This is an interesting opinion post about the gender split in sports, as well as the pay gap in sports. This raises the question that if it’s about about physical performance, then why aren’t sports just divided by physical performance?
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The gender divide in sports exists for sound MEDICAL reasons. There are significant differences between the skeletons and musculature of those who have been through a male puberty and those who have not. This is the reason for the current protests against trans-women as athletes – they possess an unfair biological advantage that in certain sports can put their fellow competitors at risk of injury. This difference has recently been confirmed beyond all doubt by a meta-analysis of the scientific literature on the subject – so it’s not even a debatable point, regardless of what those of a certain political persuasion might like to claim.
As to why there’s a pay gap – that’s not all down to male sexism by any means. Ask yourselves, women – when you watch sports, whom do you watch more? The male sports, or the female? We all know the answer – overwhelmingly the male, because most women are heterosexual and male sports performers are very sexually attractive to a lot of straight women. So YOU heavily weight viewership towards male sports – which increases its market share, making advertising more attractive during male sports, raising the price of said advertising and encouraging sponsorship thereof.
Heterosexual men are nowhere near so attracted to sportswomen as heterosexual women are to sportsmen – and there’s a biological imperative to that. Sportswomen compromise their fertility in order to compete, whereas men increase it. And yes, that’s a medical fact – sportswomen often lose their menses entirely while competing due to their high testosterone levels and low body fat (body fat produces a surprisingly large amount of oestrogen – hence man-boobs). Men on the other hand become hyper-fertile as athletes, due to the same increase in testosterone and decrease in oestrogen levels through loss of body fat. So men are less attracted, as they subconsciously recognise lower fertility in the potential mate and reject it; and women are more attracted, as they recognise optimum fertility and are drawn to it.
As a result, male sports have a far higher viewership, and thus a far higher revenue pool – which means a far higher paycheck for the men in the sports industry than the women. It’s not a function of sexism – it’s a function of economics driven by a biological imperative possessing strong sexual dimorphism. Is it unfair to women athletes, in relation to the amount of work they put in? Sure is. But since when did biology have to be fair?
Way to prove the point.
A commenter’s personal illiteracy in the science, doesn’t negate the science.
Everything these commenters have said is the drivel of politics, absent the least evidence to prove the things they’re claiming. It’s misandric garbage, and it’s shot down in flames by every study that has ever looked at the actual facts.
Try looking up the actual science sometime – and when you do, have the humility to accept what you read, and leave your politics at the door. If you honestly face the science, then you’ll very quickly realise that the political stance expressed by all of these people is flat-out, factually wrong on every point.
Serena Wiliams was not disproportionately tested during her career. She was randomly selected for testing by a computer program, just like all other athletes. Professional sports bodies stopped allowing human selection of who gets tested ages ago, precisely to remove the risk of targeting. If the program flagged her for re-testing more often than others, it would be because there was something questionable in her results – that subsequent re-testing then cleared up, hence why she was never banned.
Women overwhelmingly watch more male athletic events than female ones, even when freely offered an equal choice. So they’re a party to the diminished returns of women athletes, due to their part in diminishing advertising revenues from female sports coverage. Less revenue coming in, means less prize money and sponsorships going out – simple as that.
Women athletes are on average no less dramatic hams than men are. They seldom express it by faking serious injury, perhaps; but they have plenty of other ways of producing drama on the field.
Women are biologically shorter than men and less able to put on muscle bulk, so a woman weightlifter over 250 lbs is an abnormality – which is the real reason they don’t get sponsored. Usually, the abnormality is down to over-expression of growth hormone, an intersex condition or steroid use – all of which disqualify an athlete from competition. So no, it’s not sexism.
Separation of men and women in athletic sports is not about male projection. It’s a matter of scientific fact that women have lighter frames and less muscle bulk than men, as well as a smaller physical size. Sexual dimorphism is real, and it’s consequential. Which makes pairing a woman with a male competitor on the whole unfair, and also physically dangerous in most cases. The separation of the sexes beyond that – in sports that are not directly athletic, such as shooting or competitive chess – is an extension of that behaviour conducted mostly for simplicity, and it’s unnecessary.
The separation of sexes in athletic sports is tantamount to a separation by weight class amongst a single sex. Because even at the same weight, a male athlete will have denser bones and more brute power than a woman. Testosterone is a hell of drug, where summoning physical power is concerned – hence why anabolic steroid use occurs in the first place, and why it’s banned. Long-term testosterone and a male puberty also build a stronger skeleton, to accommodate for safe application of that increase in physical power. So no, a mere separation by weight class is not sufficient – the science shows us that you need to separate by sex as well.
It would be nice if, all things being equal, equal revenue naturally fell out to athletes of whatever gender. But the rules of economics mean that where there’s unequal interest, there’s unequal earnings. It would be nice if there were no biological advantage to a trans-woman athlete in competitive terms. But the science shows us that it’s just not true. And sexism has nothing to do with either of those things. Reality doesn’t care about our feelings; and it cares even less about our politics.
Its unfortunate there isn’t a downvote button here. This is a hot take… a hot garbage take. Steaming hot garbage. Not only is it dripping with lies about trans athletes but by this argument, most male sports fans are actually (secretly?) queer. They must be since the overwhelming demographic of sports consumers are men.
Your diatribe into hormones is wild. Do you really think someone’s hormones are detected through a TV? Access. Access is the reason why men’s sports have higher viewership. Men, and the sports they play are glorified in the media, and have been since the beginning of sports.
This is a take coming from someone who actually trained in medical science, as it’s clear most commenters here have not. And yes, hormone levels ARE detectable through a television screen – indirectly. We visually recognise the physical signs of a person’s fertility subconsciously all the time, and seldom relaise we’re doing it. It’s a fundamental part of how we’ve survived in evolutionary terms – by pairing ourselves to the most suitable (ie fertile) mates for reproduction.
And no, access isn’t the reason men’s sports are seen more. ACTUAL STUDIES into viewership show that men are generally disinterested in watching female sports, while women are overwhelmingly more interested in watching male sports (for which the perv factor is a strong reason) than they are in watching their fellow females compete. Lower viewership means less advertising revenue, which means lower prize money and less interest in corporate sponsorship due to those lower returns. Hence, less coverage. It’s simple economic reality.
And no, it doesn’t imply secret queerness on the part of men at all. Whether or not you like it, one of the primary things heterosexual men look for in a woman is mating suitability. They’re more interested when they see it, and less interested when they don’t. And that’s not about being creepy – that’s the biological imperative expressing itself. It can’t be helped, and it’s always going to be true even in the least mysogynistic of men – because it’s rooted not in attitudes, but in a fundamental biological reality.The exact same biological imperative in women is why even the most toxic hetero feminist will still take a good perv of an athletic male when no-one else is looking.
And no, this take isn’t dripping with lies about trans athletes – it’s telling you the facts as the science has recently confirmed them. The truth is under no obligation to be something we would like, or to agree with anyone’s political ideology. It would be lovely if the figures said trans athletes could equally and fairly compete – but they don’t. As little as you or I like that, I at least acknowledge it – because that’s what the science shows us all to be the truth.
You see, the real difference between our takes is that I actually base mine on the data, where you merely decry “SEXISM!!!” when you see an inequality in the figures. Facts don’t lie – but political ideologies do, all the time. An inequality in the figures doesn’t make the figures wrong, or unfairly biased. The figures have no agenda. They’re just the numbers, and they express the facts.
And by the by, your handle here is unfortunately revealing. Curvicious? As in vicious curved person? Yeah. You’re actually boasting about your viciousness, while trying to attack someone else for what you perceive to be their moral deficiencies. Unfortunately for you, viciousness is perhaps one of the greatest and most ruinous of all moral failings – responsible for more retributive suffering than perhaps any other single character trait in human history. And the fact that you don’t see the spectacular irony right there, and think that it’s something to flaunt… is rather sad.
I always assumed it’s because homosexuality hasn’t been acceptable till very recently and male “sports fans” (the vast majority of sports fans) are deeply closeted bi or gay and so like to watch fit men getting sweaty and groping each other.
Remember the time the female soccer star stripped off her shirt to her sports bra to wave the shirt at the crowd after they won and the world went mental calling her indecent? Yeah. Get a grip.
À blanket statement implying all sports should naturally be gender seperate is not supported by objective facts. Indeed many sports it makes sense to seperate but many there’s no good reason. Motorcycle racing grand prix. You had a woman I watched who was who was competing and winning major races. She had eager sponsers lined up and was very popular with the public. The international race committee instituted a rule you had to be a certain weight to compete for saftey sake that happened to be just under the weight of the lightest male and just over her weight with her bike. This disqualifed her two days before the championship race of the season and they ignored her appeal. She was in comfortable points reach of winning the season. Chess no reason to force seperate if female wants to compete against male in a tournament. More competition pulls up everyone and mixed competitions have generated very good viewership though it tends to skew towards younger more accepting audiences but these audiences stick around even as they age and become more conservative in some views. I was on chess team. Girls were actively discouraged from playing the guys. A much smaller pool for them to play against as they were discouraged from joining or dismissed as not as serious just a hobby they weren’t offered the opportunity to grow into their game. Andrea Möller I 2023 first female Surfer to be a recognized big wave rider not because of strength or public disinterest, because she as well as other female big wave surfers had boards vandalized, men who literally pretended she didn’t exist, Surfer mags that ignored when she won competitions and when a network tried to cover her and other females in the sport the association refused to give the network support
I think the wording “by physical ability” is wrong. They don’t separate boxers by physical ability, they do it by *weight*.
Which would be an interesting metric to separate sports (some) by.
Honestly, I’m pissed off that women don’t compete against men in chess. I want to see the top woman and top man against each other!
Too many sports shouldn’t be separated *at all* and if we combine them, the women athletes will start getting attention and viewers. Remember when the US men’s and US women’s soccer teams decided to combine their FIFA winnings and split it evenly between them? (honestly, I still think that’s unfair given the women are better). There’s no good reason the pay should be different. You want to know why everyone watches the NBA and no one watches the WNBA? Advertising. For decades they have thrown tons of money at the NBA for advertising and prime time spots and all sorts of crap. But they don’t do ANY of that for the WNBA. How different would it be if we spent the same money on both?
By separating certain sports by weight, it reduces any perceived bias against trans-athletes. Want to remove every single argument they have? Also allow the non-trans athletes to control their testosterone levels the way trans athletes have to (if anything, that’s the only real argument, and it’s usually because cis-MEN are worried they’ll be beat by a trans athlete because trans athletes can set their testosterone levels to the max allowed).
I think the only sport they shouldn’t allow men and women to play together is American football. But that’s because football causes terrible injuries and chronic brain damage… so I frankly don’t think *anyone* should be playing football.
On the pay thing. It’s not universal but in tennis competition because women play fewer sets per match and fewer games per set, even though the prize is generally smaller the woman who wins something like Wimbledon will get more per game played than the man who wins the men’s competition at the same event. This is also one reason why if a man plays in the mixed doubles competition he’s less likely to also play in the singles than his female partner.
In terms of salaries and sponsorship for team sports players, and probably the 250lb+ weight lifters, a lot of that comes down to ticket sales. More people will buy tickets or premium sports channel subscriptions to watch men than women. If you want to see women paid more then go watch them play. When the stadium is as full for a women’s game as for a men’s salaries and sponsorships will rise.
Chess has two categories – open and women only. Yes it is sexist, but it favours women and few men have a problem with it. Look up Judit Polgar, who was the strangest ever women player, but didn’t compete in the women’s competitions. She was in the top 10 of all players for a while.
As for chess, I believe it’s mostly due to tradition.
It is not a good reason, but I see that they are trying to make more and more tournaments mixed.
My understanding is that for chess specifically the reason that there are women only competitions is because for a very long time women were treated so poorly by male competitors that they simply wouldn’t play. They instituted the women’s only option to try to interest more women in competitive chess. As sexism in the game diminishes the women only competitions will most likely die out on their own