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I'm not sure how the Boston marathon works, but in other marathons there is also a blatant gender discrimination, after all, you have separate start and ending

I'm not sure how the Boston marathon works, but in other marathons there is also a blatant gender discrimination, after all, you have separate start and ending and prizes for men and women. If we aim for total indiscrimination, shouldn't we just have a single category, let anyone run as long as they don't have any unfair external advantage and just give prizes and recognition to the first places? EDIT: I find it funny that some people got worked out for me writing it "out loud" the truth that positive gender discrimination in favour of one gender is also actually gender discrimination against other gender.

songshu 9y ago
That would work if we didn't tend to organize events which favor men. As it is, athletic and sporting events have mostly been constructed around male affinities so your supposed indiscrimination would result in women being sidelined on the whole.
- ythn 9y ago
  Seems like that is starting to go away though, what with trans women being able to unfairly compete with cis women
- adrianN 9y ago
  Men are better at sports. That's no social construct. Having men and women compete on equal footing would result in women always losing.
  - songshu 9y ago
    To be clear I'm claiming that the individual sports themselves are socially constructed, not that "betterness" is. Women's bodies have advantages in flexibility and stamina. Had women been socially dominant for centuries I would expect us to have come up with sports which demonstrate their strengths.
    - Karunamon 9y ago
      Marathons aren't a stamina sport?
      - jrkatz 9y ago
        A lot of people underestimate the speed of marathon running, probably because the distance alone is so intimidating. However, winning times hover around 5 minutes per mile, a speed I'd wager most able-bodied people cannot hit at all, let alone sustain. Marathons are a stamina sport and a speed sport.
        slavik81 9y ago
        It blew my mind when I realized that top marathon runners did 42k at a faster pace than my 5k.
        adrianN 9y ago
        There is no distance where women beat men, even for longer races that are most definitely endurance events: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon#IAU_World_Best_Performances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon#IAU_World_Best_P...
    - outragejunkie 9y ago
      Who is "us" in this circumstance? Is someone preventing women from inventing this mystical sport where they will excel? Also; sports are constructed by individuals, not society. Society has no agency and no cognition. It is a leaky abstraction mainly used by poor thinkers to make incorrect rhetorical points. It doesn't actually "do" anything absent individual human action.
pg314 9y ago
Barring one gender from participating is not the same thing as having different categories per gender. There are also different categories for different age groups. That is just a reflection of the difference in athletic abilities. No reasonable person is claiming that men and women have the same athletic abilities. That doesn't mean women shouldn't be allowed to run.
- jbmorgado 9y ago
  I never defended that women shouldn't be allowed to run, quite on the contrary. I just find it odd that people keep pushing for equal access and opportunities but then gladly accept complete gender discrimination in some occasions like these ones.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - sethev 9y ago
    Do you feel the same way about age range based prizes or golf handicaps?
    - jbmorgado 9y ago
      Handicap is not used in professional golf neither is age range, it's the best against the best.
      - SamReidHughes 9y ago
        It is in a few tournaments. The Wendy's 3-tour Challenge and the JCPenney Classic were two with mixed gender, players teeing off from different tees. (Seniors in the 3-tour Challenge had a closer tee, women even closer.)
      - c0de9 9y ago
        The PGA champions tour is restricted to ages 50+
Fezzik 9y ago
I wouldn't say it is gender discrimination (today) so much as acknowledging the undeniable difference in physical capabilities of the sexes. The fastest female marathoners do not even remotely compete with the top men - top men run just a smidge over 2 hours, with the top women running 2:15:00+. Maybe someday there will be an equalizing of physical abilities, but that end does not seem to be in sight. In fact, I don't think there is a single professional sport where women would even finish in the top 10 when competing against male opponents. In the same vein, most sports have recreational, amateur, professional, and masters (older people) competitions, because there are undeniable physical differences between the old and the young. It doesn't have anything to do with ageism or discrimination. I mean, I can off-the-couch trounce any octogenarian in (probably?) any sport - pitting the two of us against one another is not really a competition, or fun, for either one of us.
- jbmorgado 9y ago
  I see, aren't we denying people that are better at the job to compete this way just because of their gender? Clearly this must be gender discrimination. Let me explain: If I divide a competition between 100 men and 100 women instead of the 200 best humans and then give prizes to the 3 best men and 3 best women instead of the 6 best humans, I'm actually denying place to 100 men and denying 3 men a prize just because of their gender (assuming as true your predicate that men timings are clearly superior to woman). Isn't it funny how this is not gender based discrimination?
  - burkaman 9y ago
    Discrimination has multiple definitions. You're using the general definition, which is just "recognizing the difference between two things". Gender discrimination uses the other definition, "the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things". Gender discrimination in sports is usually not unjust or prejudicial, because it's based on real insurmountable biological differences between the sexes.
  - whafro 9y ago
    In the Boston marathon, only the elite runners (a few dozen) are segmented by gender/sex, and elite women are the first to leave, followed by the elite men, followed by the top qualifying times of either gender. From watching the race along the road yesterday, there were no elite men who caught the main pack of women (though a few straggling women did fall back into the elite male pack). Following that, while it was mostly a male non-elite pack at the beginning, there were a few women scattered throughout, and then it was fairly blended about 15 minutes later. So while they stagger men and women to prevent interference in the race at the very highest levels (and a woman crosses the finish line first), women below that tier have a ton of opportunity to push themselves against men. Edit: Also, they do track overall finishers, time-wise, regardless of gender. So a woman might see that she was the 4th finisher in her division (young women), and 16th overall.
sethev 9y ago
You're mixing meanings of discrimination. Barring women from participating in an event is completely separate from how prizes are handed out. Mixing these two senses of the word 'discrimination' like your doing is equivocation. "Isn't it odd how people argue for equal rights but are perfectly willing to only turn left in some cases." No - it's not odd at all. Words can have multiple senses.
- jbmorgado 9y ago
  You clearly (either willingly because it suits your narrative or because you didn't actually read anything) are accusing me of something I not only clearly didn't do but something that I actually spoke against. Again: I'm all for opening doors for everyone that "doesn't have any unfair external advantage" (i.e. doping) to compete. What I'm questioning is barring the fastest runners from competition and from the prizes just because of their gender. In no way I was asking for barring anyone from anything, so stop mixing everything up just to suit your narrative.
  - vidarh 9y ago
    They're not barred from competing. They're split into different subsets to more closely match them with people with similar potential exactly to make the races more competitive. I would have some sympathy for your argument if you argue against womens only races or men only races, but most sports do not arbitrarily deny access to a given group, but split people into groups and try to counter effects beyond competitors control, such as gender, age, so that training plays a bigger role in the results distribution. The point is that we are seeking to give prices to those who have gotten closest to their maximum potential, not for their genetic starting point or circumstances. Yes, we can not counter everything without splitting things up too much, but we can aim to equalise the playing field somewhat. This is not discrimination. This is seeking to reduce "unfair external advantage". It's the opposite of discrimination.
  - sethev 9y ago
    You're the one who's muddying the water by using a second sense of the word discrimination when everybody else is talking about the first.
mikestew 9y ago
And in drag racing, we should put top fuel dragsters up against streetable Honda Civics and get rid of brackets because equality. No age groups at Boston, or any other race. Let the old guys past their prime line up with the college kids. My suspicion is that you've never raced anything in your life, be it cars, cockroaches, or your own two legs. Which is fine, not everyone need fall into the money pit that is racing in most of its forms. But I would suggest sticking to pontificating about things you know.
- jbmorgado 9y ago
  Lovely to see ad hominen attacks are fine as long as it's against someone that doesn't share the extreme prejudiced views of the few that control the voting system in HN about social matters.

songshu 9y ago

That would work if we didn't tend to organize events which favor men. As it is, athletic and sporting events have mostly been constructed around male affinities so your supposed indiscrimination would result in women being sidelined on the whole.

ythn 9y ago
Seems like that is starting to go away though, what with trans women being able to unfairly compete with cis women
adrianN 9y ago
Men are better at sports. That's no social construct. Having men and women compete on equal footing would result in women always losing.
- songshu 9y ago
  To be clear I'm claiming that the individual sports themselves are socially constructed, not that "betterness" is. Women's bodies have advantages in flexibility and stamina. Had women been socially dominant for centuries I would expect us to have come up with sports which demonstrate their strengths.
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    Marathons aren't a stamina sport?
    - jrkatz 9y ago
      A lot of people underestimate the speed of marathon running, probably because the distance alone is so intimidating. However, winning times hover around 5 minutes per mile, a speed I'd wager most able-bodied people cannot hit at all, let alone sustain. Marathons are a stamina sport and a speed sport.
      - slavik81 9y ago
        It blew my mind when I realized that top marathon runners did 42k at a faster pace than my 5k.
      - adrianN 9y ago
        There is no distance where women beat men, even for longer races that are most definitely endurance events: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon#IAU_World_Best_Performances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon#IAU_World_Best_P...
  - outragejunkie 9y ago
    Who is "us" in this circumstance? Is someone preventing women from inventing this mystical sport where they will excel? Also; sports are constructed by individuals, not society. Society has no agency and no cognition. It is a leaky abstraction mainly used by poor thinkers to make incorrect rhetorical points. It doesn't actually "do" anything absent individual human action.

pg314 9y ago

Barring one gender from participating is not the same thing as having different categories per gender. There are also different categories for different age groups. That is just a reflection of the difference in athletic abilities. No reasonable person is claiming that men and women have the same athletic abilities. That doesn't mean women shouldn't be allowed to run.

jbmorgado 9y ago
I never defended that women shouldn't be allowed to run, quite on the contrary. I just find it odd that people keep pushing for equal access and opportunities but then gladly accept complete gender discrimination in some occasions like these ones.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sethev 9y ago
  Do you feel the same way about age range based prizes or golf handicaps?
  - jbmorgado 9y ago
    Handicap is not used in professional golf neither is age range, it's the best against the best.
    - SamReidHughes 9y ago
      It is in a few tournaments. The Wendy's 3-tour Challenge and the JCPenney Classic were two with mixed gender, players teeing off from different tees. (Seniors in the 3-tour Challenge had a closer tee, women even closer.)
    - c0de9 9y ago
      The PGA champions tour is restricted to ages 50+

Fezzik 9y ago

I wouldn't say it is gender discrimination (today) so much as acknowledging the undeniable difference in physical capabilities of the sexes. The fastest female marathoners do not even remotely compete with the top men - top men run just a smidge over 2 hours, with the top women running 2:15:00+. Maybe someday there will be an equalizing of physical abilities, but that end does not seem to be in sight. In fact, I don't think there is a single professional sport where women would even finish in the top 10 when competing against male opponents. In the same vein, most sports have recreational, amateur, professional, and masters (older people) competitions, because there are undeniable physical differences between the old and the young. It doesn't have anything to do with ageism or discrimination. I mean, I can off-the-couch trounce any octogenarian in (probably?) any sport - pitting the two of us against one another is not really a competition, or fun, for either one of us.

jbmorgado 9y ago
I see, aren't we denying people that are better at the job to compete this way just because of their gender? Clearly this must be gender discrimination. Let me explain: If I divide a competition between 100 men and 100 women instead of the 200 best humans and then give prizes to the 3 best men and 3 best women instead of the 6 best humans, I'm actually denying place to 100 men and denying 3 men a prize just because of their gender (assuming as true your predicate that men timings are clearly superior to woman). Isn't it funny how this is not gender based discrimination?
- burkaman 9y ago
  Discrimination has multiple definitions. You're using the general definition, which is just "recognizing the difference between two things". Gender discrimination uses the other definition, "the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things". Gender discrimination in sports is usually not unjust or prejudicial, because it's based on real insurmountable biological differences between the sexes.
- whafro 9y ago
  In the Boston marathon, only the elite runners (a few dozen) are segmented by gender/sex, and elite women are the first to leave, followed by the elite men, followed by the top qualifying times of either gender. From watching the race along the road yesterday, there were no elite men who caught the main pack of women (though a few straggling women did fall back into the elite male pack). Following that, while it was mostly a male non-elite pack at the beginning, there were a few women scattered throughout, and then it was fairly blended about 15 minutes later. So while they stagger men and women to prevent interference in the race at the very highest levels (and a woman crosses the finish line first), women below that tier have a ton of opportunity to push themselves against men. Edit: Also, they do track overall finishers, time-wise, regardless of gender. So a woman might see that she was the 4th finisher in her division (young women), and 16th overall.

sethev 9y ago

You're mixing meanings of discrimination. Barring women from participating in an event is completely separate from how prizes are handed out. Mixing these two senses of the word 'discrimination' like your doing is equivocation. "Isn't it odd how people argue for equal rights but are perfectly willing to only turn left in some cases." No - it's not odd at all. Words can have multiple senses.

jbmorgado 9y ago
You clearly (either willingly because it suits your narrative or because you didn't actually read anything) are accusing me of something I not only clearly didn't do but something that I actually spoke against. Again: I'm all for opening doors for everyone that "doesn't have any unfair external advantage" (i.e. doping) to compete. What I'm questioning is barring the fastest runners from competition and from the prizes just because of their gender. In no way I was asking for barring anyone from anything, so stop mixing everything up just to suit your narrative.
- vidarh 9y ago
  They're not barred from competing. They're split into different subsets to more closely match them with people with similar potential exactly to make the races more competitive. I would have some sympathy for your argument if you argue against womens only races or men only races, but most sports do not arbitrarily deny access to a given group, but split people into groups and try to counter effects beyond competitors control, such as gender, age, so that training plays a bigger role in the results distribution. The point is that we are seeking to give prices to those who have gotten closest to their maximum potential, not for their genetic starting point or circumstances. Yes, we can not counter everything without splitting things up too much, but we can aim to equalise the playing field somewhat. This is not discrimination. This is seeking to reduce "unfair external advantage". It's the opposite of discrimination.
- sethev 9y ago
  You're the one who's muddying the water by using a second sense of the word discrimination when everybody else is talking about the first.

mikestew 9y ago

And in drag racing, we should put top fuel dragsters up against streetable Honda Civics and get rid of brackets because equality. No age groups at Boston, or any other race. Let the old guys past their prime line up with the college kids. My suspicion is that you've never raced anything in your life, be it cars, cockroaches, or your own two legs. Which is fine, not everyone need fall into the money pit that is racing in most of its forms. But I would suggest sticking to pontificating about things you know.

jbmorgado 9y ago
Lovely to see ad hominen attacks are fine as long as it's against someone that doesn't share the extreme prejudiced views of the few that control the voting system in HN about social matters.