BTW any comment about a woman’s tampon during a sporting event is right out of order. If men had to put up with bleeding every month out of their penis you are damn sure we would all know about it. Instead they get on with it and try and put in your best performance despite having a hormonal imbalance and losing a key part of their oxygen supply mechanism.

Time of the month? 😉

i’m struggling to think of a single sport where the top level ladies can beat the top level men. but i’m happy to be corrected… genuinely

Showjumping

scotroutes – Member

i’m struggling to think of a single sport where the top level ladies can beat the top level men. but i’m happy to be corrected… genuinely

Showjumping[/quote]

i’m happy now

manton69 – Member
This wins the prize for the most backward thread of the day. The amount of sexism and anti disability content is surprising.

Sport is about competing against others and yourself. If you enjoy watching it then great, but nobody forced you to. Women’s sport is just as competitive as the mens equivalent. Expecting them to be at the same physical level is just wrong as the women are not competing against the men. Just because you don’t like it does not mean that it should not exist, or is a waste of time.

BTW any comment about a woman’s tampon during a sporting event is right out of order. If men had to put up with bleeding every month out of their penis you are damn sure we would all know about it. Instead they get on with it and try and put in your best performance despite having a hormonal imbalance and losing a key part of their oxygen supply mechanism.

no one’s saying it’s a waste of time, just that it’s not as good as watching the men

and erm… you brought periods up, so, you know, we damn well know about it now

Ramsey Neil – Member

So by that reasoning you wouldn’t have watched any of the great middleweight boxing contests because the best heavyweight could have beaten them.

oooo you’ve picked a hole in my argument there… 🙄

no one’s saying it’s a waste of time, just that it’s not as good as watching the men

Completly agree, but according to the sexist poluce of STW if you don’t enjoy watching women’s sport as much as men’s your a sexist ? Glad that’s sorted then 🙄

For me it’s more about how evenly matched things are. Men’s sport is boring when it’s a completely one sided affair.

I think the problem with women’s sport is that they generally lack strength in depth so this is more likely. The more women who can be encouraged to participate, the better things will be.

The olympic womens road race was one of the most exciting finishes to a race I’ve ever seen.

I think the problem with women’s sport is that they generally lack strength in depth

Agree with this, there are some great womens MMA matches but the depth is lacking in the weight classes, so outside a few great individuals you land up with big miss matches, that will hopefully change over time though

Venus Williams is having a shocker!

They just need to focus on more appropriate sports, jelly wrestling, beach volleyball, speed ironing, endurance breastfeeding, 5a side chit chat, that kind of thing

Olympic moaning

and erm… you brought periods up, so, you know, we damn well know about it now

Actually it wasn’t, Teamhurtmore piped up with that on the previous page.

Ah, yet another thread demonstrating that most contributors to threads on STW are grade one a’holes.

Agreed – go have a word with yourselves, eh? Some of the attitudes on display here are utterly pathetic.

A portrait of the average contributor to this thread:

Because you have a differing opinion to someone else it make you an a hole… ok

I’m right though 😉

Two words:

Eugenie Bouchard.

Wouldn’t mind playing some mixed doubles with her.

<Sid James laugh>

😀

Nah women have just arrived late to a party thats over. Its not womans sport that is the problem.

Sport is dead.

Mens doubles final, five set thriller on court for over 4 and 1/2 hours.

Women doubles final, 2 sets on court for 50 minutes.

Outrageous that they get paid the same for a vastly interior product. Equality should mean just that, they should play 5sets like the men for equal pay.

I wonder what it is you want from Women’s Sport?

Do you want them to be more glamorous, heels and makeup, nails done maybe and low cut tops?
Do you want them more sexualised? Maybe that would keep the interest.

It’s not like Women’s Tennis hasn’t been around for a while, gone through all the criticism for being boring and dull and not as physically demanding as the Men’s game is it. Nooooo, like never… maybe this time every year perhaps?
Probably.

Women’s anything has been challenged, is constantly challenged, for being different to Men’s anything

It’s odd that today, with all our education and information available, gender training in the workplace, schools promoting skills rather than Sex, that Women’s rights to “equal” Men’s keep popping up again and again.

You’d think the message would have gotten through by now, it seems it’s either missed it’s target audience or the message is corrupted.

Back to the Game, quite where the grunts came from and the fashion to follow the trend I’ve no idea, there are initiatives in place to calm the grunt and it’s working to some extent but clearly for the hard of thinking it’s not enough. Most TV sets these days come with volume controls, we could try that I suppose.
Equal Sets for Equal Pay has been, and will be, constantly brought up. But the Game isn’t some production piece work line.
The Pay initiative is there because the training and physical effort, medical and physical needs are the same, hotels and support networks are the same as Men’s as they are for Women’s Tours.

I like playing Tennis, not a huge fan of watching it. I’ve been to Wimbledon twice and found myself walking amongst the warm up or lower ranked games out back, leaving the big games to those that want to either be seen on TV or say “I was there when..”

This thread makes me sad.

This bit of the thread made me laugh…

NExt time try pulling it, see what she says…

But, like, don’t do that, kids!

So women can fight in front line combat roles in the army, but can’t play 5 sets of tennis like the men. ? Where’s the equity in that.

Treat everyone the same, No gender weighting.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/sep/07/paralympic-stars-earning-potential-soar

Even more outrageous! I mean, they don’t even use their own limbs.

Back to the Game, quite where the grunts came from and the fashion to follow the trend I’ve no idea, there are initiatives in place to calm the grunt and it’s working to some extent but clearly for the hard of thinking it’s not enough. Most TV sets these days come with volume controls, we could try that I suppose.

American Teenagers apparently. First noted in the late 50s or early 60s. Victoria Heinicke (nee Palmer) was noted for her grunting as she served.
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2011/09/tennis_an_aural_history.html

I remember Tracy Austin as a 15 year old used to make quite a lot of noise on court. I also remember when Navratilova openly complained about Monica Seles’ grunting.

Do you want them to be more glamorous, heels and makeup, nails done maybe and low cut tops?
Do you want them more sexualised? Maybe that would keep the interest.

Quite the opposite: One of the things that annoys me about the Williams sisters is that they seem to treat the court as a fashion show, almost as much as a sporting challenge.

That aside: I agree that women should play 5 sets, they should have equal prize money, and they should have parity in coverage. I can’t believe we are still discussing this in 2017.

It’s not just tennis, though: Women’s road cycling features shorter races, which leads me to wonder what evidence they are using to justify reducing the length of time women are allowed to compete for. Does it simply come down to the fact that they don’t think audiences are interested enough to stay for the full duration?

Having said that: Women race over exactly the same triathlon and Ironman courses as the men.

Bikebouy – a long espousal of women’s equal rights then an attempt to airily dismiss women’s equal responsibilites with:

But the Game isn’t some production piece work line.

just doesn’t cut the mustard.

I guess one of the challenges for women’s tennis is that few would be able to sustain a 5 set match. That would bring us back to the lack of depth in the field.

Having said that, a look at the WTA rankings suggests that it’s much more open than the men’s at present. Look at how many of the top 10/20 women have been #1 at some point.

Women should play 5 sets, race over the same distances etc. Its a no-brainer.

Also women could do 5 sets. No doubt in my mind.

bikebouy – Member

I wonder what it is you want from Women’s Sport?

Do you want them to be more glamorous, heels and makeup, nails done maybe and low cut tops?
Do you want them more sexualised? Maybe that would keep the interest.

It’s not like Women’s Tennis hasn’t been around for a while, gone through all the criticism for being boring and dull and not as physically demanding as the Men’s game is it. Nooooo, like never… maybe this time every year perhaps?
Probably.

Women’s anything has been challenged, is constantly challenged, for being different to Men’s anything

It’s odd that today, with all our education and information available, gender training in the workplace, schools promoting skills rather than Sex, that Women’s rights to “equal” Men’s keep popping up again and again.

You’d think the message would have gotten through by now, it seems it’s either missed it’s target audience or the message is corrupted.

Exactly. The problem with women’s sport, similarly men’s sport is that they exist. All they do is suppress gender fluidity and perpetuate the cis gender, binary white male patriarchy. Gender is a choice, not a biological straight jacket, ergo people should be free to compete in sport as expressions of themselves not some faux societal gender construct. The emphasis on winning should be removed as this is a prime example of machismo braggadocio – a symptom of the toxic masculinity, and moreover the conceptual penis as a social construct, which infects our society and destroys our ability to express our non binary selves. Sports where strength and speed matter should be banned, since men are only faster and stronger through societal conditioning as a result of the conceptual isomorphism of the penis.

Where strength and speed cannot be completely eliminated hormone balancing should be mandatory so that the societal advantages given to boys are neutralised with exogenous female hormones, and vice versa. The obvious neccessity of these measures can be seen in phrases regarding toxic hypermasculine competitiveness like “pissing contest,” in which winners are determined by which hypermasculine person is able to project a stream of urine the furthest, often from a height, and “dick-measuring contest,” which needs no elaboration to unveil the direct impact of performative machismo braggadocio competitiveness which leads directly to the ugliest expressions of the human experience such as rape, murder, global capitalism and war.

What’s the issue – at SW19 the pay for women and men is the same. Why? Because they can get the same bums on seats to watch the matches.

Step away from majors and what are the relative spectators numbers and why? Hence the pay differential. It’s not rocket science. Prize money depends on the numbers you attract to watch and sponsorship. It’s not a charity.

As I said above, I often prefer watching ladies sport because it is close to the game that I play/aspire to play to. Would I pay the same, sometimes yes. Are the rest of the crowds at ladies’events big. No, not always. Simple isn’t it…?

Jimjam – 🙂

Oh come on, JimJam deserves more than that ^^^^^.
I mean, if there were prize money for making people laugh on internet forums, he’d be a millionaire.
I’ve not got a single uncracked rib left after his hilarious post.
What a guy!!!

Neither men’s finalist given any lovely flowers. What’s going on?

First blood Rog

Well the men have certainly earned their money since the semis. TEN hugely entertaining sets of tennis over the last three games. Good on them.

Half the people on this thread will be upset about Dr Who! Just will not be worth watching for them! (Of course half means a few)

Half the people on this thread will be upset about Dr Who

The 10 year olds?

^^ mentality you mean …. then yes

The problem with women’s tennis isn’t that they’re women, it’s the Williams sisters. Meant in the nicest possible way – when you get a dominant player or two who can batter their opponent off the court, it makes for rubbish games. See Sampras etc. Men’s tennis is better now because of Federer and Murray. They play in a way that’s better to watch. It’ll change in time, these things always do.

Konta’s games were cracking to watch. I’d rather watch her than Djokovich any day.

I tend to agree. But with the odd exception as a spectator I feel the same about most women’s sport. It’s a bit if an Elephant in the room but that’s how I feel

The elephant in the room is WHY women’s sport is not as good.

Why are women rugby players amateurs?
Why are there so few women rugby players?
Why is there no women’s Tour de France of any consequence?

etc etc.

It’s because of latent sexist attitudes in society that see women’s sport as inferior. People don’t watch it because it’s not on, it’s not billed the same, standards are lower because there’s less money in it because it’s not on and it’s not watched as much. Little girls have to struggle to find sporting role models and to compete in high quality competitions. You don’t see little boys short of sporting role models do you?

Sports organisers need to put the events on, telly companies need to show them – to lead the assault on a particularly sexist area of society. They are doing it pretty well with Paralympic sport – C4 are quite rightly making a big deal out of it and now many para athletes are household names. They may not be as fast running on prosthetic legs but that doesn’t really matter when they are racing each other does it?

Women’s rugby is worse because it’s amateur.

I really like Womens tennis, mostly because it isn’t so serve dominated, I do find it great to watch.

It’s because of latent sexist attitudes in society that see women’s sport as inferior. People don’t watch it because it’s not on, it’s not billed the same, standards are lower because there’s less money in it because it’s not on and it’s not watched as much. Little girls have to struggle to find sporting role models and to compete in high quality competitions. You don’t see little boys short of sporting role models do you?

However I can’t say I agree that this is why women are not “as good” as men. Look at how spectacular the mens DH is, whilst I like to watch Rach, Miriam and Tahnee but they just are not as good or as spectacular as the men, and I think the reason is obvious, men are on average bigger and stronger than women. It is a fact of nature. Yes there are outliers where there are some incredibly big strong women, but in a “competition” throughout history, men will on average be bigger and stronger. This may change too, but right now that’s the facts of life.
The most important thing about this is that it is mostly irrelevant. It is awesome to see the best women competing against the best women and the best men against the best men, but men vs women is pointless.
However using molgrips reasoning it is valid to say why womens sport is not as popular as mens, I would agree that society is mostly to blame for that. I say we should all make a point of asking to see more womens sport, I like it, it’s good for society and good for equality.

EDIT-Just read jimjams, he said what I wanted to. My post can be safely ignored even more than it was going to be.