arts club in college quickly illustrated the reality of biological difference and made me realize that the best self-defense for women is getting away and running like hell.
Yeah, it was a quite disheartening to be practicing headlocks with a male friend in a coed martial arts class and have him go "in real life, though, I would just to this" as he straightened up, lifting me off me feet with very little effort.
It’s weird though, making assumptions here but most of them probably have male partners or at least friends. Haven’t they tussled/wrestled/tickle fought them? I pretty quickly realized in college I was no match for my soyboy male friends including my now husband.
I always enjoy wrestling my boyfriends/husband but from what my males tell me, that’s not normal. I grew up in an mostly male household with many brothers, and winning is less about strength and more about dirty tricks.
However I’ve been severely injured during wrestling with guys, so... learned my lesson. Which is--learn even more dirty tricks.
There might also be the odd woman who's been overpowered by a man for a non-fun, non-sporting reason :(
Note: my Brothers built like football players and I am definitely NOT built like one. I’m the mini soy girl.
There might not be so many. Even before the age of “toxic masculinity” I think many dudebros figured out there’s no win in wrestling a girl, especially in public. If you lose, you got housed by a girl and if you win, you’re a shit who beat up a girl. In the words of my favorite military leader, “its a trap!”.
I can only buy this if these are lesbians who have only dated women, never had male friends, and no brothers.
My brother is 6 years youbger. At like 9 he was stronger than me. Touch an put of shape male friends arn. Give me a break
I'm a (probably, at least somewhat) typical 165lb man!
Jesse plays basketball, c'mon you guys! He's a very tall glass of soy milk.
I hate to say this, but I think media portrayals of women characters (regular humans and "superheros") kicking men's ass in fight scenes doesn't help.
I always find myself wondering whether these women have never had the experience of trying and failing to open a jar, and then handing it to any guy--no matter how weedy--and he just opens it like it’s nothing.
The jar thing is simply bullshit in my family at least. I have massively strong manhands and open jars for him. But I mean, arm wrestling? Tickle fighting? He wins.
Omg, you are LUCKY! When my daughter was a baby, I could never open the baby food jars. I had to run to our next door neighbor, who had been laid off from work, and ask him to open the jars for me every day. I don’t know who found it more embarrassing!
Did you know they make devices to open jars? Kuhn Rikon makes one that’s well reviewed, for example. It’s just a matter of leverage.
Have you tried Katie’s bottle opener trick? Supposedly makes a big difference for weak handed folks
Man-handed women unite!
I'm pretty thin but opening jars has never been an issue for me. I think it's because I have good grip.
I’m also the jar opener in the house. Banging it just right against a surface works every time. (And then you can make a that’s what she said joke, and boys will be in awe)
Put a dinner knife just under the lid to release the seal first. Jar Opening Equity achieved!
PMC contains the normal range of human body types, stereotypes notwithstanding. One of my bosses (software engineering) was 6’5” and must have been 250lb or more.
There’s just a lot of “yass qween”/“you go girl” stuff in PMC culture pretending to think that women are just the same as men in every way, and you must be a bigot if you say otherwise (despite it being obviously untrue).
I work to keep my BMI under 30 and it’s not because I bulk up at the gym, bro. I just like ice cream and meat. My wife is significantly fitter than me. But she struggles to pick up our 30lb youngest kid now, while I can straight-arm the 70lb middle kid over my head.
what is PMC?
Professional Managerial Class
thanks
One of my sisters says things like this, and she's actually very tough, athletic, and about as muscular as a woman can get without PEDs. However, she does not have much experience with men. She went to an all-girls school, she's a lesbian, and most of the guys she knows are either twinks or elderly. I think she could beat her male roommate, a diminutive, underweight man with a serious disease, in a fight. I think she could beat her 80-year-old male boss in a fight. I don't think she could beat a man who was in remotely the same physical condition as her.
YES
This is true. It is gross though. Sorry.
Looking forward to the soon-to-be-announced show in Reykjavík (north of Boston).
Katie being secretly wholesome and not knowing what an Eiffel Tower is makes me laugh so hard. Now even when she does stuff like mention her secret college lesbian fight club I just think “I bet she brought homemade jam for everyone.”
Her pushback that Girls Can Do Eiffel Towers Too was also very on-brand. Never change, Katie! (Or I'll cancel my subscription.)
I think sometimes we women take for granted that we have one of the insane physical advantages of them all: the ability to grow new humans inside our bodies and then release them into the world. You consider that we have that, plus the fact that we have longer on average lifespans, and you realize that it balances out pretty well for us.
I agree! I love being a woman. Having babies is the best. It's funny that being "maternal" is now declassé, so many mums in my upper middle class world make such an effort to distance themselves from the idea that being a mother is the most important thing in their lives while simultaneously killing themselves trying to do everything for their kids. It's another gap between what people say they believe and what they actually do
We also have a huge advantage when it comes to infectious diseases. Our lungs are smaller and yet we're much more likely to survive TB or Covid. If there's a sex difference in survival of an infectious disease it's rare for it not to favor females.
Jesse keeps making self-deprecating jokes but he actually seems to be reasonably athletic? He played sports in middle school, high school, and still plays casually to this day. That’s more than most people can say.
Jesse wants to distract us from the fact that he's a 6'4" gigachad.
I never thought of it like this holy shit
He likes playing basketball, liking sports doesn't make you athletic.
I feel like this is a distinction without a difference. Sports = athleticism. Jesse has played sports most of his life. Jesse is athletic.
Seriously?
You and I can both run. You and I are not as athletic as Usain Bolt. He is a more naturally gifted athlete then we are.
The biggest difference at the professional level is the difference in athleticism. I play basketball but I cannot jump as far or as high as anyone in the NBA. This generally speaking has nothing to do with my quantity of play or even the time devoted to playing but rather the upper limits of my athleticism.
One of the major differences in long distance athletes is that genetically they have blood that carries oxygen more efficiently. They are genetically more athletic to the point where doing the same workouts compared to someone with an otherwise identical physical structure produces different results. Why? Because they are more athletic.
There's a difference between the act of playing sports and the upper limit at which you can play those sports and compete. Being athletic isn't a choice. Participating in athletics is.
Maybe this comes down to semantics but I don’t think it’s necessary to be on the same Ussain Bolt to qualify as athletic. I can call my colleague smart while knowing that they’re not on the same level as John von Neumann.
My husband is an Olympic strength and conditioning coach, and he always points out other people's athleticism, even in kids who are untrained. It has to do with proprioception, and athletic stance, quick reflexes, physical intelligence. A whole mix of things. He's really good at seeing talent.
I think every episode from now on should include a further clarification of the name of the sexual position.
Did anyone else listen to the latest episode of Gender A Wider Lens? The way Lior talked about gender and sex was fascinating.
The Atlantic article was...hahahaha.
Btw. Riverdale Country is crazy expensive. I thought it was misleading to say it is in the Bronx. I mean. It is. But it may as well be UES. Like these are wealthy kids, which means the parents have time for this nonsense
ETA: the kid was in middle school not high school
Leor is one of very few people critical of gender-identity ideology who really understands the contradictions within it. He understands queer theory enough to see how it actually clashes with many of the precepts of the current trans rights movement. For instance, "trans women are women" assumes a kind of stable, authentic inner identity that runs directly counter to Judith Butler's ideas in Gender Trouble. As a lefty, I wish he were not so immersed in conservative institutions - not because I think poorly of him as a result of his affiliations, but because we could use more bold, clear, nuanced thinking on the left. Then again, if he were on the left he'd probably be hiding behind partial anonymity, venting on the BARpod chat on a Friday night!
I found that fascinating. It was so insightful. For me though, as I work in the mental health profession, I really liked how he said teenage girls are just doing what they have always done. However. Due to the nature if my work, I have worked with literally hundreds of kids. And while there are plenty of c is gendered girls with severe anxiety, every single nb girl I have worked with - all have very severe anxiety, eating disorders and cutting. All.
So I think.white he is missing is that these kids, I think, are deeply unhappy. And now. It us gender. That is the cause of their unhappiness. That is why they hate their body. Indo mot think it is about queer theiru at all. It is just words to name that feeling.
But if gender were why they felt such unease, the anxiety would dissipate a bit. It does not.
And...ha. About anonymity. I would be shuuuuned at work if they knew I were here. Maybe not fired but career growth? Gone
I had a friend - had because we rarely talk now - who.was self described conservative because, in part, she felt like lwft leaning people will destroy you in a way conservatives wont
Upon lots of reflection, I think.both groups are guilty of this wherever they have more power. So. We are in NYC, where the left has power. Voila. In Nebraska it woyld be the reverse
"teenage girls are just doing what they have always done."
I wish more people would make this connection. We have hundreds of years worth of history of social contagions, and many affecting mainly girls, but this current phenomenon which looks just that, no, no, no, it's not a social contagion, gimme a break.
And the whole "people have to recognize my true, inner, authentic self"--isn't that the theme of so much of children's literature? The Ugly Duckling, Cinderella, Harry Potter, Rudolf the Reindeer, etc., where the character who is vilified and unloved becomes the savior/hero and shows the world what was hidden beneath their lowly exterior?
I just listened to the GAWL episode and was going to write pretty much everything that you already did (thanks!). I would just add: Leor eschews the term "gender ideology" precisely because it isn't just one belief system, including as it does both the postmodernist Butlerites and the gendered-soul people. I'm going to check out some of his writing now to see what else he has to say about that.
I’ve been using “gender ideology” but he made a lot of sense. It’s almost “gender ideologIES,” bc I can’t think of another term that sounds good. Didn’t he & the hosts mention another term? I’ve forgotten it.
I just went back and listened to the last part of the episode, and they do talk about alternative terms like "body affirming care" and "synthetic sex identities," but nothing that would directly replace "gender ideology" (one of them did suggest the plural though). The only substitutes I can think of are all pretty demeaning, like gender nonsense/delusion/obsession. Maybe there should be a BARpod contest to come up with a new term!
What do you think about "gender dogma"? Except that this would imply a unity and coherence of thought that isn't present, as you so aptly captured with the distinction between "the postmodernist Butlerites and the gendered-soul people."
Yeah, there has to be room under the umbrella for all the motivations people might have for believing so strongly in the importance of gender. Maybe "the gender movement" is broad enough? Or maybe "gender mythology" would capture both factions.
Yes. That was one of the most insightful A Wider Lens podcasts. Definitely worth a listen.
Yeah, I'll also recommend that Wider Lens episode. He clearly comes from a background that's philosophically conservative, but he's thoughtful and worth a listen even if you come (as I do) from a different place.
However, I do think he lumped together postwar liberalism, which I think is very much in line with classical philosophical liberalism, and more recent progressive thought, which is more influenced by Marx (distantly) and Foucault et al. (and which I would blame more for some of the messes the left is in now). I also didn't appreciate his dig at the Pragmatists, which I thought was unfair.
Disclaimer: I'm not an actual philosopher.
Yes! Great discussion.
That Norwegian soccer skills study proves nothing about actual competition that requires speed and strength and agility.
I could take 5 WNBA benchwarmers and put them up against 5 NBA All Stars in free throw shooting. The WNBA players would likely win. So are they in any way equal?
Yes exactly I was waiting for Jesse to mention free throws. Stats for free throws in wnba are as I understand it often better than nba
I was unaware of that! But yeah, looks like the best free throw shooter in the WNBA is at 93%, which is unheard-of in the NBA. I bet the smaller ball partly explains it and am curious what would happen with everyone using the same ball size. I will say I haven't looked into this closely and second place on the all-time list is back in NBA range. https://www.basketball-reference.com/wnba/leaders/ft_pct_career.html
And while the hoop is the same height, the rim is also the same diameter, so with a smaller ball less accuracy is required to make a basket.
They should really lower the rim. In WNBA history there have only been about 30 dunks ever, nearly all of them by Brittney Griner.
Haha. Has there ever been a goaltending call in women's hoops? Or an alley-oop? One motion Put-back dunk? I would think the women now have enough athletes to make these plays on a 9 foot rim.
On the topic of the Norwegian study, I feel the need to nitpick and point out that “soccer” (football, thank you) is a LOT more gendered in Europe than it apparently is in the US. Football is THE manly sport. Until very recently, women’s football was seen as a joke, even in feminist scandinavia where other women’s sports (eg handball) are celebrated. Boys are generally encouraged to kick balls around from a very young age (similarly, I think, to the american tradition of father-and-son baseball) and playing casual football during recess is practically mandatory for boys. The final conclusion is nonsense, but that culture is what the article is alluding to.
That is fascinating. Here in the US, SOCCER (I will not concede the term :)) is very much a boy and girl thing. Football is mostly a boy thing.
But just do you know, every time I see a dad kicking a ball with his kid, I know they w9nt be speaking English.
Btw. At my high school and at college, handball was Co ed.. I didnt even know handball was single sex
Yes, the idea of a girl playing football (soccer) in England 20 years ago was outrageous - it was netball or bust! The recent flowering of women’s football has really be amazing.