I can't really improve on what Fallible said.

It's entirely fair to point out that in very few physical sports at present (and likely not many more in future) could women compete with men at an elite level and be likely to win.
That is, in such sports, the very best women are not as good as the very best men at that sport in absolute terms.

Though 'lesser players' does seem to have rather unnecessary overtones.

Doubtdispelled wrote:Incidentally, while we're talking about 'worth', why don't people who stay at home to care for children get paid a fair wage? Is it worth nothing to society to be nurturing the next generation?

The cynic in me would observe that fair wages have historically been established through the mechanism of industrial action. Not only are the vast majority of parents not going to go on strike - or even adopt a "work to rule" policy - but child services would most likely remove children from the custody of any parents attempting such action (and rightly so).

In Australia, we have things like the Single Parent Payment and the Family Tax Benefit. The amounts involved - from personal experience - are fairly paltry though, compared to what it would cost to get a disinterested party to provide what amounts to 24/7 on-call care. The larger issue of the economic value of people who care for family members is actually a current one Down Under. Advocacy groups for those who care for elderly and/or disabled family members cite the figure of $40 billion saved every year by the Federal Government by these people keeping their kin out of the health system. It would surprise me greatly if the economic value of parenting was not many times this figure.

Governments can't afford to pay parents what they are actually "worth" - though I think they could afford more than they do - but really, most of us were aware it was an unpaid position when we decided to take it on. Parenting isn't really a job; it's a responsibility that one chooses to take on.

tolman wrote:Though 'lesser players' does seem to have rather unnecessary overtones.

I concur. It is a phrasing that, in my view, serves only to diminish the worth of women in the sporting arena.
It is also based solely on the perception that sport serves only one purpose, to see who is best, rather than any other purpose i.e. to entertain those observing the sport. The latter, of course, is the means by which most sporting activities are funded.

In addition, as I covered in an earlier post, the fixation is on physical ability and if that is the sole basis of the argument, it is logical to query why it is therefore acceptable to have different events for different specialties of athlete. I'd wager that in a 10000m race, the 100m male sprinters would fair very poorly against the best female 10000m runners.

Fallible wrote: Your entire output is based on emotions.

No it isn’t.

Fallible wrote: Even when faced with detailed responses, you can't stop yourself from making bitchy comments.

Yes I can.

Fallible wrote: You sometimes even return to threads where you are being asked over and over again for evidence for your assertions, solely to post content-free jibes which do nothing but draw attention to your failure to provide the requested evidence.

No I don’t and no it doesnt.

Fallible wrote: Your posts in fact never miss an opportunity to personalise and mischaracterise.

Yes they do.

Fallible wrote: It's not out-with the realms of possibility that someone other than myself has noticed this and no longer thinks it a good use of their time to continue providing in-depth responses to your regurgitated nonsense.

Yes they do.

Fallible wrote: You do not speak for anyone here but yourself, and do not get to lump other participants together as waiting for this explanation you apparently want. There's just you. I've little doubt that you will now fall over yourself to come back with some emotion-based snipe.

No I won’t.

Trying laconic responses as a means to hide another emotional and bitchy response?

Didn't work.

Sendraks wrote:

tolman wrote:Though 'lesser players' does seem to have rather unnecessary overtones.

I concur. It is a phrasing that, in my view, serves only to diminish the worth of women in the sporting arena.
It is also based solely on the perception that sport serves only one purpose, to see who is best, rather than any other purpose i.e. to entertain those observing the sport. The latter, of course, is the means by which most sporting activities are funded.

It's certainly the metric by which Lak can assert that women are "better" jelly wrestlers ...

I do seem to recall a recent thread where some people were quite offended at any suggestion that female athletes should face considerations other than ability. Yet here you are appearing to argue that these additional factors are a justification for equalising remuneration.

Sendraks wrote:In addition, as I covered in an earlier post, the fixation is on physical ability and if that is the sole basis of the argument, it is logical to query why it is therefore acceptable to have different events for different specialties of athlete. I'd wager that in a 10000m race, the 100m male sprinters would fair very poorly against the best female 10000m runners.

Well, you're testing the endurance of someone trained for short-range speed. The best female 1000m runners would not even qualify to compete against the best male 1000m runners.

I think I get your point though. Maybe a better way to put it would be to observe that raw physical ability would be better measured by a battery of medical tests than a sporting event. The Olympics would consist of a bunch of people in white lab coats presenting their findings, then everyone could go back to what they were doing before the IOC so rudely interrupted their lives. We could probably get the whole thing over in an afternoon.

There's certainly more to sport than brute biological realities. There's the traditions, the drama, the personalities. The spectacle.

Nicko wrote:I do seem to recall a recent thread where some people were quite offended at any suggestion that female athletes should face considerations other than ability. Yet here you are appearing to argue that these additional factors are a justification for equalising remuneration.

No I'm not. I'm merely pointing out that there is more than one metric here and indeed more than one metric of "ability" when it comes to sport. Female physiology is different, therefore the female game of tennis is different. They're not all trying to "power serve" each other out of the arena. Frankly it is a more interesting game to watch.

And lets not get into the whole "men fancying women therefore liking women's tennis" bollocks of an argument. It really isn't compelling, especially when you consider all the women who watch men's tennis because they actually fancy the competitors as well. Or all the men who watch men's tennis for the same reason.

Is the physical desirability of the competitors an issue? Well if it helps the sponsors of the event sell products and the event organisers sell tickets, clearly it is.

Nicko wrote:Well, you're testing the endurance of someone trained for short-range speed. The best female 1000m runners would not even qualify to compete against the best male 1000m runners.

And the best male 1000m runners would not qualify against the best male 100m runners.
Apparently segregating people based on their physical ability is ok when they're the same gender. At least, that's what I determine from TMB's argument.

Sendraks wrote:
I concur. It is a phrasing that, in my view, serves only to diminish the worth of women in the sporting arena.

Whatever wording gets used if people place value on relative abilities in sport, in this case between the genders, you can sugar coat it all you want, the fact still remains that men outcompete women in almost every sporting discipline, and people place a great value on better performance in every discipline.

Sendraks wrote:
It is also based solely on the perception that sport serves only one purpose, to see who is best, rather than any other purpose i.e. to entertain those observing the sport. The latter, of course, is the means by which most sporting activities are funded.

That is incorrect, sport is a mechanism through which people can be assessed relative to each other. When young kids compete and are given prizes for participation, they have no value to the kids, they want to get awards because they win things and have done it by beating others. Comparative ability of the players IS the entertainment. Even in events that are less quantifiable, like dancing, they still have competitions and measure who is best, second best etc.

Sendraks wrote:
In addition, as I covered in an earlier post, the fixation is on physical ability and if that is the sole basis of the argument, it is logical to query why it is therefore acceptable to have different events for different specialties of athlete. I'd wager that in a 10000m race, the 100m male sprinters would fair very poorly against the best female 10000m runners.

This is not a valid comparison, different events exist so that excellence can be measured in a multitude of ways and demonstrate variety of human capability and endeavour. Each one still exists to compare the performance of the participants and the prize is to be as successful as possible when competing, greatest rewards go to the best, not those in the middle or the worst.
If you think it is logical to query 10000m versus 100m, perhaps you would like to show us that logic and explain how it works.

Nicko wrote:

Sendraks wrote:

tolman wrote:Though 'lesser players' does seem to have rather unnecessary overtones.

I concur. It is a phrasing that, in my view, serves only to diminish the worth of women in the sporting arena.
It is also based solely on the perception that sport serves only one purpose, to see who is best, rather than any other purpose i.e. to entertain those observing the sport. The latter, of course, is the means by which most sporting activities are funded.

It's certainly the metric by which Lak can assert that women are "better" jelly wrestlers ...

I do seem to recall a recent thread where some people were quite offended at any suggestion that female athletes should face considerations other than ability. Yet here you are appearing to argue that these additional factors are a justification for equalising remuneration.

Sendraks wrote:In addition, as I covered in an earlier post, the fixation is on physical ability and if that is the sole basis of the argument, it is logical to query why it is therefore acceptable to have different events for different specialties of athlete. I'd wager that in a 10000m race, the 100m male sprinters would fair very poorly against the best female 10000m runners.

Well, you're testing the endurance of someone trained for short-range speed. The best female 1000m runners would not even qualify to compete against the best male 1000m runners.

I think I get your point though. Maybe a better way to put it would be to observe that raw physical ability would be better measured by a battery of medical tests than a sporting event. The Olympics would consist of a bunch of people in white lab coats presenting their findings, then everyone could go back to what they were doing before the IOC so rudely interrupted their lives. We could probably get the whole thing over in an afternoon.

There's certainly more to sport than brute biological realities. There's the traditions, the drama, the personalities. The spectacle.

But none of the drama, personality, or tradition can exist without the element of competition. If there were no incentive given to winning for a soccer game, noone would be motivated to score goals to see who was best, in fact there would not even be any goals, because that implies competition. If none of that existed, neither would there be any spectators. Watching Bolt come through the 100m mark with sheer brute force appeals to millions of people who delight in labelling him the fastest man alive, and people pay him lots of money to run and to promote their products. None of which would happen if his best 100m time was 15 seconds.

I don't think that the running example is the best one, since how long races are is clearly arbitrary.
Even with an event open to everyone, it is effectively meaningless to simply ask 'who is the best runner?' (or, giving it a practical slant, 'if I wanted some running doing, who should would I choose?') since to ask that question one does need to have a distance in mind.

More relevant would seem to be sports where the rules are the same for everyone, like weightlifting or combat sports where there are different weight categories.

It is easy to imagine some scenarios for some such competitions where there would be sound arguments for equal prizes, sound arguments for unequal ones, or plausible arguments for both equal and unequal.

At one extreme, prizes funded in order to advance the sport in particular or sport in general, such as by a state-funded sports promotions agency.

At the other extreme, prizes funded by commercial income where competitors were very significantly performers, and where one set of such performers were generating vastly more income than others.

What seems to make no sense is a simplistic resort to one or other 'principle' in the face of a whole range of factors someone making a decision might (or might be forced to) take into consideration.
And that applies just as much for people arguing 'on principle' for equal prizes in sports where prizes are income-funded, and where there is a vast disparity in how much income different groups attract.

TMB wrote:
Whatever wording gets used if people place value on relative abilities in sport, in this case between the genders, you can sugar coat it all you want, the fact still remains that men outcompete women in almost every sporting discipline, and people place a great value on better performance in every discipline.

By "people" you mean "yourself."
Which isn't a compelling argument.

What people who watch sports value, as I'll go on to illustrate, is the competition between the top performers. If there is no competition, there is no interest.

TMB wrote:That is incorrect, sport is a mechanism through which people can be assessed relative to each other. When young kids compete and are given prizes for participation, they have no value to the kids, they want to get awards because they win things and have done it by beating others. Comparative ability of the players IS the entertainment. Even in events that are less quantifiable, like dancing, they still have competitions and measure who is best, second best etc.

And this is incorrect, in so far that you fail to recognise that sport or competitions of any sort, are only entertaining when the competition is meaningful. Men vs Women atheltics would be of limited entertainment value to all but the most misogynist of spectators. This is why tournaments, such as wimbledon, are based on a seeding system of performance over many games that all but the most ardent fans of tennis will never see. There isn't much interest in watching the world number 1 demolish a player seeded 200th or something.

TMB wrote:This is not a valid comparison,

It is. Your saying otherwise does not change that. But you appear to be leading yourself to the point.

TMB wrote:If you think it is logical to query 10000m versus 100m, perhaps you would like to show us that logic and explain how it works.

Quite simply. 10000m vs 100m wouldn't be much of a competition would it? Who would watch it?
And therefore the same logic applies as to why you have separate tournaments for men and women.

Sendraks wrote:
No I'm not. I'm merely pointing out that there is more than one metric here and indeed more than one metric of "ability" when it comes to sport. Female physiology is different, therefore the female game of tennis is different. They're not all trying to "power serve" each other out of the arena. Frankly it is a more interesting game to watch.

But its possible to watch men who play the same level of power tennis that elite women play and in pretty much the same way, and in general you will find them in the 200-300 ranking of men. The reverse is not true, there are no women who can match the power game of the elite men. This means that if you truly wanted to watch tennis played with the physical ability of elite women, you could find plenty of men at that level, so this leads into your next point.

Sendraks wrote:
lets not get into the whole "men fancying women therefore liking women's tennis" bollocks of an argument. It really isn't compelling, especially when you consider all the women who watch men's tennis because they actually fancy the competitors as well. Or all the men who watch men's tennis for the same reason.

But just as you thought that womens tennis is somehow different to men, the way that women and men attract each really if qualitatively different. No question that men find womens players appealing but its done differently to the way that women find the men desirable. Men don’t have much interest in the ability or status of a female tennis player, this is why Kournikova did not have to be at the top to get so much attention, because it was really about her looks. Women find the status and ability of the men appealing of itself. This supports the fact that womens attention to tennis fashion, the media cooing over what colors the ladies are wearing, and how they have done their hair, while with the men, no one including the men, care overly much. Some women might find certain male body parts attractive, like nicely muscled biceps, but in general men very specifically find womens body parts attractive. Its no wonder that the press get far more coverage when they get revealing and intimate shots of women tennis players, because men are interested and have very little shame in being so. I suggest that women are less interested in getting revealing pictures, and are also inclined to show less interest than they feel.

Sendraks wrote:
Is the physical desirability of the competitors an issue? Well if it helps the sponsors of the event sell products and the event organisers sell tickets, clearly it is.

Yes it is, but any winning male tennis player will be considered attractive, because the looks can be overridden by their ability. There was an issue when Bartoli won Wimbledon and someone noted she was not much of a looker. It was an insensitive and stupid thing for a commentator to say, but everyone else was also judged her looks, just like they do with Sharapova. Most people think it is OK to judge how good Sharapovas looks are, or how good her clothing line is, or the way she does her hair etc, but looks are relative, and someone like Bartoli was a contrast to Sharapova. In general, this does not happen with men in the same way. Even if the top mens players were objectively ugly, women still find them appealing, and no one is too interested in if they have a clothing line, or what color lipstick they wear.

Sendraks wrote:Quite simply. 10000m vs 100m wouldn't be much of a competition would it? Who would watch it?
And therefore the same logic applies as to why you have separate tournaments for men and women.

'10000m vs 100m' is not a possible competition, therefore no-one could watch it.
You can't have a race with a winner without specifying criteria for winning, and there are no criteria that involve two distances.

Unless you have some weighted sum of scores for two races, with the weighting being highly arbitrary.
And if one assumes some particular arbitrary criteria, then those criteria determine the best particular kind of 'mixed-distance runner' to compete in the effective running biathlon.

The basic logic for having different male and female events is significantly different performance in the same event.

The relevant issue is to what extent that difference should or shouldn't be reflected in rewards, and that seems to be something which depends on a whole range of factors depending on the event, at least for anyone not making a knee-jerk one-size-fits-all decision and pointing to one or other principle as sufficient justification.

TMB wrote:
But its possible to watch men who play the same level of power tennis that elite women play and in pretty much the same way, and in general you will find them in the 200-300 ranking of men. The reverse is not true, there are no women who can match the power game of the elite men. This means that if you truly wanted to watch tennis played with the physical ability of elite women, you could find plenty of men at that level, so this leads into your next point.

Nice theory, but not one born out in practise.
Men play the "power game" of tennis, whereas women don't. Well most women don't.
The game are different. Just as are the genders.

TMB wrote:But just as you thought that womens tennis is somehow different to men,

I don't "think" it is.
It is.

TMB wrote:No question that men find womens players appealing but its done differently to the way that women find the men desirable.

Got anything in the way of evidence to back this sexist bollocks up?

TMB wrote: Men don’t have much interest in the ability or status of a female tennis player,

By "men" you mean "yourself."
THis is not a persuasive argument.

TMB wrote:There was an issue when Bartoli won Wimbledon and someone noted she was not much of a looker. It was an insensitive and stupid thing for a commentator to say, but everyone else was also judged her looks

Hmmm, individual instances which are then being applied as a generalisation.
No, this ins't persuasive either.

TMB wrote:Even if the top mens players were objectively ugly, women still find them appealing, and no one is too interested in if they have a clothing line, or what color lipstick they wear.

Evidence for this?

tolman wrote:
'10000m vs 100m' is not a possible competition, therefore no-one could watch it.

It is an entirely possible competition (unless you want to claim it to be impossible). Choose which distance you want the race to be at (100m or 10000m) and then set the mix of 100m and 10000m atheltes running.

I suspect people might watch it once.

tolman wrote:The basic logic for having different male and female events is significantly different performance in the same event.

Yes. This is my whole point.

Sendraks wrote:Nice theory, but not one born out in practise.
Men play the "power game" of tennis, whereas women don't. Well most women don't.
The game are different. Just as are the genders.

But the rules are the same, it's really that the different physiques of men and women tend towards different styles of play, (when played on the same court, with modern equipment).

Were a woman to come along who could play very much like the top men, they wouldn't be excluded 'because they were playing the wrong game'.

Sendraks wrote:

What people who watch sports value, as I'll go on to illustrate, is the competition between the top performers. If there is no competition, there is no interest.

We are in violent agreement. Lead on, I wait with bated breath.

Sendraks wrote:
And this is incorrect, in so far that you fail to recognise that sport or competitions of any sort, are only entertaining when the competition is meaningful. Men vs Women atheltics would be of limited entertainment value to all but the most misogynist of spectators.

You are correct there would be little interest in matching men with women because of the different abilities, but this does not justify (and this is the point of the discussion) giving them the same reward when performance is different.

Sendraks wrote:
This is why tournaments, such as wimbledon, are based on a seeding system of performance over many games that all but the most ardent fans of tennis will never see. There isn't much interest in watching the world number 1 demolish a player seeded 200th or something.

I have never argued differently.

Sendraks wrote:
Quite simply. 10000m vs 100m wouldn't be much of a competition would it? Who would watch it?
And therefore the same logic applies as to why you have separate tournaments for men and women.

The difference between the 100m and the 10000m is one of type, just as the javelin and 100m are . The difference between men and women in the way these things are measured is one of degree and not type. Comparing the 100m to the 10000m or the javelin is not a valid comparison to the difference in women/men. Gold medal holders in the 100m sprint get more status than the gold medals holders for the hockey. This is because even though these are different disciplines with no objective way of directly comparing their proponents as being better or worse than the other. Once again this is not the case between the genders, they are being measured using specific metrics, so that we can agree that the mens winning time for the 100m is better than the womens winning time, because we have decided that faster is better.

Sendraks wrote:

tolman wrote:
'10000m vs 100m' is not a possible competition, therefore no-one could watch it.

It is an entirely possible competition (unless you want to claim it to be impossible). Choose which distance you want the race to be at (100m or 10000m) and then set the mix of 100m and 10000m atheltes running.

Then what you would have is either a 100m race or a 10000m one.

Sendraks wrote:

tolman wrote:The basic logic for having different male and female events is significantly different performance in the same event.

Yes. This is my whole point.

The '100m vs 10000m race' idea is of no relevance where two groups of people are playing one game by the same rules.

TMB is entirely right in saying that as far as competing in accordance with the rules* is concerned, the top men are consistently better at tennis than the top women.

I just happen not to share TMB's opinion that that should be of overriding importance when it comes to people deciding how to award prize money to two competitions.
Nor do I share the opinion that differential income demands differential prize money, as opposed to being one of the factors the people making the decision should probably be at least taking into account.

(*though clearly, that doesn't necessarily say anything about watchability - indeed, a 'perfect' tennis player might actually be entirely unwatchable.)

Sendraks wrote:
Nice theory, but not one born out in practise.
Men play the "power game" of tennis, whereas women don't. Well most women don't.
The game are different. Just as are the genders.

You are wrong. There are plenty of women who play with the same or more power than plenty of men. There are also men that play with a touch game, others with power serve and volley. You are comparing the best men with the best women. There is no question the top men play with power that is not equalled by any women and also not by plenty of men. This means that plenty of lower ranked men will be similar to higher ranked women. In many instances men do play women in competitive tennis, just as they do with squash. There is a mixture of touch and power games in both sports and depending upon the physiques of the players, its certainly possible to get a man powered off the court by a woman, it just would not happen at the very top level.

Sendraks wrote:I don't "think" it is.
It is.

It is in practice, like I said plenty of women do compete with men at competitive levels and the differences displayed between the genders are not noticeably different to the differences between individual players