Should men and women compete together in sports?

Question

"such a competition will be unfair for women!"
'Its not fair - men would win'?

"men are just scared, scared a woman will defeat them so they're not allowing it"
ggd... ssdian.... sdjoidhn... [sorry folks I'm just too darn scared to type properly...]
Just kidding. Great answer : )

Answer 1

I dont' think it has anything to do with sex. It has to do with size and strength. Remember the female boxer that beat the male boxer in WA or OR (can't remember which). They were in the same weight class and she knocked him out. I am a 5'7" 150 lb woman. and very strong. I can kick the butts of men my size and smaller - and some even bigger. My BF who is 5'10" and 175 can't pin me and he benches his weight. So you see, it has nothing to do with sex (although lb for lb most men are a little stronger than women), it is size. So yes, I think both sexes should compete together as long as their relative sizes are similar - I wouldn't want any men out there getting hurt.

Answer 2

In response to some people, I do not think the issue is that men, in general, are afraid of competing with/losing to women.

In my opinion, it is mainly a matter of male bodies tending to have more muscle mass than women (when we are talking about physically intensive sports). Something similar is the distinction between weight categories in boxing - so it is an even match. However, I wonder if it would still be a fair match if a 126lb male were boxing a 126lb female? Perhaps there is a biological or otherwise objective way to determine that to be a fair match?

There really isn't a good argument against men competing with women in sports such as golf, archery, and the like. We might run into differing opinions labeling what sports wouldn't be a good idea...maybe tennis, for example?

All in all, I fully support opportunity - if a woman wants to play football, she should be able to try-out like everyone else. It's a conscious decision. She knows what she's getting into, so if she ends up being crushed to pieces on the field, so be it. Yay America! But really, I'm serious about that.

I'm a 23 y/o girl, if anyone cares.

Answer 3

This is not a question of who is better or anyone being afraid of being shown up by a woman. This is a question of personal safety. Normally, a man is larger and stronger than a woman and therefore, in the heat of athletic competition, the woman could very well be hurt physically and seriously.

Why do you think that in boxing and wrestling and many contact sports like football (where heavy large linemen are offset by the same sized men on the other team), that there are weight groups that competitors must fit into to insure fair competition AND to make sure that no one has the built in capability of hurting an opponent physically ?

In non-contact sports, there is no reason for men and women not to be able to compete together, but when it comes to hard physical contact, men and women should compete separately. In most contact sports it is all about strength and size as well as talent, but physical advantage will be dangerous to mismatched women OR men.

Answer 4

You're talking about the exceptional few. In general, women do not match up with men physically. That, is a fact, and it alone is sufficient to drop the idea altogether. When you're talking about sports that do not require physical finesse like billiards or car racing then yes, I don't see a problem in that but in general, its unrealistic to expect every woman to compete against men in all sports. In contact sports, if the skinny little guy gets manhandled by his opponent, he has no cause for complaint and nobody would say anything. But if a woman gets manhandled, how does this scenario play out? If a woman is deliberately harassed by a male opponent during the game what then? If she accuses a male opponent of sexual harassment during the game, which he might not be guilty of, how can he prove his innocence? One's word against another. Even players who are racially abused have a hard time proving their case. Women and men do not compete in sports together because of 1 differences in physical potential 2 moral implication. Separating men and women for sports in general avoids these foreseeable problems and allow the athletes to focus on the competition without distraction. I think you've overplayed the notion on sexual equality on this one, cause its a decision made based on the grounds of practicality and sexual equity has nothing to do with it.

Answer 5

It's hard to say, In contact sports such as football I would say no. In a sport like basketball I think they could compete. although it does put the men at a disadvantage. Most men dont want to hurt a girl by being too aggressive. For Example, when playing basketball elbows tend to fly, sometimes intentionally, which is part of the game in order to establish yourself on the court. Now if I was playing a girl and cracked her with an elbow and busted her nose, everyone would want my head on a platter.

In college, I played co-rec flag football and I always want to win, so I play hard. Well a girl had the ball and I come running full speed at her to get her flag and she stops short and I run right into her and she gets banged up and now I'm a bad guy b/c Im playing too rough. I didn't mean to do it and I guy would have just shrugged it off.

So I think for guys it is a lose/lose situation to have girls play MOST sports with them. Some sports are fine though, volleyball, baseball, golf etc

Answer 6

The Dutch have a form of basketball in which blocking is not permitted and each team must have the same numbers of men and women. In Australia another form of basketball called netball is increasingly being played by mixed teams.

But if it is man against woman, the man will usually win. Obviously the top female seeds at Wimbledon are going to defeat male club players in tennis through greater skill and a fair bit of power, but they might have trouble with contenders for state or provincial championships.

It all depends on the sport and what you mean by "compete together".

Answer 7

What reason? Someone would have to tell me what is wrong with the current way things are done and how desegregating ALL sports will make it any better. I don't see why... women can already play any sport they want to. If it's just for the sake of making a statement that women and men are equal....well thats just pointlessly pathetic.

Being equal doesn't mean we can do everything equally. No two humans, regardless of gender, race or nationality can do everything equally. Sure Serena could beat a few top guys but what will that prove? One of my friends is a black belt and she can break my back in a second, what does that prove?
Guys on average are physically stronger than women. If you think thats sexist then blame mother nature. Suppose a sports requires the best speed, stamina and physical strength, such as football, sprinting, boxing. If players should be chosen based solely on those criteria, most women will be sidelined. It has nothing to do with chauvinism. I am 5' 11" and I know if my basketball coach has choice between me or shaquille O'neal, he probably forget my name.

I don't think having a women's league, makes it any inferior to men's. As far as I'm concerned women are not inferior and every sensible human knows that. Making women and men compete together is just a pointless statement.

Answer 8

If women want to play sports with men thats all fine and dandy, but she has to be able to take a hit like a man can if it's a physical sport. It would cause a lot of problems though because people would complain about coaches not choosing teams fairly. Just this year we had speculation as to whether coaches were being chosen fairly between blacks and whites and it's been almost 40 years since we were considered equal. So good luck women i dont see it happening in the near future.

Answer 9

Fair Game Women Are More Grace full In Gymnastics Sometimes Bigger Then Men In Rugby But Be This May It Is Better Too Split Them Apart Men Are More Physically Built For Competition And If A Mixed Gender Sport appeared would a man not be frowned apron for knocking a Females teeth out would a man not be frowned apon for touching a girls chest in soccer/football how else are they going to be pushed of

Answer 10

As long as the rules are consistent, I have no objection. Long ago, after I stopped high school wrestling, I heard about some programs that were accepting females, but changing the rules for them - You can touch HERE, but not THERE, and so on. Freestyle wrestling that doesn't permit contact at the chest and groin is not the same sport! In a case like that, it isn't fair, because the rules are not uniform - If they cannot be kept uniform, there is no point in pretending it's fair. We'll have to accept that females will be under-represented in some strength-based sports, because many are at a disadvantage in upper body strength, but those who can measure up should be accepted onto the teams.

Answer 11

I absolutely love watching women's soccer and can't stand men's soccer. But I'm not fooled for a second that if it came to winning a ball in the air, Beckham would probably beat Mia. Just like I'm a fan of the WNBA's Sue Bird and the NBA's Jason Kidd though while they play identical positions in largely the same way, Kidd would get the best of Bird hands down. It's not a knock on women's sports, it's just actual difference in physical abilities, not necessarily skill level.