"Ironic Misandry" (and idiotic feminism)

Sendraks · **#581** by **Sendraks** » Oct 30, 2014 2:32 pm

tolman wrote:
For which a running-distance based analogy is, quite frankly, daft.

No it isn't. It quite clearly demonstrates why you segregate people for different events and it all comes down to physiology.
Not my fault you don't understand it.

tolman wrote:Well, if the explicit segregation of different people based on their personal characteristics for the precise same sporting challenge is done because without such segregation some people wouldn't really stand a chance or winning, clearly in one narrow sense some people are better (as in 'they would win in an open competition').

Yes, precisely. But there is no universal form of better, in that no one individual (of any sex) can excel in all athletic events. Differences in physiology and chosen specialism preclude against that.

So, given that it is accept as being perfectly ok for men of differing physiologies which means they excel in different specialities, to be segregated into different sporting events. It must logically follow that it also perfectly ok to segregate women into their own sporting events, on the basis of differing physiology.

tolman wrote:I don't personally see the word 'lesser' as a particularly useful one since it carries all manner of baggage. Nor do I see differences in 'absolute performance' as generally relevant to prize funding even in commercially-funded competitions, even if differential income may be relevant.

I agree, use of the word 'lesser' is not helpful, but TMB seems to insist on using such loading wording in this debate.
I also agree that differences in absolute performance are not relevant for the purposes of determining prize funding. The some individuals, such as TMB, want to perceive the women's Wimbledon trophy as a "lesser" prize and therefore worthy only of a "lesser" award, is only indicative of their biases.

tolman · **#582** by **tolman** » Oct 30, 2014 3:41 pm

Sendraks wrote:
tolman wrote:
For which a running-distance based analogy is, quite frankly, daft.

No it isn't. It quite clearly demonstrates why you segregate people for different events and it all comes down to physiology.
Not my fault you don't understand it.

In running, you're not segregating people. You are simply presenting a range of events and letting people choose which ones they enter.

Following your language to a logical extreme, seemingly the only 'non-segregated' sporting event would be where there was one single competition called 'sport', which seems to make the term pointless in relation to sport.

Sendraks wrote:
tolman wrote:Well, if the explicit segregation of different people based on their personal characteristics for the precise same sporting challenge is done because without such segregation some people wouldn't really stand a chance or winning, clearly in one narrow sense some people are better (as in 'they would win in an open competition').

Yes, precisely. But there is no universal form of better, in that no one individual (of any sex) can excel in all athletic events.

Which is entirely irrelevant to a question of what two groups of people should or shouldn't get as prizes for competing in parallel versions of the same sport with the same rules.

No-one, even the most knee-jerk adherents to a particular principle of equality is suggesting that the Wimbledon organisers should pay any attention to what non-tennis-players get paid.

Sendraks wrote:
Differences in physiology and chosen specialism preclude against that.

So, given that it is accept as being perfectly ok for men of differing physiologies which means they excel in different specialities, to be segregated into different sporting events. It must logically follow that it also perfectly ok to segregate women into their own sporting events, on the basis of differing physiology.

Are you being deliberately obtuse, or do you simply not understand English?

No-one is saying there shouldn't be different competitions.

The only issue of debate seems to be whether there should be either:
a) a slavish adherence to 'equality' of prizes irrespective of any differences between groups in terms of relative ability, income generated, etc
b) a slavish adherence to the idea that equal prizes are necessarily unfair except in situations of equal 'absolute performance and/or equal income

I don't agree with either of those absolute position in the case of commercially-funded competitions.

It seems TMB at least leans strongly towards the latter, though I'm not sure at what level of similarity of income and/or performance TMB might say 'in that example, equal prizes are not clearly wrong'.

Sendraks wrote:I agree, use of the word 'lesser' is not helpful, but TMB seems to insist on using such loading wording in this debate.

Possibly because while loaded, the word is not strictly wrong, and some people respond to it in over-the-top ways.

Sendraks wrote:I also agree that differences in absolute performance are not relevant for the purposes of determining prize funding. The some individuals, such as TMB, want to perceive the women's Wimbledon trophy as a "lesser" prize and therefore worthy only of a "lesser" award, is only indicative of their biases.

But without knowing anything else about someone, that could be a case of the 'bias' being purely of considering absolute performance as being important, which is a perfectly ethically defensible position.
In any particular case, someone could take the view that a person may have ulterior motives for choosing to focus on absolute performance, but that cannot be taken as certain any more than someone saying 'they enjoy women's tennis more' could be judged to be definitely saying that for other motives such as female-biased sexism.

Sendraks · **#583** by **Sendraks** » Oct 30, 2014 4:28 pm

tolman wrote:In running, you're not segregating people. You are simply presenting a range of events and letting people choose which ones they enter.

Well the key word here is "choice." Women's tournaments exist and they are therefore able to choose to compete in them. Prior to that they had no choice. The existence of women's tournaments is clearly non-sexist, in the sense that TMB seems to think they are somehow discriminatory against men by offering similar rewards.

tolman wrote:Following your language to a logical extreme, seemingly the only 'non-segregated' sporting event would be where there was one single competition called 'sport', which seems to make the term pointless in relation to sport.

Precisely. Competition is the key thing. Hence men and women's tournaments.
Now I don't have a metric for determining, with any accuracy, what a unit of "competition" equals. Until such time as such a unit exists, why should the value of a women's tournament be considered less competitive than a male tournament? Therefore, why should it be considered to be worth anything less in terms of a prize?

tolman wrote:Which is entirely irrelevant to a question of what two groups of people should or shouldn;t get as prizes for competing in parallel versions of the same sport with the same rules.

But saying that is to overlook the reasons why we have the separate tournaments in the first place and why it is a nonsense for TMB to consider one to be "lesser" over the other.

No-one, even the most knee-jerk adherents to a particular principle of equality is suggesting that the Wimbledon organisersm should pay any attention to what non-tennis-players get paid.

tolman wrote:Are you being deliberately obtuse, or do you simply not understand English?

It is not about me being obtuse or not understanding English (the latter is a moronic statement and almost certainly intentionally inflammatory, given my understanding of English is patently very good). Indeed I strongly suspect that we are talking at cross purposes and I can only hope that our paths will eventually cross.

tolman wrote:No-one is saying there shouldn't be different competitions.

My whole point is that there should be different competitions and why such different competitions have equal validity. At a fundamental level, it is about differences in physiology and minimising the impact those differences have in order to have meaningful competition. Hence mens' and womens' tournaments. Hence the different disciplines within athletics.

There is no "absolute measure of performance" that justifies one competition as being more worthy than the other. What matters is the competition itself and whether it was, actually, competitive. Some of the least entertaining sports I've watched over the years have been those where one or two individuals have dominated a tournament to the exclusion of all else. Yes, they earned their prize money by winning, but it wasn't necessarily enjoyable to watch.

Of course, TMB and others have the right to state the purely subjective view that "women's tennis is the lesser game." Much in the same way that someone could hold the view that "10000m is a more interesting foot race than the 100m." However, there is no absolute measure that makes such a viewpoint objective.

Thommo · **#584** by **Thommo** » Oct 30, 2014 5:10 pm

tolman wrote:I don't have any objections at all - such things seem to make perfect sense to me.

Sorry, for some reason I thought I was addressing TMB, your reply is perfectly sensible and I appreciate the clarification.

Thommo · **#585** by **Thommo** » Oct 30, 2014 5:18 pm

Sendraks wrote:Oliver understands the point I am making. I am puzzled as to why it seems to be beyond the grasp of some of you.
I don't expect TMB to understand it, as anything outside of his echo chamber is beyond his comprehension.

I answered what you wrote not what you meant. The perception that it's "beyond the grasp" of some of us who addressed what you wrote instead of reading your mind is both insulting and egregious.

It is readily apparent that

Sendraks wrote:"The point being that in TMB's world people of different physiologies are allowed to be segregated into different sports, providing they are of the same sex. This is clearly a nonsense in the face of him thinking that it is somehow incorrect for men and women (who have differing phsyiologies) to be segregated."

attributes things to TMB and "segregation" to sport where:-

OlivierK wrote:As I read it, the point of the 10,000m / 100m comparison is that if you want to find out who is the fastest at running, the answer is Usain Bolt, or on some days, other sprinters. The very best 10,000m runners will never hit Usain's speed (or that of any top sprinter) in metres per second, either on average, or on any part of their run. So why have an event for these obviously slower athletes? Why not just say "You're slower than Usain, so go home now."?

Does not.

Those posts are not synonymous, if they are intended to be, then one is simply better than the other.

It probably should be said that it's also fairly clear that Olivier's argument is not "sound" anyway and is quite defeasible. One could very well believe that instantaneous speed is not the only thing measured by running and thus see merit in other events without appeal to a principle which requires the existence of women's sport.

Sendraks · **#586** by **Sendraks** » Oct 30, 2014 5:29 pm

While I see your point Thommo, you are cherry picking the content of my posts to make your point, and that in itself is poor form.

The stated summary of my position remains extant. We have competitions for people of differing physiologies for a reason, that being that it makes for a worthwhile competition.

Thommo · **#587** by **Thommo** » Oct 30, 2014 6:06 pm

Sendraks wrote:While I see your point Thommo, you are cherry picking the content of my posts to make your point, and that in itself is poor form.

The stated summary of my position remains extant. We have competitions for people of differing physiologies for a reason, that being that it makes for a worthwhile competition.

I quoted a paragraph in full, that's not cherry picking, I'm hardly going to quote every single word you've posted over a dozen or so posts.

The example alone shows that you included elements Olivier did not. Those elements are in my view clearly wrong. If you want to clarify that you never intended those elements or change your view that's fair, good even. But externalising these faults is, to me at least, rather rude. People aren't being incapable of understanding a point or cherry picking for taking your words at face value and nothing of value is added by implying they are.

I still fundamentally disagree that we have competitions for people of differing physiologies. That's not why we have tennis and golf at all, that's not why we have the 10k and the 400m. At almost all levels of the sport there are huge ranges of different physiques and physiologies. Michael Johnson is very, very different to Usain Bolt, yet both were world class 200m runners in their prime - and that's the only level where homogeneity of any kind exists.

I used to run both the 800m and the steeplechase for my athletics club at the weekends in the summer, the thing that held me back wasn't basic body type, I wasn't told what I was and wasn't allowed to do. No segregation took place. In my opinion this kind of comparison fundamentally misunderstands what sport is to most people and why we take part, and in doing so is never going to explain why we want women and girls to enjoy it as much as the rest of us (even if we never get past the "lofty" level of Men's southern athletics league division 5).

Sendraks · **#588** by **Sendraks** » Oct 30, 2014 6:30 pm

Thommo wrote:I quoted a paragraph in full, that's not cherry picking, I'm hardly going to quote every single word you've posted over a dozen or so posts.

That is cherry picking, in so far that you chose one part of the various explanations I've given of this over numerous posts now. I don't care that you can't be bothered to look.

Thommo wrote:The example alone shows that you included elements Olivier did not.Those elements are in my view clearly wrong.

Well if you will point out to me what those elements are, I am happy to discuss them.

Thommo wrote: People aren't being incapable of understanding a point or cherry picking for taking your words at face value and nothing of value is added by implying they are.

Then they might want to consider asking for clarification of the point I am making, rather than just saying I am wrong or obtuse or whatever. The approach taken by the posters in question does to incline me to present a positive interpretation of their understanding.

Thommo wrote:I still fundamentally disagree that we have competitions for people of differing physiologies.

That's fine. I disagree.

Thommo wrote: Michael Johnson is very, very different to Usain Bolt, yet both were world class 200m runners in their prime.

And you're simply comparing different types of apples here. Try comparing Usain Bolt with Mo Farah instead.

Different people have different body types, different propensities towards building muscle, that do lend themselves to being able to excel in different arenas and not in others.

Thommo wrote: In my opinion this kind of comparison fundamentally misunderstands what sport is to most people and why we take part.

While I agree, which is again the whole point I'm making. That differences in physiology between the sexes shouldn't matter and that it is first and foremost about the competition and the prize, whatever it is, is what it is. The only unfairness that we need to worry about is whether the competition discriminates against individuals or whether everyone who wants to be able to compete in their chosen sport is able to do so.

TMB has thrown out statements which relate to differences in male and female physiology that for some sports, the female tournament is somehow a lesser game. That if women were to compete against men (which would be, in TMB's view, true equality) that the men would win, because the men are "better." As men are "better" TMB states that they are therefore more deserving of a greater prize than women, rather than accept that the differences in physiology lead to different games and that those games should be separate, in order to foster a meaningful competition.

Given how close the 100m times are for the fastest men and women (less than a second apart), is there really any argument that would justify the view that men should have a greater prize than women? At any given Olympiad, it doesn't matter who is fastest of all time, only who is fastest on the day. We're not interested in seeing the fastest man beat the fastest women, we're interested in seeing a meaningful competition between the 10 fastest runners of that speciality and gender.

Thommo · **#589** by **Thommo** » Oct 30, 2014 7:12 pm

Sendraks wrote:
Thommo wrote:I quoted a paragraph in full, that's not cherry picking, I'm hardly going to quote every single word you've posted over a dozen or so posts.

That is cherry picking, in so far that you chose one part of the various explanations I've given of this over numerous posts now. I don't care that you can't be bothered to look.

It's not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_pic ... fallacy%29

Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position. It is a kind of fallacy of selective attention, the most common example of which is the confirmation bias.[1] Cherry picking may be committed intentionally or unintentionally. This fallacy is a major problem in public debate.[2]

The chosen paragraph is not being held up as a data point, I'm not ignoring any place where you reject or change your mind about the points I criticised.

And again, you're being deliberately rude in your answer here, giving the impression this is more about defending your ego than having a constructive conversation. I can be bothered to look and I did look and I have looked again. Your assumption of laziness is entirely an invention on your part, presumably included to make me look bad to an imagined observer, my lack of quoting 12 posts in their entirety has nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with clarity and ease of reading.

Sendraks wrote:
Thommo wrote:The example alone shows that you included elements Olivier did not.Those elements are in my view clearly wrong.

Well if you will point out to me what those elements are, I am happy to discuss them.

I already did, explicitly. If you were less focused on fisking the conversation down to unreadability and insulting me you might have noticed. post #585 very clearly points out that you attributed a view of segregation to TMB that he does not hold (and has confirmed himself explicitly in #570 that he does not hold) and that you categorised sport as practising segregation where it very clearly does not.

Sendraks wrote:
Thommo wrote: Michael Johnson is very, very different to Usain Bolt, yet both were world class 200m runners in their prime.

And you're simply comparing different types of apples here. Try comparing Usain Bolt with Mo Farah instead.

Mo Farah isn't a world class 200m runner, if you made that comparison you'd entirely miss the point...

Sendraks wrote:Different people have different body types, different propensities towards building muscle, that do lend themselves to being able to excel in different arenas and not in others.

Yes, and sport does not segregate on those criteria. Nobody is banned from entry on these criteria. Mo Farah can participate in the olympics in any event for which he meets the qualifying time.

Although, on an unrelated point, I think you are grossly exaggerating the degree of similarity between top class players of various sports, top tennis players range from below average to extremely tall for example and come from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds with large differences in technique and athletic capability. Further this feature is only present in a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of tennis matches played as it only exist at all at the elite professional level of the sport.

Sendraks wrote:
Thommo wrote: In my opinion this kind of comparison fundamentally misunderstands what sport is to most people and why we take part.

While I agree, which is again the whole point I'm making. That differences in physiology between the sexes shouldn't matter and that it is first and foremost about the competition and the prize, whatever it is, is what it is. The only unfairness that we need to worry about is whether the competition discriminates against individuals or whether everyone who wants to be able to compete in their chosen sport is able to do so.

Well, no we don't agree. The differences in physiology between the sexes do and should matter, the differences in physiology between 200m and 10,000m runners do not matter. Any man can enter a men's 200m race, any man cannot enter a women's 200m race. The situations are very plainly not the same. My criticism of TMB is not the same as yours - I do not claim as you have here that there are no differences between men and women that matter, I claim only that they don't determine remuneration (which is a lot more obvious and easier to substantiate). I don't play down the enormous performance gulf between men's athletics and women's athletics. I don't claim that men's sport is segregated - I explicitly deny that claim. I think TMB is conflating entry requirements with remuneration and I think you are as well, so whilst I think he's wrong I think he's wrong on different grounds than some of the ones you've stated, whether or not those accurately represent your view.

We don't actually need to separate men's and women's events to allow women to participate, for example marathons don't. Men and women all run together. Women aren't prevented from participation if we don't ban men from entering their event - they just won't win, and unfortunately this will be true in most cases at all levels of the sport.

Sendraks wrote:Given how close the 100m times are for the fastest men and women (less than a second apart), is there really any argument that would justify the view that men should have a greater prize than women? At any given Olympiad, it doesn't matter who is fastest of all time, only who is fastest on the day. We're not interested in seeing the fastest man beat the fastest women, we're interested in seeing a meaningful competition between the 10 fastest runners of that speciality and gender.

The 100m world records are not close. The gap of around 10% is enormous, the women's world record isn't even international standard let alone olympic standard when compared to the men's record.

And yes, we finally get to the point on which we probably agree - prize money can be set according to how interested people are in watching the event, the market can dictate remuneration without it being unfair. Personally I'd be happy to see sprinters get nothing, they are almost all a bunch of cheats. Same goes for cyclists, their sport is irreparably tarnished.

Sendraks · **#590** by **Sendraks** » Oct 30, 2014 8:44 pm

Thommo wrote:It's not.

I disagree.

Thommo wrote:I already did, explicitly. If you were less focused on fisking the conversation down to unreadability and insulting me you might have noticed. post #585 very clearly points out that you attributed a view of segregation to TMB that he does not hold (and has confirmed himself explicitly in #570 that he does not hold) and that you categorised sport as practising segregation where it very clearly does not.

And on reviewing post #570 he appears to agreeing with your misunderstanding of what I said. So this moves us no further fowards.

As for "fisking the conversation down to unreadability" I am endeavouring to do anything but that. This is a most curious accusation to make. It is certainly not to my advantage to do that and I cannot begin to fathom why you would think I'd do that.

Thommo wrote:Mo Farah isn't a world class 200m runner, if you made that comparison you'd entirely miss the point...

Your comparison entirely misses my point.

Thommo wrote:Yes, and sport does not segregate on those criteria. Nobody is banned from entry on these criteria. Mo Farah can participate in the olympics in any event for which he meets the qualifying time.

Ok, I see where I have been going wrong here, in so far that I have not been using segregation to mean "enforced segregation" which is clearly going to result in a misunderstanding of my making.

Regardless, individuals do allow themselves to be voluntarily segregated in sports. Heck, I've been there myself when I was told (oh so many years ago), to go stand with the distance runners as that was where it was felt I would do best. I wanted to be a sprinter, it's so much more dramatic, but the reality was that my physiology naturally lent me towards distance running. So that is where I went. I allowed myself to segregated on a voluntary basis.

Thommo wrote:Although, on an unrelated point, I think you are grossly exaggerating the degree of similarity between top class players of various sports,

The physiological differences between a distance runner and a sprinter are clearly profound. The point I'm making is that we judge them within the context of their own speciality, not against someone else. The same is true, or should be, for the different gender tournaments in tennis. We judge women vs women and men vs men. The winner gets the same prize.

Thommo wrote:Well, no we don't agree. The differences in physiology between the sexes do and should matter, the differences in physiology between 200m and 10,000m runners do not matter. Any man can enter a men's 200m race, any man cannot enter a women's 200m race. The situations are very plainly not the same. My criticism of TMB is not the same as yours - I do not claim as you have here that there are no differences between men and women that matter, I claim only that they don't determine remuneration (which is a lot more obvious and easier to substantiate). I don't play down the enormous performance gulf between men's athletics and women's athletics. I don't claim that men's sport is segregated - I explicitly deny that claim. I think TMB is conflating entry requirements with remuneration and I think you are as well, so whilst I think he's wrong I think he's wrong on different grounds than some of the ones you've stated, whether or not those accurately represent your view.

The point is that we have separate sports for different specialties and separate tournaments for genders, in order to minimise the physiological differences that would lead to a less meaningful competition. As I've already said, there are significant differences between sprinters and distance runners. We don't just set an arbitrary distance and let them all run to determine a winner.

We want to know who the best distance runner is, which even accounting for differences in height, stride length, etc etc, is still working within a different set of physiological parameters to the sprinter.

While I accept that you see more variety in the build of top flight tennis players, they will still have more physiologically in common with each other than with, say, a weight lifter.

Thommo wrote:We don't actually need to separate men's and women's events to allow women to participate, for example marathons don't. Men and women all run together. Women aren't prevented from participation if we don't ban men from entering their event - they just won't win, and unfortunately this will be true in most cases at all levels of the sport.

Yes, which brings me back to all the previous posts where I drawn attention to this fact and the reason why we want to have meaningful competition.

Thommo wrote:The 100m world records are not close. The gap of around 10% is enormous, the women's world record isn't even international standard let alone olympic standard when compared to the men's record.

I take your point about the difference (and indeed was expecting it), but in terms of viewing time, less than a second is nothing.
In terms of dedication and training, I doubt there is much (if any) difference between male and female athletes.
Therefore there is no reason for them be rewarded differently.

I can see where TMB is coming from with his view that because women's games are shorter, they should get a lesser prize.

Alternatively he could also not choose to ignore the amount of time and effort women spend training to be the best at tennis. A lifelong committment is the same regardless of sexes, even if the actual point of delivery is briefer. Besides, it is hardly cut and dried that the woman's game is unarguably more advantageous to women. How many men have won matches by clawing things back in the last 3 or 4 games? If that was women's tennis, they'd be out, never having had the opportunity to prove themselves within such a tight timeframe.

But all of that aside, the crux of the issue is that there are two differing physiologies and as I said many many pages ago, the whole point of equality is to recognise that people are different, accoodate those differences while at the same time trying to treat them as you would any other human being. Setting men up against women would clearly not be equality. Having women play exactly the same lengths of match as men, that might have more of a physical impact on the women than the men, so again unfair. It might also result in some really dull matches in the final few games.

Thommo wrote:And yes, we finally get to the point on which we probably agree - prize money can be set according to how interested people are in watching the event, the market can dictate remuneration without it being unfair.

Markets are not necessarily "fair" though. They are as subject to the influence of biases and prejudices as anything else. The market forces remuneration exists in the form of all the sponsorship, advertsing and other promotional work the athletes get.

tolman · **#591** by **tolman** » Oct 30, 2014 10:27 pm

Sendraks wrote:The existence of women's tournaments is clearly non-sexist, in the sense that TMB seems to think they are somehow discriminatory against men by offering similar rewards.

That doesn't make grammatical sense.

In any case, you're completely mixing up two entirely different things there - the existence of women's competitions, and what, if any, factors should be considered when it comes to prize money.

TMB doesn't seem to be saying there shouldn't be a women's competition at all.
If that was what he thought, he would seem unlikely to bother making comments about how the prizes should, in his opinion, be different.

Sendraks wrote:Now I don't have a metric for determining, with any accuracy, what a unit of "competition" equals. Until such time as such a unit exists, why should the value of a women's tournament be considered less competitive than a male tournament? Therefore, why should it be considered to be worth anything less in terms of a prize?

The bolded text does seem rather strange grammatically. Some kind of editing mistake?

TMB's justification for different prizes seem to be some combination of two self-funded competitions bringing in different amounts of money and the fact that the women have lower absolute competence in that they could not compete with men.

Personally, I don't see how the latter factor should make a extra difference if one is making an simple economic argument, nor why it should make any difference if competition incomes were equal.

Sendraks wrote:
tolman wrote:
Sendraks wrote:Yes, precisely. But there is no universal form of better, in that no one individual (of any sex) can excel in all athletic events. Differences in physiology and chosen specialism preclude against that.

Which is entirely irrelevant to a question of what two groups of people should or shouldn't get as prizes for competing in parallel versions of the same sport with the same rules.

But saying that is to overlook the reasons why we have the separate tournaments in the first place and why it is a nonsense for TMB to consider one to be "lesser" over the other.

No, it's making a point that it's pointless to point to the fact that there are lots of entirely different sports when the issue is about a single sport.

That it is hard to say 'who is better - this weightlifter or that javelin thrower' is not of relevance is someone asked "who is better - this tennis player or that tennis player'.

That you seem determined to stick to silly comparisons does tend to give the impression that you have no better argument, which I don't think is the case.

And if you suggest that with men's and women's tennis you effectively are talking about different sports, if anything that would suggest that there was no particular argument for equal prizes if there was meaningful disparity in income.

TMB has a perfect right to consider one group of players less good than another if one would not stand a chance of winning against the other.

Were, hypothetically, one at a point in past history where the best women snooker players were vastly less good than the best male players, it would not have been 'nonsense' to say they were less good as snooker players. or that it was not possible to compare them with the men. It clearly would be possible, the only real question is to what extent, if any, that comparison might be relevant.

Sendraks wrote:
tolman wrote:Are you being deliberately obtuse, or do you simply not understand English?

It is not about me being obtuse or not understanding English (the latter is a moronic statement and almost certainly intentionally inflammatory, given my understanding of English is patently very good). Indeed I strongly suspect that we are talking at cross purposes and I can only hope that our paths will eventually cross.

You seem determined to act as if other people are saying things that they haven't said.

Sendraks wrote:
tolman wrote:No-one is saying there shouldn't be different competitions.

My whole point is that there should be different competitions and why such different competitions have equal validity.

As I said, no one seems to be saying that there shouldn't be separate competitions.
You keep acting as if separate competitions was something you had to argue for, and which other people were too daft to understand when it simply isn't.

Sendraks wrote:At a fundamental level, it is about differences in physiology and minimising the impact those differences have in order to have meaningful competition. Hence mens' and womens' tournaments.

Again, who do you think you need to explain that to?

Sendraks wrote:Hence the different disciplines within athletics.

The different disciplines are not simply just to provide niches for particular body types, as could be seen by the number of disciplines which someone with a particular build could decide to compete in with realistic chances of success.

Sendraks wrote:There is no "absolute measure of performance" that justifies one competition as being more worthy than the other. What matters is the competition itself and whether it was, actually, competitive. Some of the least entertaining sports I've watched over the years have been those where one or two individuals have dominated a tournament to the exclusion of all else. Yes, they earned their prize money by winning, but it wasn't necessarily enjoyable to watch.

Well, I guess someone making a purely economic argument might say that for such a sport, if that was the consistent outcome, commercially-run competitions should end up getting the income they deserve.

TMB · **#592** by **TMB** » Oct 30, 2014 11:38 pm

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

Didn't work.

Yes it did.

Sendraks · **#593** by **Sendraks** » Oct 30, 2014 11:38 pm

tolman wrote:TMB doesn't seem to be saying there shouldn't be a women's competition at all.
If that was what he thought, he would seem unlikely to bother making comments about how the prizes should, in his opinion, be different.

Apologies in advance if my attempt to quote both you and TMB goes awry here.
TMB does seem to think that the existence of women's tournaments is inherently discriminatory against men, judging by his earlier comments in this thread. He claims not to mind women participating in sport, but then says:

TMB wrote:Only women compete with women and this is appropriate. How well does this argument stack up if we apply it to men, sauce for the gander is surely also sauce for the goose? Can we have businesses where men decide they will only give jobs to THEIR peers in terms of gender, so no women are allowed?

Regardless of the pay issue, he seems to think that there is some sort of bias in favour of women by dint of having separate tournaments and this should be replicated into the world of business so that men are allowed to discriminate. I don't know, maybe it is comments like this:

TMB wrote:The other obvious lack of logic was why someone in a peer group of less merit should get paid the same, and use the argument of sexism to justify this.

lead me to conclude that TMB thinks the very existence of female only sports somehow discriminates against men.

tolman wrote:The bolded text does seem rather strange grammatically. Some kind of editing mistake?

What I was trying to say was "why should a women's tournament be viewed as being any less competitive than a male tournament?" and suggesting that there was no unit measure of "competitive" by which we could rate one tournament against the other.

tolman wrote:TMB's justification for different prizes seem to be some combination of two self-funded competitions bringing in different amounts of money and the fact that the women have lower absolute competence in that they could not compete with men.

I don't have any problem with basis for TMB's argument on a purely mathematical level. Beyond that it is one dimensional and doesn't take into account other factors I've listed in post #590. In addition, the actual earnings made by Wimbledon have no bearing on the value they want to give the trophy. From an equality point of view, this makes sense. The women may earn less for the tournament, but that does not make them competitors of "less worth" than their male counterparts. Anymore than say, the janitor of a company has "less worth as a human being" than somone in middle management.

Personally, I don't see how the latter factor should make a extra difference if one is making an simple economic argument, nor why it should make any difference if competition incomes were equal.

tolman wrote:Which is entirely irrelevant to a question of what two groups of people should or shouldn't get as prizes for competing in parallel versions of the same sport with the same rules.

Except that TMB is saying that the physiological differences between genders means that women are worth "less" and therefore should be paid less. He sees women competitors as having lesser "worth" if his earlier posts are anything to go by.

But why should physiological differences between genders be the issue and not differences within gender? That is the point I'm trying to make.

tolman wrote:No, it's making a point that it's pointless to point to the fact that there are lots of entirely different sports when the issue is about a single sport.

Looking at TMB's earlier posts, that is clearly not the case.

TMB wrote:I have no issue with their being womens only sports and athletics, I have an issue when tennis players say they are victims of discrimination because they are not paid the same. I have no issues with female Olympians, but this is gender segregation based upon differences, and when it happens in other areas, women cry foul.

And that's not the only reference he makes to sports outside of tennis.

tolman wrote:That it is hard to say 'who is better - this weightlifter or that javelin thrower' is not of relevance is someone asked "who is better - this tennis player or that tennis player'.

Actually all you're saying in the first case is "which physiology is better, x or y" which in the case of TMB applying "worth" to the different genders in sport, amounts to the same thing.

Who should get paid more, 100m sprinters or 10000m runners? The physiologies are different and clearly the 10000m runners spend much longer competing than the 100m crowd do. Surely they must be worth more? Or is this simply a vast understatement of the amount of time and dedication each athelte devotes to the sport during their training? Never mind the fact that the physiological differences are usually inherent to the individual. Someone who is born a natural distance runner is never going to be able to compete with someone whose body lends itself naturally to developing the sort of muscle mass required for sprinting.

We accept that those individuals are different and should be allowed to compete differently and do not, in my experience up until Thommo's comment about sprinters, generally view one physiology as having greater or less worth than the other.

So why the arbitrary distinction, by TMB, that the female physiology is worth less than the male? It is a nonsense.

tolman wrote:You seem determined to act as if other people are saying things that they haven't said.

So you did not say that I simply do not understand English? Only I can see that quite clearly in the text you are quoting?
In what way am I acting as if you are saying something you did not say, when you clearly said it? Or are you referring to text other than the text you were quoting. At which point you'll have to forgive me for being massively confused.

tolman wrote:
You keep acting as if separate competitions was something you had to argue for, and which other people were too daft to understand when it simply isn't.

No, I'm arguing that the competitions should be considered equal. That is something TMB has an issue with.

tolman wrote:Again, who do you think you need to explain that to?

I got the impression a few posts ago that I wasn't being clear in my explanations. Now I am being clear and you're telling me the expalnation is unnecessary.

tolman wrote:The different disciplines are not simply just to provide niches for particular body types, as could be seen by the number of disciplines which someone with a particular build could decide to compete in with realistic chances of success.

Not sure what point you're making here. Yes there are multidisciplinary competitions. There are also very specialised competitions.

tolman wrote:Well, I guess someone making a purely economic argument might say that for such a sport, if that was the consistent outcome, commercially-run competitions should end up getting the income they deserve.

[/quote]

I agree. And if income decreases, there is usually an effort made to make the sport more competitive and more interesting for the viewer. Almost as if the people behind commercial tournaments want to make it so one individual cannot dominate a sport to such an extent that people lose interest.

tolman · **#594** by **tolman** » Oct 31, 2014 12:07 am

Sendraks wrote:Given how close the 100m times are for the fastest men and women (less than a second apart), is there really any argument that would justify the view that men should have a greater prize than women?

The tricky thing with that question is that it suggests that greater difference might in itself justify different prizes, otherwise why would the numerical extent of the difference be relevant?

If the extent of differences are supposed to be irrelevant when it is large, then they are also irrelevant when they are small.

Sendraks · **#595** by **Sendraks** » Oct 31, 2014 12:11 am

tolman wrote:The tricky thing with that question is that it suggests that greater difference might in itself justify different prizes, otherwise why would the numerical extent of the difference be relevant?

If the extent of differences are supposed to be irrelevant when it is large, then they are also irrelevant when they are small.

I completely agree.
The prize is for who is fastest in that race, not who is fastest in the world ever. Otherwise no man would've "won" the 100m sprint since 2009 and no woman since 1988.

tolman · **#596** by **tolman** » Oct 31, 2014 1:32 am

Sendraks wrote:Apologies in advance if my attempt to quote both you and TMB goes awry here.

It did.
As it went wrong in previous posts where you were quoting me from multiple posts with the wrong quote tags, and including text I wrote outside any quote tags.

Sendraks wrote:I don't have any problem with basis for TMB's argument on a purely mathematical level. Beyond that it is one dimensional and doesn't take into account other factors I've listed in post #590. In addition, the actual earnings made by Wimbledon have no bearing on the value they want to give the trophy.

I really find your use of language hard to follow here.
I'm not clear whether by 'value' you're talking about the prize money or something more abstract.
Equally, if the issue is one of what factors people making decisions might choose to look at, clearly they could choose to look at income. I certainly don't see them looking at it as being wrong in and of itself.

You could say that you don't think financial factors should be considered, but by the '...have no bearing...' you seem to be saying that there is no possible reason to look at them.

Sendraks wrote:From an equality point of view, this makes sense. The women may earn less for the tournament, but that does not make them competitors of "less worth" than their male counterparts.

Financially, it would. And the prizes are money.
The question where income is different is whether other factors might be considered to be sufficient to justify giving equal prizes regardless.

For most people, there would be a level of income disparity where they would find it hard to justify equal prizes rationally, and either wouldn't think they were justifiable, or they would fall back on appeals to a principle of equality in the face of a lack of anything better.
If, hypothetically, the women's game brought in £5m of the £50m income, very many people, even if they leant towards equality in general would find it tricky to say that the women's prizes should be the same £12.5m as the men's prizes if that effectively meant that the women were making a contribution to promoting and developing tennis of minus £7.5m.

Equally, there's a level of income similarity where few people would see a point in not having equal prizes.

Sendraks wrote:
tolman wrote:No, it's making a point that it's pointless to point to the fact that there are lots of entirely different sports when the issue is about a single sport.

Looking at TMB's earlier posts, that is clearly not the case.

TMB wrote:I have no issue with their being womens only sports and athletics, I have an issue when tennis players say they are victims of discrimination because they are not paid the same. I have no issues with female Olympians, but this is gender segregation based upon differences, and when it happens in other areas, women cry foul.

And that's not the only reference he makes to sports outside of tennis.

You seem to be having some comprehension issues here.
Firstly, you see he was saying he had no issues with there being women-only competitions even though not long ago you seemed to be suggesting he did, or that at least someone did.
Secondly, my comment about the issue being discussed here ('tennis') being a single sport stands.
When I talked of it being pointless to point to different sports I was referring to your strange references to athletics, etc, which have no real bearing on tennis.
That TMB earlier mentions sports in general is irrelevant - he didn't seem to be making silly references to them as justifying (or not) how position with regard to tennis.

And though I disagree with TMB regarding his opinion of the decision of the All England Club, he is pointing towards a relevant point - that at the very least if someone is making a claim of discrimination, they are making an assertion that what they do is of equal value, and if they make that assertion, it would be interesting whether there were arguments presented, or just assertions of obviouslness or the overriding applicability of a principle.

Now, personally, I'm wary of asserted principles, whether they come from TWB or you or anyone else.
So what would the arguments for 'equal value' be?

That how hard someone tries is important (if so, do the people knocked out in early rounds just not try hard enough?)
That it's not possible to compare what women do with what men do, or that it's not fair to do that?
That the product just is of equal value (which points back to economics again).

One could certainly consider that perceptions of equality and human value and sportsmanship, etc could/should take precedence over different value, or the issue of whether value actually is equal.
Personally, I have no issue with the people in charge making that call and going for equal prizes, but equally, I see no overwhelming reason why they could not have ethically decided differently, assuming they were at least going to give reasons.

Sendraks wrote:Who should get paid more, 100m sprinters or 10000m runners?

Outside state-funded competitions, whoever can get paid more.

Sendraks wrote:So why the arbitrary distinction, by TMB, that the female physiology is worth less than the male? It is a nonsense.

Why ask me?

Sendraks wrote:
tolman wrote:
You keep acting as if separate competitions was something you had to argue for, and which other people were too daft to understand when it simply isn't.

No, I'm arguing that the competitions should be considered equal. That is something TMB has an issue with.

So why keep raising the issue of their existing in the first place as if it was questioned?

Sendraks wrote:
tolman wrote:The different disciplines are not simply just to provide niches for particular body types, as could be seen by the number of disciplines which someone with a particular build could decide to compete in with realistic chances of success.

Not sure what point you're making here. Yes there are multidisciplinary competitions. There are also very specialised competitions.

Again you seem to be accidentally or otherwise failing to get the point.
You're a waste of my time.
Goodbye.

Sendraks · **#597** by **Sendraks** » Oct 31, 2014 9:21 am

Tolman - it is clear that you cannot follow what I am saying. I don't know why. You seem all too willing to draw the wrong conclusions from my text for reasons I cannot fathom.

I have expended more time and energy than you deserve trying to bring clarity on this matter.

Rachel Bronwyn · **#598** by **Rachel Bronwyn** » Oct 31, 2014 9:23 am

This fucking thread.

Nicko · **#599** by **Nicko** » Oct 31, 2014 10:10 am

Thommo wrote:And again, you're being deliberately rude in your answer here, giving the impression this is more about defending your ego than having a constructive conversation.

Thommo · **#600** by **Thommo** » Oct 31, 2014 5:00 pm

Nicko wrote:
Thommo wrote:And again, you're being deliberately rude in your answer here, giving the impression this is more about defending your ego than having a constructive conversation.

I have, in the past been overly sensitive, sometimes perceiving slight where it wasn't intended. I've resolved to try and improve my disposition, so I'm attempting to resort to airing my grievance in a direct manner in the hope it will be constructive, rather than sniping back and risking escalation. A side effect may be pointing out the obvious.

Nonetheless I don't think Sendraks is actually aware how unreasonable he's being, if backed into a corner he will undoubtedly continue with the same tack. If some volume of people politely confront him with how he comes across to others it is at least possible he will hear what they are saying.

Over the years a lot of people have commented about the hostility of Ratskep, and in the past I was reluctant to agree, but I've changed my mind. We have a tone that was dictated years ago by a couple of prominent members, and that tone is extremely hostile. One only needs to see how popular Fisking is here compared to other internet discussion fora to see how far this imitation has spread.

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