A brave and beautiful new world.
One thing I learned having a daughter that surfed was, until a certain age, there wasn’t much that separated the sexes.
Girls, although wildly outnumbered, regularly won contests and demonstrated the same stratospheric improvement in skills groms get from long days spent in the ocean, free of the need to work or tend to kids etc.
Then, around twelve, the girls split into their div and the boys into theirs. And, what happened when the genders were divided was the boys continue to improve, due, largely, to the volume of boys surfing.
Meaning if there’s fifty boys in the boardriders club, a few of ‘em are going to be preternaturally talent, whereas if there’s six or eight girls, it’s way less likely.
Ergo, competition brings out the skill, not a little extra muscle and weight.
If Stephanie Gilmore had gone through the men’s system, boys junior events, the men’s qualifying series, you think she wouldn’t be a level above even what she is now?
Anyway, I ain’t sure about other sports, MMA, boxing, swimming, football and so on, muscle and power count for everything there, but The Atlantic’s Maggie Mertens argues we gotta smash the gender binary in her (guessing the pronoun here) story, “Separating Sports by Sex Doesn’t Make Sense”.
“Gen Zers are more likely than members of previous generations to reject a strict gender binary altogether,” she writes. “Maintaining this binary in youth sports reinforces the idea that boys are inherently bigger, faster, and stronger than girls in a competitive setting—a notion that’s been challenged by scientists for years.”
And,
“Though sex differences in sports show advantages for men, researchers today still don’t know how much of this to attribute to biological difference versus the lack of support provided to women athletes to reach their highest potential.”
Where do you stand?
Binary, non-binary or do you, like I, enjoy any kind of sugar in your bowl?
