Women’s Sports

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The other day, Steve Sailer had a post about the WNBA and various ways to make the sport more attractive to sports fans. I pointed out that the main issue is spatial awareness, as men are more abstract in modeling their environment, while women are more concrete. Knowing where the herd is going to be when going on a hunt is different than remembering where the berries are when going on a pick. The part of the brain, which controls the perception of speed and the mental ability to rotate 3-D objects, is larger in men as well.

Anyone who has tried to watch women’s basketball understands that it is terrible in just about every way imaginable. Basketball is about speed, jumping and obviously shooting. Fans go to NBA games to see freaks of nature, who can leap from the top of the key and dunk the ball over some other freak. The women’s game is described as low and slow, meaning the style of play is pretty much the opposite of what fans of basketball want to see. The girls look like they are nailed to the floor most of the time.

Of course, in a sane world we would not demand that girls do all the same things men do, but we no longer live in a sane world. Even with the lunacy, there used to be popular TV sports for women that got good ratings. Women’s figure skating used to be a big deal, often put on against football and basketball. The logic was that men would watch football and their wives would watch skating, which was usually the case. Twenty years ago figure skating had better ratings than the NCAA basketball tournament, head to head.

Skating used to be a ratings monster for TV, but that’s no longer true. Today, not even the big events get on TV. Not only have ratings collapsed, but interest in youth figure skating is at an all-time low. Something similar has happened to gymnastics. It used to be that everyone knew the name of the top female gymnasts. Every Olympiad there was an American ready to take her place in the long line great female gymnasts. Today, Simone Biles would have to rob a bank in order for people to know her name.

You can even extend this decline in women’s sports to tennis and golf. The former was huge into the 90’s, but it has fallen on hard times. Women’s golf was never wildly popular, but golf junkies would watch the big events. The big stars were known to casual fans. Tennis still has the William’s sisters, but their popularity is based solely on their value as props in the culture war. Golf has no stars that anyone can name. The top US player is Lexi Thompson, whose name in a google search generates less than a million hits. Sandy Leon, a backup catcher, generates 17-times that number.

Now, all of these sports can point to various reasons for why they have fallen off the map in our culture. Figure skating and gymnastics has been plagued by weirdos and a culture that makes beauty pageants seem mild mannered. Women’s basketball was never popular and sports like golf and tennis have been in decline for a generation. There’s also a demographic issue. Popular female sports tended to be popular with boomers, who had kids. As the Boomers age off, their interest in these things has declined.

Even so, there’s no getting around the fact the female sports are at their lowest in terms of spectator interest. It could indicate a decline in women participating in competitive sports. It is impossible to get reliable numbers on this as the Title IX crazies are worse than the climate change nuts when it comes to fake data. Youth participation in sports has been in steady decline for decades so perhaps the declining interest in sport among the young is showing up first in the least popular spectator sports.

There’s also the possibility that biology is returning serve in the multicultural war on reality we have witnessed the last few decades. Women are wired to compete with one another in order to gain the attention of men. Our competitive sports are designed by men for men. It could simply be that the long war against femininity is coming to a bad end for the culture warriors. The girls would rather watch other girls be catty with one another in a TV drama than watch sweaty lesbians fight over a ball.

That would not explain the the decline in things like figure skating and gymnastics, but perhaps those were just early casualties in the feminist war on reality and as the fever breaks, these sports will make a comeback. These things also go in cycles so as the more reactionary Generation Z reach adulthood and start having families, perhaps sensible activities for girls will make a comeback. This is something you notice when looking at the social media of young alt-right types. They appear to be attracted to more traditional sex roles, despite the howling from their parents.

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Comments (Historical)

The comments below were originally posted to thezman.com.

83 Comments

Anonymous White Male #28773 February 27, 2017 9:11 am 10
Poor social justice warriors. How do we raise the ratings of women’s sports since everyone knows that women should be paid the same as men for the same work? I have a suggestion. Let women play topless.I am from Texas and was unaware of the wrestling tranny until I visited relatives and got something on the news. I then read about it the next day in the paper. Amazing. First of all, I wasn’t even aware that there was wrestling for girls except in venues with large amounts of mud. Only parents and pervs would watch. But, I saw the 5 minute segment on a Dallas news program the first night I got there. The sound was off and I was watching what looked like an adolescent boy wrestling a girl. I could tell one was a girl because of the knobs on her chest. I turned the sound up because the text scrolling across the bottom indicated that some tranny was wrestling someone. Turns out both were girls but one was receiving male anabolic steroids so she could be a he. How is this fair? But, the comments on the news were about how everyone at the school and all the parents “supported” this mentally ill person. Except, of course, for some unreasonable haters that objected to their daughters wrestling someone with male hormones. This was about the inevitable madness that comes when a certain number of brain damaged people pretend that there are no rules to reality and that everything is subjective. The will pat themselves on the back about how progressive they are, completely unconcerned with how ridiculous they are and what damage they are doing to entire generations of people. May the Apocolypse come soon.
thor47 #28785 February 27, 2017 11:12 am 4
None of the women playing pro golf would be any more worth watching topless. The Williams sisters playing tennis would be, because that would be hilarious.
ganderson #28786 February 27, 2017 11:36 am 0
Granted this was a while ago, 2004, but I was a volunteer at the Women’s US golf open. I was amazed at how good looking many of the players were- and how fashionable . The first golfer I say after getting out of my car was Suzanne Petersen – VA VA Voom!
Crank #28795 February 27, 2017 12:23 pm 1
They’ve gotten better looking over the years (excluding some of the heavy block-like Asians), but I don’t think going “topless” is playing to their strengths. Most good women golfers have pretty small hooters – big ones impede a good golf swing.
Crank #28796 February 27, 2017 12:25 pm 0
By “they”, I meant the womens golfers. Tennis players have stayed about the same, I think, with occasional exceptions like Pornakova.
UKer #28838 February 28, 2017 3:19 am 2
Back when I used to do archery I soon noted, being male and aware of certain areas of female anatomy, that women archers often wore a kind of mesh ‘suppressor’ over one breast so drawing a bow was not impeded. Archers at club level were always mixed with male and female shooting together and even people with disabilities were there too. I recall a certain annoyance from some that the guy in the wheelchair not only had much bigger muscles in his arms and shoulders (understandably so) but had a sort of more stable shooting position. Fully abled had a greater challenge with keeping the same position because at longer ranges even the tiniest shift in position and angle could put an arrow an inch the wrong side of your intention. My intention, being not very good, was to merely hit the target. But Joe in the wheelchair was literally rock solid.Then I read, by the way, that amazon archers resorted — legend has it — to cutting one breast off. Topless archery there would only be half the fun some might say.
Kathy #28831 February 28, 2017 12:30 am 1
“the inevitable madness that comes when a certain number of brain damaged people pretend that there are no rules to reality and that everything is subjective.” Very, very well said, AWM.
fred z #28757 February 26, 2017 11:59 pm 10
“watch sweaty lesbians fight over a ball” Holy moly, what channel is that on? I’ll pay for a subscription, don’t care what it costs.
joe_mama #28758 February 27, 2017 12:22 am 7
Prepare to be disappointed.
Brother John #28760 February 27, 2017 12:36 am 9
No, notthoselesbians — the other ones. The ones with the fur and short legs.
A poster #28756 February 26, 2017 11:32 pm 10
Women’s beach volleyball is pretty great. They could even ditch the costumes…
thezman #28765 February 27, 2017 7:04 am 0
Volley ball is a great sport for girls. It is much more of a point to point sport so it plays to the female spatial awareness. But, it will never have a TV audience, beach or otherwise.
Drake #28770 February 27, 2017 8:40 am 1
I actually used to watch women’s pro-volleyball back in the 80’s. That sport died with Flo Hyman. One thing that makes it watchable is they simply lower the net half a foot for the ladies – so it doesn’t look as ridiculous as women’s basketball. Doesn’t hurt that female volleyball players are often attractive.
David Wright #29093 March 2, 2017 10:50 pm 0
Flo Hymen? Is that an inside dirty sexist joke?
kokor hekkus #28800 February 27, 2017 12:38 pm 0
The ONLY interesting sport played by women…..
hokkoda #28806 February 27, 2017 1:06 pm 9
I used to have a pretty dim view of figure skating, but my wife has always loved it. For her birthday, I took her to Skate America which was a big national competition that was in our neighborhood. I’ll tell you what, I went in with one idea of figure skating and left with another one. First, the competitors you see on TV Scott Hamilton and Dick Button, represent about 1/10th of the competitors. The other 9/10ths don’t get on television. Why? Because they fall down. A lot.But the thing you don’t get to see – or rather, hear – is the sickening sound of a thinly clad skater hitting the ice at 30mph. The best I could describe it would be to take a thawed rack of ribs, and drop it from 30 ft onto the ice. It’s this crunchy-splatty kind of sound……and the kids get right back up, smile, and keep right on going.I wouldn’t walk for a week if I landed like that on ice. No helmets, no padding, no refs throwing flags. They just get up and skate it off. After they’re done, they walk over to the “kiss and cry” area (yes, it’s gender neutral), and they still don’t show how much pain they are obviously in.It’s not like I became a sudden convert to the sport, and I’ve never been to a live event since. But I do respect those kids a lot more than I did before I walked into the arena. I’ve watched NFL games where a guy in body armor dives onto a padded turf field, has to be carried off the field, has 5 trainers tending to him, and doesn’t finish the game…and on Monday’s injury report “possible bruised thigh, listed as probable for next Sunday”.
thezman #28807 February 27, 2017 1:11 pm 13
It’s what I tell people about boxing. Go to an armory fight and you walk away with a very different view of boxing. Rodeo is another that has to be seen live to have any clue about what happens. TV both sanitizes and distorts.
hokkoda #28810 February 27, 2017 1:47 pm 7
I was a cowboy medic at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo one year. The animals are enormous. I remember thinking, “No effing way…”
escapeefromPGcounty #28814 February 27, 2017 1:55 pm 5
if ya go to the rodeo … sit.up.high. the cheap seats are on the front row. dont go there. spend the extra. go high. just my public service for the day.
Dutch #28815 February 27, 2017 2:09 pm 3
Same with the dirt track car races. Probably for similar, but not exactly the same, reasons. Gritty beer ain’t fun.
james wilson #28818 February 27, 2017 2:47 pm 2
Yeah, there are two types of people on earth, the bull riders and everybody else. God knows what makes a bull rider, and it’s not balls because most of them have only one left.
KellyM #28827 February 27, 2017 9:37 pm 2
Yep. Been on the ice when a kid catches their toe pick and slams into the boards coming out of a serious jump. It’s painful to watch. Especially if they’re working on a particularly difficult jump and their coach is getting them to do it over and over. By about the fourth time falling hard they get up very slowly. I’ve fallen hard enough to bruise and send shock waves across the ice. But then I’m a middle-aged woman with a bit more meat on my bones than those kids. Nevertheless it hurts like hell.
Dutch #28792 February 27, 2017 12:03 pm 9
Bring back roller derby. Now that was a fun “sport”. Weekend daytime TV has not been the same since roller derby disappeared a long time ago.
James LePore #28767 February 27, 2017 8:24 am 9
A boy-to-girl transgenderite just won a championship in Texas, pinning everybody along the way. This will happen more and more until all the athletes in women’s sports will be men. This sets up the clash between feminism and transgenderism, which itself will be way more fun to watch than the WNBA. I predict the transgenderites will win because they are stronger and better at math, critical thinking and PR. At that point all sports will be all men all the time, which will require the government to pass Title 9 1/2, mandating equal participation for “real” girls. Then the cycle will start again. Oh brave new world…
Karl Hungus #28772 February 27, 2017 8:51 am 2
i am pretty sure it was a girl-to-boy tranny
James LePore #28776 February 27, 2017 9:41 am 2
You’re probably right. It’s confusing out there.
Crank #28794 February 27, 2017 12:15 pm 1
Yeah, it was a girl to boy. To her/his credit, she/he/it wanted to compete as a boy, but they made it compete as a girl (since that’s how it was born). But the testosterone it was taking as part of the treatment undoubtedly gave it a huge advantage over the girls.
hokkoda #28811 February 27, 2017 1:48 pm 2
It’s just a matter of time until it goes the other way, and the lawsuits start demanding equal access. When the boys can “identify” a certain way just to gain a competitive advantage, you’ll see whatever self-righteous piety flowing from women evaporate.
Ganderson #28825 February 27, 2017 6:50 pm 3
In Massachusetts if you have a boy who wants to play field hockey, and you don’t have a boys’ team you MUST let him play on the girls’ team. I can’t fathom it. People will say that girls play on boys’ teams- ice hockey in particular, but they are not equivalent. I really don’t think girls should be on boys’ teams period, but at least, if I had a daughter I would be making the decision to put her on the ice with biggerstrongerfaster boys. The other field hockey parents made no such decision, but there is their daughter playing against boys. Some girl will get badly hurt- and lawyers will have a feast. We have gone batshit crazy.
teapartydoc #28777 February 27, 2017 9:50 am 7
Skating is too white. Remember the last big coverage was back when a black girl was in contention. Watch what happens to tennis when the Williams sisters are gone. WNBA–a bunch of black lesbians–as long as it’s like this they’ll get attention out the wazoo, no sign of that ever changing. It will be on TV even if no one at all is watching. They give tickets to local organizations and businesses to get folks to go to the local NBA and WNBA games. If it weren’t for TV contracts they’d be broke. Cable cutting will be the death of pro basketball. If we had ala carte cable/satellite, it would be gone already.
Al from da Nort #28787 February 27, 2017 11:39 am 7
Also, figure skating used to be a thing of grace and beauty, including the music. The last time I watched, it seemed near porn set to raucous sound. Maybe it’s just my ‘old fart’ showing, but even my wife has given up on it and she used to be a faithful watcher, at least for the olympics. Seems the Hollywood elite culture coarsens everything it touches.
escapeefromPGcounty #28809 February 27, 2017 1:22 pm 3
what has greatly parcipitated the drop in womens figure skating popuarity among whites or the very few blacks is the rise in popularity of womens ice hockey. Go to any rink, most asian girls you see will be the figure skaters; many of the American girls you see there will have hockey skates, pads, lids & twigs (helmets & hockey sticks, for the uninitiated). much as very few guy skaters would even think of lacing up figure skates (frankly, because that would be gay) so now the ladies.
KellyM #28826 February 27, 2017 8:50 pm 1
I think you’re right. I skate regularly here in San Francisco, and almost all the girls on the ice for the early morning before school sessions are Asian, mainly Chinese. There are a couple of white girls, and they are Russian. The lone boy is around 12 years old and he is Vietnamese. Over the span of the 6 years that I’ve been at the rink, the number of young white girls strapping on the padding and working hard in the hockey clinics has increased.Figure skating killed the golden goose in the mid-90s by overexposure. You couldn’t turn the channel without there being some half-baked exhibition or competition being presented. And, this was also about the time that compulsory figures were eliminated from competition. You know, the actual skills needed to prove mastery of the sport. Not to mention the ages of the kids competing. Dorothy Hamill in her Olympic prime would have no chance now.
Marina #28819 February 27, 2017 3:18 pm 6
They changed the scoring system several years ago to reduce the subjectivity. So the way to do well now is to do as many elaborate jumps and spins as possible, rather than skate beautifully. The programs are much less pretty to watch now.
Kathy #28832 February 28, 2017 12:34 am 0
Another old fart chiming in here: You’re right — it’s no longer graceful, but grating.
ganderson #28788 February 27, 2017 11:40 am 5
I remember at a Vikings-Packers game at Lambeau one Vikings fan holding up a sign that said “Hey Green Bay, where’ s YOUR WNBA championship?”Like much of modern life, women’s sports have taken something good and made it into something ridiculous. Opening up opportunities for girls to experience the joys of competition was probably good, making it compulsory was not. “All that’s not forbidden is compulsory!!”
JimVonYork #28854 February 28, 2017 9:12 am 0
If we had ala carte cable/satellite, CNN, MSNBC and the rest would also be gone
UKer #28763 February 27, 2017 2:14 am 7
Where would transgender basketball figure in all this? Asking on behalf of dozens of anxious TV producers and cultural warriors.
thezman #28764 February 27, 2017 7:02 am 13
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/northeast-tarrant/article135021414.html We now have girls riddle with male steroids beating the snot out of other girls, while we are required to pretend the steroidal girl is a boy.
SamlAdams #28766 February 27, 2017 8:07 am 3
That was dissonant read. There was more ‘rasslin of gender pronouns than on the mats.
thezman #28775 February 27, 2017 9:34 am 16
Yeah, it was hard to keep track at first. My assumption was it was a boy pretending to be a girl so he could beat up girls. Instead it is a girl full of male hormones beating up girls. Frankly, it is child abuse.
CaptDMO #28779 February 27, 2017 10:20 am 3
And there USED to be certain rules about athletes taking “enhancement” drugs.Well, special exceptions, in the name of “fairness” I suppose.Weights around their ankles, and a separate set of “ladies” tees.
james wilson #28817 February 27, 2017 2:35 pm 5
Hmm, yes, wouldn’t he-she-it (shit?) be banned from playing baseball?
Kathy #28830 February 28, 2017 12:24 am 2
I had the same confusion. How ludicrous (but tragic for the real people involved) it all gets when the loonies think they can overrule Nature itself. Oh, but WE are the “anti-science” crowd, and the Left is the “reality-based” crowd. Uh-huh.
Uncle_Max #28769 February 27, 2017 8:33 am 9
I can’t understand the parents of that trans-teen allowing her to compete period. Male or female. Trans commit suicide at a unacceptably high rate. She/he won the State title, but outside of her close friends and her adoring teachers, it will be ridicule … ” oh, you’re the one who won the girls title at State in ’17.” I cannot imagine how messed up her/his mind will be at 25. Crazy.
Drake #28771 February 27, 2017 8:41 am 4
Beat me to it. If you are pumped full of male hormones, you should probably try wrestling guys.
Uncle_Max #28774 February 27, 2017 9:25 am 8
Drake, the kid wanted to and was unable to due to Texas law. You must compete with sex from your birth. Obviously, I would think when they passed that law/rule, this eventuality was not even considered. The girl has been taking massive testosterone for her change. That’s doping… BUT.. since we’re in the rabbit hole with the Mad Hatter, it’s all mixed up and no one can complain because the PC police will jump in. Heh. Social engineering , ain’t it great?
Drake #28783 February 27, 2017 10:42 am 8
The problem with changing the rules of course is that some guy will decide he’s a chick and win the state championship easily. There was an episode of “Married with Children” in which Al was invited to an elderly olympics meet and had a great time beating down all the geezers. Funny how life imitates the most absurd art eventually.
TWS #28980 March 1, 2017 1:21 pm 0
Even doped to the gills females cannot compete with actual males. She’d lose.
hokkoda #28780 February 27, 2017 10:24 am 5
When did East Germany start competing in U.S. high school wrestling???https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFgZXL3tL1A
thezman #28790 February 27, 2017 11:42 am 1
I forgot about that one. SNL did a skit like that in the early years.
hokkoda #28812 February 27, 2017 1:51 pm 4
I don’t know if you can get away with a comedy where the black guy in the French Resistance is named Chocolate Mousse, and the bad guy gets mounted by a bull.
SamlAdams #28803 February 27, 2017 12:50 pm 5
Was a competitive rower until I was thirty. When we first started having coaches coming over from the Eastern bloc to coach the national teams and development camps a lot of us started developing all sort of overuse injuries from the new training loads. Turns out most of the athletes they worked with in Russia, Poland and East Germany were regularly doped–but it was compartmentalized from the coaches. So they simply thought that athletes could handle that sort of mileage and intensity. We could have, if we had regular low dose steroids to speed recovery. We were all clean, so we broke down. Over time they adjusted, but boy was the learning period painful.
DriesNK #28874 February 28, 2017 11:07 am 0
Did I just spot Milo there?
Karl Horst #28781 February 27, 2017 10:31 am 7
If anyone remembers back to the Olympics during the old days of the DDR and the USSR, females on steroids were all the rage.
jackrabbit #28782 February 27, 2017 10:39 am 3
1976 Olympic women’s team from DDR. The women’s swimming team **won 10 of 11 golds and also won silver and bronze in a few events. One question was why they didn’t dope their men’s team.
thezman #28791 February 27, 2017 11:49 am 7
I recall reading about how many of the women from the DDR sports teams had horrible lives after their career. The physical damage and the psychological damage was severe. There’s long been a suspicion that steroid abuse results in long term psychological effects on men. We know, for example, that very low testosterone levels can result in depression and suicide. Steroid abuse destroys the body’s natural production of testosterone so guys who go off the gear will suddenly be faced with a new problem, that is remedied by taking steroids, ironically. Whether there are changes in brain chemistry that far outlast the doping is unknown, but suspected.My guess is females taking large quantities of male growth hormones probably suffer unique challenges. I don’t know of any studies on the matter, but my guess is the wild swings in hormone levels sets off some unpredictable hormone swings after they go off the gear.
Crank #28801 February 27, 2017 12:40 pm 7
Can’t help but wonder if Bruce Jenner’s tranny issues were a product of low natural testosterone production following cessation of steroid use.
Karl Hungus #28828 February 27, 2017 9:59 pm 0
just like this guy:http://www.muscleandfitness.com/athletes-celebrities/interviews/transgender-powerlifter-matt-kroczaleski-janae-marie-kroc-shares-unbelievable-story
thezman #28789 February 27, 2017 11:41 am 6
Back then, a comedy show on late nights here in the US did a skit where the East German swim team was a bunch of very hairy muscular dudes in drag. I think if you are Gen X or older, the whole “East German Women” thing is very well known.
jackrabbit #28797 February 27, 2017 12:26 pm 3
I read that in 2013, “…167 former DDR athletes would be financially compensated through Germany’s Olympic Committee for the systematic doping of DDR athletes from 1973 through 1989. When told of this fact, Shirley Babashoff’s first comment was, “Only 167 Athletes!” whole article here …https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/dopings-darkest-hour-the-east-germans-and-the-1976-montreal-games/The final relay for the women in Montreal – the 4×100 free – was a throwdown moment in swimming – a sport with a dearth of such things. It’s on youtube but the video is not great and the camera shots focus primarily on the USA team so you can’t gauge the size differential. One interesting thing to note is De Varona’s commentary about Title IX just coming on line, blah, blah, blah…. and that’s why our women are getting waxed in the pool. To this day, I would guess that the average age of the women world record holders is significantly lower than that of the men.
Callmelennie #28799 February 27, 2017 12:32 pm 2
Jim Carrey used to do a thing about a East German woman athlete on steroids. I think it was for the show “In Living Color” Funny stuff
Richard Whitney #28821 February 27, 2017 4:29 pm 6
Zman, you could have said “Female athletes used to be featured on Wheaties boxes, now they could be on milk cartons.”But I think it is an interesting question: where have the female athletes gone?In many Olympic sports, the women’s record would not even qualify for the men’s event, that is, the women’s world record performance in the event would not meet the cut for the men’s event.Tennis players, across generations, have stated that tournament-winning female tennis players would be beaten easily by unranked men.And before anyone brings Bobby Riggs:Bobby Riggs was a very good tennis player and a hustler of the first magnitude. He made a lot of money hustling on tennis courts around the world, just like the pool-hustler Paul Newman character.Yes, he lost to Billy Jean King in a highly-publicized match. But how did the Billy Jean King match get so much hype.Riggs had first challenged Margaret Court. Who was she? Shame on you! Margaret Court was the #1 ranked female tennis player at the time, and had recently won Wimbledon. Riggs was 55 years old. Riggs beat her 6-1, 6-2.Riggs created enormous hype with the match with King, and turned it into a big payday. Everyone was taken and Riggs cleaned up by losing.
teapartydoc #28822 February 27, 2017 5:45 pm 2
Yep. It was a staged clown show. Notice how they never ask for any kind of reasonable rematch. They want that result to stand forever.
Strelnikov #28793 February 27, 2017 12:15 pm 6
I. for one, welcome the end of all women’s sport by the forced participation of “trans-gendered” “men”. No biological women will ever win a major sporting event again once the Left gets its way on this point.
kokor hekkus #28802 February 27, 2017 12:43 pm 5
Women’s sports are generally uninteresting because men’s high school teams are far superior to women’s professional teams. Why watch something that is just inferior? Particularly awful is the WNBA, where the absence of upper body strength (50% less than men), jumping ability, and speed turns the game into a travesty…
Marina #28761 February 27, 2017 1:19 am 5
From what I can see, middle class and better white parents do a lot of sports (or dance) with their daughters because it plumps up the college resume and keeps teenaged girls in a relatively healthy, wholesome environment doing something tiring so they don’t get into trouble. Another activity that offered this would probably be welcomed, particularly for those with unathletic daughters. You can’t have teenaged girls around every afternoon and weekend unsupervised, so a job or family duties or youth theater or something has to be there.
Uncle_Max #28768 February 27, 2017 8:29 am 9
My neighbor and good friends put 3 of their girls through college on full-ride soccer scholarships. All three got worthless degrees, married and got careers in nothing to do with their degrees. Title XI and it’s twisted effects on higher education is stunning to me, but I’m old. Universities are run by women, and women attend at higher rates than men. But it’s not enough! They demand moar!! Because…. because!
Marina #28778 February 27, 2017 10:01 am 6
The stupid thing about Title Nine requirements is that boys are vastly more interested in sports than girls are. This starts in childhood, where boys will organize spontaneous games of soccer or baseball and continues into adulthood. Absent mandates, a small university could probably field several men’s basketball or soccer teams, allowing less capable but interested athletes to play. My college had a number of non school sponsored men’s sports teams because demand for slots on teams significantly outstripped supply. The players would fundraise for their own uniforms and supplies and organize matches with other schools and so on. Meanwhile the school was desperately trying to get girls to sign up to run cross country to keep the participant numbers up.
Steven M #28784 February 27, 2017 11:01 am 4
I recall an argument from a Title IX supporter. It went something like this: Girls are just as interested in sports participation as boys. They just don’t realize it. They must be told (or sold) that it is OK to want to participate.
james wilson #28816 February 27, 2017 2:30 pm 8
Now that you bring it up, Marina, when I was eight years old (this would be Eisenhower’s second heart attack), myself and a gaggle of other yuts of similar age attacked a wild field just behind our new development, tore up the weeds and bushes, cut down a few trees, picked up bushels of rocks, and shoveled and raked for a week. We played baseball and football there for two years. We never saw an adult, or a girl.
Bob Loblaw #28921 February 28, 2017 8:22 pm 1
We always came back from recess sweating from soccer or football. Don’t even know what the girls were doing, we didn’t care, but they definitely weren’t on the field with us.
Crank #28798 February 27, 2017 12:29 pm 4
I think the fall of women’s gymnastics and skating is in large part a delayed consequence of the end of the Cold War. Nobody really cares anymore whether our female athletes beat the Russians, (East) Germans, Bulgarians, Romanians, etc. Or even the Chinese. The Olympics seemed to drive the popularity of those sports, in my opinion.
thezman #28805 February 27, 2017 12:55 pm 5
That’s a possibility, but it was not so long ago that we had traveling ice shows that sold out big arenas. Women loved taking their daughters to those things. Now they are all gone. I think your point works much better for gymnastics, which has always been an every four year thing.
Crank #28808 February 27, 2017 1:12 pm 4
Yeah, we had the Ice Capades, which were popular with women. But, at least in my adult lifetime, and maybe even when I was a teen in the late 70s, the main attractions always seemed to be popular and well known only as a result of being Olympic medalists. Gave them a vehicle to keep skating and monetize their Olympic success.
Doug #28759 February 27, 2017 12:30 am 4
Matriarchy isn’t the Patriarchy no matter how they dress it up.It’s nothing when the cultural marxist attempt Kubaki theater like WNBA.That is the whole point. Emasculation of real Men and real Women.They are trying to whittle enemies of their ideology down so one day hopefully nobody is left to fight them.And they wonder why the Vag in a pantsuit lost?
hokkoda #28820 February 27, 2017 3:47 pm 3
Btw, did you know that the boys high school track and field world records are higher, faster, and farther than most (if not all) of the women’s world records? That shouldn’t be too surprising, but in our “everybody is all the same” age, it’s easy to lose sight of that. I remember being told that a few years ago, so I looked up both. Although I wasn’t terribly surprised, it was amusing when you consider that high school boys generally do not have the training regimen of olympic women athletes.
YIH #28839 February 28, 2017 4:06 am 1
What’s killing ”Women’s” (little girls really) gymnastics and figure skating is the expense in both time and money. If married (and of course, with a job) the mothers simply don’t have enough spare time or energy to invest in lessons/training/travel/competition that gymnastics and figure skating require. Getting little Sally to all those several hour lessons/practice/training and then competitions is literally a full time job – unpaid, and in fact rather costly. If a ‘single’ Mom, she not only has even less time and energy, she also probably can’t afford the expenses involved.In Europe and Asia the promising young gymnasts and skaters get separated from the family and the girl’s main occupation is training, ect. – complete with her living in dorms, and schooling tailored around preparing for the sport. In the US that life is neither supported culturally nor with exclusive (and isolated) facilities. Not to mention the increasing physical and sexual abuse scandals in both sports.Like you mentioned Women’s basketball is uninteresting and the only reason the WNBA hasn’t folded is due to heavy subsidies from the NBA (and for one of the teams, a casino) and has always needed them. The LPGA used to have stars in the entertainment industry take up the game and their ‘star power’ drew attention to it. Boomer/Xer/Millenial celebs are too busy with their sex and drug lives to have the time or energy for golf.
Bill Robbins #28829 February 27, 2017 10:37 pm 1
Women’s figure skating? Make that girls figure skating. Men’s figure skating: women’s figure skating, but, in pants.
Rurik #28824 February 27, 2017 6:07 pm 1
Define the issue better. Is it trying to attract more female viewers for women’s sport or trying to attract more more male viewers?If it is the latter the answer is attractive women moving around in skimpy costumes. That rules out WNBA, golf, and baseball. Skating, tennis, and Lingere Football have a chance. If its the former ask a woman, I can’t guess.
bilejones #28823 February 27, 2017 5:45 pm 1
My suggestion at Sailer’s place was that women develop their own sports, I suggested Lace Tatting, Curtain Hanging and Long Distance Weeping.One thing for sure, they are lousy at playing men’s sports, as this Australian bint admits. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/mar/08/women-versus-boys-w-league-roar-join-under-15s-competition
DriesNK #28871 February 28, 2017 11:04 am 0
This should hasten the demise of women sports:http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/27/us/texas-transgender-wrestler-trnd-hold/. I am old enough to remember when East German female athletes were suspected of being men. Now, it becomes the norm.
mba #28804 February 27, 2017 12:55 pm 0
I don’t care if they can’t play worth a damn. I still love to watch the girls jump around in NCAA basketball. It’s on cable anyway, so why not? Of course, I certainly wouldn’t pay anything to watch them play. OK, maybe a buck or two if they were naked. That’s the solution to the WNBA problem with viewership. Have all the lezbos turn out nude to play. Guys will turn out to see the games and pay for the privilege.


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