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Boy Wrestler Forfeits Match v/ Girl

I think you hit the nail on the head in that it's when these decisions are individualized that problems are created. And that's the problem with unilateral PC mandates - they create as many problems as they purport to solve.
 
It's very similar to the females in combat issue in my mind. IF a female can legitimately compete in any activity, she should be allowed to. I haven't looked enough at this particular situation to know whether this young woman is totally unprepared to be in the wrestling ring with males or not. I've certainly known females who could probably hold their own against most males, but I have no way of knowing what the situation here is.

1) We both know it isn't all "equal" when it comes to women in combat.

2) Others are correct...if the principle is fairness....then let men compete in women's leagues. otherwise, you end up with a horrific double standard. and "fairness" becomes just another feminist LIE.

3) Some gal is gonna end up getting hurt in one of these contact sports.

So...the path we are on here started with a legitimate complaint about inadequate resources applied to women's sports at the secondary/collegiate level...and moved on to the expected "right" to participate in male sports.

this country is on a downward spiral....ironically....all in the name of virtue and "fairness".
 
FS (and others), you are very good at looking at things from your perspective, but not so much at looking at things from someone else's perspective. Imagine being told your entire life, implicitly if not explicitly, though often both, that you're just not good enough. That you can't measure up to those boys. They are more athletically gifted than you, smarter than you, and that your job when you become an adult will be to make babies and raise them.

And before you say that surely we as a society have progressed beyond that, let me assure you as the father of three girls, those messages are still there, loud and clear.

Now suppose that you, as a teenaged girl, have found something you are good at and that you enjoy, in this case wrestling. The problem is, there are girls leagues. What do you do?

As Boone said, it's a performance issue. If they are good enough to make the team, so be it. If there isn't a women's team, why not allow them to play? And if the boys don't want to fight them, I get that too. Disallowing them from playing only serves to reinforce the stereotypes that girls aren't as good as boys at athletics.

(I know. Girls aren't as good as boys at SOME athletics. It's true.)

Your second point about men competing in women's leagues is absurdly simple, and I'm surprised you even threw that out there. There is a clear hierarchy in sports in our society, with men's sports being at the top, and women's sports being below. We need to give the women something at which to aim, not give the men something to fall back upon.

Yes, some gal will end up getting hurt. I suppose you think that men don't get hurt in these events because they are tougher/stronger?
 
1) We both know it isn't all "equal" when it comes to women in combat.

2) Others are correct...if the principle is fairness....then let men compete in women's leagues. otherwise, you end up with a horrific double standard. and "fairness" becomes just another feminist LIE.

3) Some gal is gonna end up getting hurt in one of these contact sports.

So...the path we are on here started with a legitimate complaint about inadequate resources applied to women's sports at the secondary/collegiate level...and moved on to the expected "right" to participate in male sports.

this country is on a downward spiral....ironically....all in the name of virtue and "fairness".

You're genetically incapable of not politicizing an issue Fan :) Admit it. While there is certainly a political aspect of this, the whole PC need to make everyone 'equal' (which I have already stated I find off-base and reprehensible), most of the discussion has nothing to do with that.

One of your comments I'll hone in on, which is absolutely sexist in my opinion, is that 'Some gal is gonna end up getting hurt in one of these contact sports'. Male participants get hurt every day. It's unavoidable and it has nothing (in most cases) to do with ability, strength, toughness. It's why they call it a 'contact' sport. Males/Females get hurt, even seriously hurt, in non-contact sports as well. If a female wants to play in a sport (again, perhaps one such as wrestling where there typically is no girl's version) and she can compete at a relatively competent level, what's your issue with it?
 
FS (and others), you are very good at looking at things from your perspective, but not so much at looking at things from someone else's perspective. Imagine being told your entire life, implicitly if not explicitly, though often both, that you're just not good enough. That you can't measure up to those boys. They are more athletically gifted than you, smarter than you, and that your job when you become an adult will be to make babies and raise them.

I have a friend who is a stay at home mom who loves her duties as a home maker and would be offended by your statement above. She has 6 children all under the age of 10 and loves her job!

Now suppose that you, as a teenaged girl, have found something you are good at and that you enjoy, in this case wrestling. The problem is, there are girls leagues. What do you do?

As her father I would tell her that life is unfair sometimes. Society has told you that men should not be violent towards women, a noble value I should add. I would tell her I do not want her wrestling because it sends the wrong message to boys! How is a 14 or 15 year old boy supposed to differentiate the difference between what they are being told about violence toward women and what they are doing on the wrestling mat?

As Boone said, it's a performance issue. If they are good enough to make the team, so be it. If there isn't a women's team, why not allow them to play? And if the boys don't want to fight them, I get that too. Disallowing them from playing only serves to reinforce the stereotypes that girls aren't as good as boys at athletics.

As far as team sports like soccer, basketball, baseball and the like...these sports do not entail a boy using a violent act against a girl.


Yes, some gal will end up getting hurt. I suppose you think that men don't get hurt in these events because they are tougher/stronger?

So, say one of your daughters wrestles. She goes into a match with a boy who's father is a straight up sexist and has transfered those beliefs on to his kid. The father tells the kid, if she wants to wrestle like a boy treat her like a boy so the kid goes out a wrestles dirty and really abuses your daughter on the mat. You're ok with that in the interest of fairness because your daughter wants to wrestle?

I have wrestled and I know what a cross face feels like. I can tell you if I had a daughter I would not want to see her getting caught up in a grapevine by some boy. If you don't know what that move is, google it. It is not something I would want to see a teenage boy do to my teenage girl.
 
I have a friend who is a stay at home mom who loves her duties as a home maker and would be offended by your statement above. She has 6 children all under the age of 10 and loves her job!


I think you misunderstood my statement. My point was simply that is the message through society that so many of our young women hear. Not a position I endorse myself, mind you. Indeed, I suspect your friend works very hard to make sure her girls understand the option she chose for her life is one of many options for them, which is NOT what they hear from society.


As her father I would tell her that life is unfair sometimes. Society has told you that men should not be violent towards women, a noble value I should add. I would tell her I do not want her wrestling because it sends the wrong message to boys! How is a 14 or 15 year old boy supposed to differentiate the difference between what they are being told about violence toward women and what they are doing on the wrestling mat?

Well, I suppose the same way they are supposed to differentiate between violence against someone of a different ethnicity, or someone who lives in a different part of town, or any number of sociological or cultural differences they will encounter on a wrestling mat. I think you are underestimating the intellectual capacity of young men if you think that wrestling will engender violence outside the mat. If it does, we need to cut all wrestling programs immediately.


As far as team sports like soccer, basketball, baseball and the like...these sports do not entail a boy using a violent act against a girl.


So a slide tackle in soccer is not violent? A hard pick in basketball or a screen? How about a slide designed to take out the 2nd baseman on a potential double play? Pete Rose at the plate seemed pretty violent to me, if memory serves.

I get your point, I just don't think we can protect our daughters from any physical harm while playing sports. That's part of the game. The mere act of protecting them reinforces the stereotypes and inequality, which can and does serve to harm self esteem and self image.


So, say one of your daughters wrestles. She goes into a match with a boy who's father is a straight up sexist and has transfered those beliefs on to his kid. The father tells the kid, if she wants to wrestle like a boy treat her like a boy so the kid goes out a wrestles dirty and really abuses your daughter on the mat. You're ok with that in the interest of fairness because your daughter wants to wrestle?

I have wrestled and I know what a cross face feels like. I can tell you if I had a daughter I would not want to see her getting caught up in a grapevine by some boy. If you don't know what that move is, google it. It is not something I would want to see a teenage boy do to my teenage girl.

Yeah, I'm not thrilled about that, and I don't see much chance of that happening in my family given my girls are girly, but I get your point. I would hope, however, if the kid was really wrestling dirty, the refs would put a stop to the dirty play. If it was in bounds of legal, just tough, well, that's kind of a learning experience, isn't it? Seems to me you have to go up against a Dennis Rodman from time to time in real life too. Might as well learn from it at a young age if the opportunity presents itself.
 
FS (and others), you are very good at looking at things from your perspective, but not so much at looking at things from someone else's perspective. Imagine being told your entire life, implicitly if not explicitly, though often both, that you're just not good enough. That you can't measure up to those boys. They are more athletically gifted than you, smarter than you, and that your job when you become an adult will be to make babies and raise them.

And before you say that surely we as a society have progressed beyond that, let me assure you as the father of three girls, those messages are still there, loud and clear.

Now suppose that you, as a teenaged girl, have found something you are good at and that you enjoy, in this case wrestling. The problem is, there are girls leagues. What do you do?

As Boone said, it's a performance issue. If they are good enough to make the team, so be it. If there isn't a women's team, why not allow them to play? And if the boys don't want to fight them, I get that too. Disallowing them from playing only serves to reinforce the stereotypes that girls aren't as good as boys at athletics.

(I know. Girls aren't as good as boys at SOME athletics. It's true.)

Your second point about men competing in women's leagues is absurdly simple, and I'm surprised you even threw that out there. There is a clear hierarchy in sports in our society, with men's sports being at the top, and women's sports being below. We need to give the women something at which to aim, not give the men something to fall back upon.

Yes, some gal will end up getting hurt. I suppose you think that men don't get hurt in these events because they are tougher/stronger?



I am sick of this "make up the rules as we go along" equivocating so many do gooders feel warm and toasty about.

either it's about equality or not. it's comical the arbiters of nobleness are even considering going down this path: "well.....they can play if they are good enough." yea...I remember that line of thought being applied in other contexts.

folks who think like this are dangerous. open up all the wickets or don't waste my time with situational, mealy mouthed rhetoric on what's "right".

Let the men who aren't good enough compete on the women's teams or cut out the non-sense.
 
You're genetically incapable of not politicizing an issue Fan :) Admit it. While there is certainly a political aspect of this, the whole PC need to make everyone 'equal' (which I have already stated I find off-base and reprehensible), most of the discussion has nothing to do with that.

One of your comments I'll hone in on, which is absolutely sexist in my opinion, is that 'Some gal is gonna end up getting hurt in one of these contact sports'. Male participants get hurt every day. It's unavoidable and it has nothing (in most cases) to do with ability, strength, toughness. It's why they call it a 'contact' sport. Males/Females get hurt, even seriously hurt, in non-contact sports as well. If a female wants to play in a sport (again, perhaps one such as wrestling where there typically is no girl's version) and she can compete at a relatively competent level, what's your issue with it?

it's an inherently political issue. and we live in a day and age where everything from what you eat, smoke, drink, drive, screw to what you think has been completely politicized. Boone...that's what's been going on for the last 60 years of class warfare we have all been so privileged to endure!

I have a daughter and she plays soccer, basketball, runs track and swings the clubs. so I have some passing interest in yet another stab at faux equality.

So your answer is: "people get hurt....so what?" I do believe you are over-simplifying. rules are routinely changed to prevent injury. society does go out of its way to prevent injury. I wouldn't put the issue as cavalierly as you do. but even that is secondary to me. you want your daughter to risk injury competing against boys/men...go for it. I am much more concerned with the violence being done to the notion of "equality". open up girl's/women's leagues to boys/men - otherwise you are discriminating. what would be the reason...in the golden age of equality...for not doing so?
 
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My view is much the same as Boone's. I have an athletic daughter who played four sports in HS and dominated most boys her age in basketball until about age 12-13. She had the height advantage and worked at honing her skills. Playing against the boys made her a better player.

So, you don't think girls can wrestle? Take a look at some of these girls. All of them are pins - yes, pins against guys. This only took a couple of minutes to search - there are a lot of pins by girls against guys on yt.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVuGU1n71cQ[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPsgvlYZn4I[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rl5ee_DGxI[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9Q63vPzV1w[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk-PAxRj7Co[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr3RH1kONVs[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc7_jU01-SM[/media]

then let the lesser boys play against the girls.
 
FS, my suggestion that you have largely overlooked, is to create a girls league for wrestling. It would probably take away from some of the money that is spent on some of the boys teams, which i assume you would not be in favor of, but it seems to me to be the most reasonable solution.
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FS, my suggestion that you have largely overlooked, is to create a girls league for wrestling. It would probably take away from some of the money that is spent on some of the boys teams, which i assume you would not be in favor of, but it seems to me to be the most reasonable solution.
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fine by me. in the competition for limited resources...what gets cut to support this?
 
I'm with Boone on this one. If a girl can compete with the guys, go for it. After all, Kathy Ireland could kick the CRAP out of the ball! I played rugby in college, and a couple of the girls from the ladies' squad could have definitely hung with the guys. They chose not to, but that's a different story.

I don't get citing religious beliefs for not wrestling a girl. What religious beliefs exactly prohibit competing against a woman in sports? Sounds like an nonsense excuse to me.
 
"fairness" dictates that less talented boys/men be allowed to compete in girls/womens sports. otherwise...this is just more on-the-fly crappola.
 
FS, THERE IS NO WOMANS LEAGUE. Not sure how else to get you to understand this.
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"fairness" dictates that less talented boys/men be allowed to compete in girls/womens sports. otherwise...this is just more on-the-fly crappola.

This has been addressed several times.

If I go to a martial arts tournament I can compete in either my age bracket or the open bracket. Sometimes I can do both in one tournament. Are you suggesting that in the spirit of fairness 20 year-olds should be able to compete in the 30 & over bracket too?

When I run a race they have awards for overall placement and placement by age group. In the spirit of fairness should they just award first place amongst 40-44 year-olds to the fastest 20 year-old? Should the Boston Marathon, the most prestigious and respected Marathon in the world, not have qualifying times based on age and gender?

Should Tiger Woods have been able to compete in the PGA Senior's tour because Arnold Palmer was allowed to compete in the regular competition?

Competitions break up and categorize people by all number of things, from age to skill level to sex. And yet everyone is allowed a chance to win/compete at the highest level, which is the young men's level. This is nothing new, and it's not really a political issue 99% of the time. It isn't really even in this case because nobody, from the boy who stepped down to the girl who he was supposed to wrestle to their parents and the spectators, thought this was a big deal.

The only people who care are people who already have an agenda, who have nothing to do with the actual event.
 
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I don't get citing religious beliefs for not wrestling a girl. What religious beliefs exactly prohibit competing against a woman in sports? Sounds like an nonsense excuse to me.

I don't think it's a nonsense excuse. If the kid doesn't believe in fighting a woman and he's willing to forfeit his match then I don't see a problem. It doesn't matter whether or not you or I would do it.

I don't see it as any different as a religious kid not wanting to race on Sunday. It may seem silly to me, but if that's what is important to him and he's willing to forgo the competition to maintain his beliefs, who am I to say otherwise?
 
I don't think it's a nonsense excuse. If the kid doesn't believe in fighting a woman and he's willing to forfeit his match then I don't see a problem. It doesn't matter whether or not you or I would do it.

I don't see it as any different as a religious kid not wanting to race on Sunday. It may seem silly to me, but if that's what is important to him and he's willing to forgo the competition to maintain his beliefs, who am I to say otherwise?

If he doesn't want to hit a girl, that's fine. But citing a religious belief as the reason you don't want to wrestle a girl? I'm just curious which belief that might be. I'm pretty sure the bible says you can stone your wife if she cheats on you.
 
If he doesn't want to hit a girl, that's fine. But citing a religious belief as the reason you don't want to wrestle a girl? I'm just curious which belief that might be. I'm pretty sure the bible says you can stone your wife if she cheats on you.

Who cares? If it's his belief than it's his belief.
 
This has been addressed several times.

If I go to a martial arts tournament I can compete in either my age bracket or the open bracket. Sometimes I can do both in one tournament. Are you suggesting that in the spirit of fairness 20 year-olds should be able to compete in the 30 & over bracket too?

When I run a race they have awards for overall placement and placement by age group. In the spirit of fairness should they just award first place amongst 40-44 year-olds to the fastest 20 year-old? Should the Boston Marathon, the most prestigious and respected Marathon in the world, not have qualifying times based on age and gender?

Should Tiger Woods have been able to compete in the PGA Senior's tour because Arnold Palmer was allowed to compete in the regular competition?

Competitions break up and categorize people by all number of things, from age to skill level to sex. And yet everyone is allowed a chance to win/compete at the highest level, which is the young men's level. This is nothing new, and it's not really a political issue 99% of the time. It isn't really even in this case because nobody, from the boy who stepped down to the girl who he was supposed to wrestle to their parents and the spectators, thought this was a big deal.

The only people who care are people who already have an agenda, who have nothing to do with the actual event.


not my pov on the matter..obviously. I don't care for selective applications of equality and fairness.

It most certainly/emphatically is a political issue...and has been ever since Title 9 graced the landscape. This ramble down equality road..."well...sometimes it applies...but wait my bad...other times it doesn't" just doesn't cut it. I appreciate your effort to constrain the discussion to competition alone...and submit I am free to adopt an equally arbitrary position and assert that lesser talented boys should be allowed to compete in girls leagues. what's the difference? none.

so the plan..then..is as follows:

- boys leagues should be coed (need to retitle COED leagues?)

- but girls leagues remain unisex/exclusionary?
 
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