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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35350 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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The triumph of the blank slate

an article in the Atlantic recently made the case that separating sport by sex doesn’t make sense, because it ‘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.’

On a similar theme, a few weeks back the New York Times ran a piece arguing that ‘maternal instinct is a myth that men created’. In the essay, published in the world’s most influential newspaper, it was stated that ‘The notion that the selflessness and tenderness babies require is uniquely ingrained in the biology of women, ready to go at the flip of a switch, is a relatively modern — and pernicious — one. It was constructed over decades by men selling an image of what a mother should be, diverting our attention from what she actually is and calling it science.’

Just recently, Scientific American stated that ‘Before the late 18th century, Western science recognized only one sex — the male — and considered the female body an inferior version of it. The shift historians call the “two-sex model” served mainly to reinforce gender and racial divisions by tying social status to the body.’

Yet what is strange is that such ideas are triumphant, even as the scientific evidence against them mounts up, with the expanding understanding of genetics and the role of inheritance. The tabula rasa should by all rights be dead, indeed it should have been killed twenty years ago with the publication of one of the most important books of the century so far, Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate.

Rather than blank slate-led ideas falling to mockery and obscurity, the opposite has happened — they’ve proliferated and spread. Pinker was obviously right, yet seems to have lost.

i recently was in a seminar discussing fixed versus growth mindsets, and it was argued that believing in any innate/genetic component of intelligence was connected to a 'fixed' mindset. we were discouraged from using the idea of 'talent' as it implied that some people were just naturally better at some things than others. it seems like a core part of the 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' mantra that is finding its way everywhere - the idea of innate difference is anathema to the principle behind caring about equity versus equality.

There's so much that's wrong about these sorts of claims regarding gender parity in sports, but something that I feel usually goes unmentioned is just how belittling and condescending it is to female athletes. The sport that I have the most personal experience with is running, so I'll focus there for this point. Running happens to be a sport where there are smaller gaps between men and women than sports that rely more on size and strength, but there remains a persistent 10-12% difference in speed at every single distance (see world records here if you're curious)). Less statistically provable, I see the same sort of differences pop up at pretty much every level of the sport, including my mediocre hobbyist level (e.g., I can run 20K in 1:18, women with similar weekly mileage, similar physical build, and similar apparent fitness run roughly 1:26-1:26).

So, what's it saying about women to say that the difference is culturally constructed? Well, it must be saying that their training is, in some way, inferior. That when a Kenyan woman blazes an incredible 2:20 marathon and wins the female side of competition, the reason she's so much slower than the men is that she wasn't supported enough or didn't work hard enough or didn't eat right. That seems false, since the men and women do exactly the same thing. Or that in the 20K mentioned above, when I finish like 20th in a local race, but ran by the second-place woman in the last couple miles, she just wasn't pushed hard enough to succeed, or didn't train right. That's even more wrong though - I know her, I know she ran in high school and college (I didn't start running till my mid-20s and have never had a coach) and know that she runs more miles than I do.

This mentality that physical differences between genders are constructed strips these women of the respect they deserve. When I narrowly beat a female runner, I know that she's a better runner than me. I know that she's likely more talented than me, has likely outworked me, and that every bit of speed gain she gets is harder to come by than my testosterone-fueled improvement. The perspective that the reason I'm faster is because of culture rather than biology denies her the respect that she deserves for her hard work, instead making her an object of pity, insisting that if it weren't for some ephemeral oppression, she'd be just as fastest as the boys.

I hate it.

I hate it too for the same reasons, and I appreciate men who are willing to support female athletes and not patronize them.

Anyone remember the Battle of the Sexes? Serena Williams, and I think Venus too played far lower ranked male tennis players - and lost decisively.

What would those who deny biology matters have to say about that? She just lacked equal opportunities to men? Not if you know her history. Come on, she was once the Number 1 ranked woman in the world. That she just doesn't try her best? Please.

Martina Navratalova has been very outspoken on these issues as well. Exceptional female athletes with loads of experience are speaking, but non-athletes with agendas just plain aren't listening.

Women's sports ought to be thought of not as a lesser version of men's sports, but as similar yet different sports in their own right. In women's sports rules and uniforms and equipment,etc. are all designed around women's bodies, just as men's are for their own sport. That's as it should be.

I give Curling as an example of a sport I prefer to watch the women's game than the men's. There's a distinct difference, in that the men throw much harder, and as such there tends to be less rocks in play, which makes the women's game more exciting.

I'm just getting into it, but I get the feeling Disc Golf is the same way...that the best men in the world can overpower the courses in a way the women can't, and as such, the women's game is more enjoyable for people to watch. Similar to what I've heard some people say about Tennis, where the power of the men actually hinders the enjoyment.

Coincidentally now that you mention it, the other day Quillette published an article about the controversy surrounding trans women competing in female disc golf events.

https://quillette.com/2022/09/28/is-this-the-lia-thomas-of-disc-golf/

I feel similarly about ultimate Frisbee, which I think has a similar phenomenon as tennis. At the top levels, most male players can throw the full length of the field, and there's more room for error in bad throws due to higher acceleration, jumping height, and top speed, which results what I would consider mostly boring points where whichever team starts with the disc scores without trouble the majority of the time. But even at the top levels, there's only a handful of women in the world who can consistently throw the full length of the field, and the greater likelihood of a turnover from bad throws means there's much more volatility in every point, with possession changes being much more common.

"WNBA players are better at the fundamentals." From what I've heard, this is actually true, and I think for the same reasons you mention with curling and disc golf. If you are a young basketball player trying to learn those fundamentals, the WNBA is better to watch. For entertainment purposes...well, the NBA has a much larger market.

I'm not a basketball fan, I know very little of the strategy of the game. I go to the occasional NBA game because it's fun to watch superhumans fly.

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