Wasn't she the lineswoman that flagged and called for Rafael's red last season against Chelsea?
Keys & Gray in Sexism Row
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
My recollection is that Massey indicated it to be a yellow card offence but the referee increased the punishment to that of a straight red.
She also told RVP and Torres to calm it down a bit when they were acting a bit childish.
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If it's shit it's because it's years behind men's football in terms of development at every level. If it's shit it's because it's treated as a lesser sport by many, and because of the complete disparity in funding available for it when compared to men's football. If it's shit it's because at almost every opportunity girls and young women are told that the sport isn't for them. If it's shit it's because from birth boys are encouraged to be loud and active whilst girls are told to be quiet and docile. The quality of women's football is also completely irrelevant. What a fecking ridiculous argument to make.
Comparing it to racism is reasonable. They're both forms of discrimination and are both totally unacceptable.
WTF. I suspect you're on one big wind up.
My degree has covered socialisation in great detail. The part you've put in bold and taken issue with is fact and has been proven by many academic studies.
Take my example: in school sports - throughout all my years of schooling - we never even saw a tennis racquet or cricket bat; it was rugby or nothing (or 100 laps of a field in the freezing rain) as, apparently, tennis & cricket weren't for the likes of us. A lack of access to these particular sports, a lack of training in them from a young age, was actual policy. It's classist, assumptive and discriminatory thinking like this (along with the notion that girls can't 'do' football) that denies people a chance to succeed in certain activities.Alex99 said:
It doesn't explain why women's football is shit though.
I doubt any of us, and not a few male professional footballers, could get the ball off Brazil's Marta.
Very true, my wife is a big fan.
Of course it plays a part in the general gulf in quality between men and women's football. Boys are encouraged to use their gross motor skills (essentially moving) a great deal more than girls are. Boys become stronger and faster than girls because they are encouraged to run around a lot more, encouraged to lift things and play with them, encouraged to throw things, etc., whilst girls are told to read, play with dolls and braid each others hair.
When I did P.E. in school, all of the boys got to play rugby, football, cricket, basketball, tennis and baseball, whilst the girls did benchball, dance, tag-rugby, gymnastics, netball and rounders. Both genders had access to the gym, with the boys being encouraged to use the weights, the treadmills and the rowing machines, whilst the girls got encouraged to use the balance balls and the low settings on the cycling machines. It wasn't just in my school that these differences were apparent either. And before you say it, it's not because the girls didn't want to do the sports the boys did, they constantly moaned that they couldn't.
In short, boys are encouraged and afforded many opportunities to increase their physical prowess from the moment they are born, whereas girls are in fact often discouraged from doing so because it is 'unladylike'. Female athletes are at a developmental disadvantage to male athletes because they near enough always miss out on quite a long period of development that many just pass off as boys and girls having different interests. It never occurs to them that these interests are essentially forced on boys and girls depending on which set of genitals they are born with.
Many schools do allow and encourage girls to play football and other contact sports. My friend's daughter plays for a women's team, her feedback is that the dropout rate when they get to early teens is massive, and that her club went from running a couple of teams at each age level to struggling to pull a team together at under 15's. I agree that girls are not always given the same opportunity, however i don't believe that the long term interest seems to remain as strong.
That seems a fair point. Though, it must be admitted, part of this nascent disiniterest could simply be a hangover of the very culture Alex & I criticise: the cultural, traditional assumption that girls have no enthusiasm for football; it's ingrained.
The long term interest doesn't remain as strong because they're discouraged from being interested from a very early age. Pretty much all of the football on TV is played by men, discussed by men, even largely watched by men. There is nothing there to suggest that it's a sport for girls or women. Very few take interest in it because of this, and because they're discouraged in many instances from even taking part.
If you were to discourage young boys from taking part in football in the same way, and encourage young girls to take part in it the way we encourage boys to, football would be a female dominated sport.
Some of the women's games in the Olympics were fantastic, IIRC USA v. Canada was especially good.
You put sexists on air and then get up in arms when they do exactly what they've always done. A bit naive.
Whatever pulls your pudding!
A girl plays right back in my son's football team, and she's quite good as well. However, when she gets to 12 she can't play in a mixed team anymore for obvious fecking reasons!
What obvious reasons? Why shouldn't she be allowed to play if she's good enough?
What a load of bollocks! It's shit because it lacks the physical aspect. Do you think that was a load of funding when Bobby Charlton started playing? Do you think that Rugby Union was shit before it went professional? Don't talk shite!
Why not? Because of the physical aspect to it. It isn't snooker!
Brace yourselves, an essay is coming
She's probably more physically capable than Jordi Alba, even at 12 years old.
You can imagine some poor bird playing against Roy Keane in central midfield can't you?
Look, you can draw lines at whatever age, smoking, drinking, whatever, but a line has to be drawn somewhere.
The physical aspect? What a terrible excuse.
I've already pointed out a major reason for the physical differences between men and women so I won't go through that again, but to say it's because of the 'physical aspect' is to ignore the fact that one of the world's best footballers is tiny.
Messi's about 5' 7" and can't weigh much more than 10 stone if he's even 10 stone at all. There have also been loads of professionals both shorter and lighter than he is. If a woman is good enough to play then there's no reason why she shouldn't be allowed to play with men, and bringing up examples of overly aggressive players that might hurt her, when they are just as likely to hurt the men they play against as well proves absolutely nothing other than that you buy into the myth that women can't compete with men.
I've already pointed out a major reason for the physical differences between men and women so I won't go through that again, but to say it's because of the 'physical aspect' is to ignore the fact that one of the world's best footballers is tiny.
Messi's about 5' 7" and can't weigh much more than 10 stone if he's even 10 stone at all. There have also been loads of professionals both shorter and lighter than he is. If a woman is good enough to play then there's no reason why she shouldn't be allowed to play with men, and bringing up examples of overly aggressive players that might hurt her, when they are just as likely to hurt the men they play against as well proves absolutely nothing other than that you buy into the myth that women can't compete with men.
Messi is deceptively strong actually.
Well yeah, drawing lines is one of the first things she probably learned in school.
And then you do go through it again. Face fecking facts, men and women are different, they just are, they are not built in the same way. Are you proposing that women should race against men in the 100m?
Do you think all sport be played in unison? Just curious, by the way.
That isn't actually my primary concern with mixed gender football, to be honest. If that was the only issue, I'd say if someone is brave enough to go up against Keano, let them.
My problem is that for all the investment in making women's football be taken more seriously, what happens the moment you let the best players leave and play in the men's game?
It becomes doomed to be classed as a joke league for evermore, undermining any efforts to make it be taken more seriously and make it far more difficult for the whatever % of women unable to make it in the men's game to earn a living from their talent.
That will never happen.
If a woman is technically and physically able to compete with men, then why not? Throwing around random excuses like "it's too physical" is incredibly patronising for the women that might themselves want to compete. It's also a completely redundant point in professional football when some players are 6' 5" and weigh upwards of 15 stone and others are under 5' 6" and weigh less than 10 stone.
As I've already said, boys are socialised to be loud and active, girls are socialised to be quiet and docile. When a girl is old enough to decide that she wants to be involved in a sport, like football, she is likely to have already missed out on years of motor development and physical activity that boys her age will have had. This is fact and has been proven by many an academic study. Similarly, boys and girls are fed different amounts for no reason other than their gender. Boys are regularly encouraged to eat bigger portions and seconds, whilst girls are often discouraged from even finishing the smaller portions that they are given. All of this contributes greatly to the physical development of boys and girls, and plays a large part in why boys are more 'physical' than girls. Obviously there is a certain level of genetic influence, but essentially, many girls are undernourished and under-exercised in comparison to boys.
There's absolutely no reason why women shouldn't be able to compete with men, and for men to tell them that they can't based on some myth that it will be too physical or that they need protecting is incredibly patronising is just another way in which society tries to control women and limit their opportunities.
Oh come on Alex. You usually make some interesting points but you are amazingly wrong here.
I'm not a fan of putting down women who play sports for a cheap laugh, but if you want to have a serious discussion about it, obviously women's football will never be the same as men's football. And this is because of the stark biological difference between men and women. You cannot compare this viewpoint to racism because racism is the scientifically unfounded belief that humans can be subdivided into meaningful racial categories which merit discrimination. The idea that men and women are immensely biologically different is a biological reality. It's an absurd comparison.
Men have on average 10 times the level of testosterone as women. Testosterone is responsible for muscle growth and other physical traits which is why women as a group are physically less capable than men as a group, by practically ever measure (strength, power, endurance). Of course there are exceptions where some women have the genetics/hormone levels that give them the ability to be trained to a higher standard than most men, but that doesn't change anything because it doesn't apply as a whole - which is what we're talking about. The fastest women footballers will never be as fast as the fastest male footballers, and the strongest will never be as strong as the strongest males ones, and so on.
You must be suffering from some kind of delusion if you cannot see this.
I'm not a fan of putting down women who play sports for a cheap laugh, but if you want to have a serious discussion about it, obviously women's football will never be the same as men's football. And this is because of the stark biological difference between men and women. You cannot compare this viewpoint to racism because racism is the scientifically unfounded belief that humans can be subdivided into meaningful racial categories which merit discrimination. The idea that men and women are immensely biologically different is a biological reality. It's an absurd comparison.
Men have on average 10 times the level of testosterone as women. Testosterone is responsible for muscle growth and other physical traits which is why women as a group are physically less capable than men as a group, by practically ever measure (strength, power, endurance). Of course there are exceptions where some women have the genetics/hormone levels that give them the ability to be trained to a higher standard than most men, but that doesn't change anything because it doesn't apply as a whole - which is what we're talking about. The fastest women footballers will never be as fast as the fastest male footballers, and the strongest will never be as strong as the strongest males ones, and so on.
You must be suffering from some kind of delusion if you cannot see this.
Nah, all that does is make men stupid and sexually aggressive.
You haven't really answered my question. If you had the choice, do you think there should be a utopian existence whereby both men and women should, as of tomorrow, be playing sport together?
Should Michelle Wie be teeing it up with Tiger Woods in one big tour? Should Serena Williams be playing best of 5 on the other side of Rafael Nadal? Should Marta be competing for a spot in the Brazilian national set up alongside Neymar? If yes, then why? If no, then what are the possible reasons that this could not happen, aside from the study which indicates that Nadal had a second portion at breakfast when aged 5, and Williams did not?
If by stupid you mean increased drive, aggression and risk taking, then yeah. Which incidentally contribute to a greater chance of men excelling as sports like football.
You can bet that Messi is stronger and faster than almost every single female footballer. And even if he wasn't, it doesn't prove anything. For a female footballer to be as strong and fast and Messi, she would have to be an enormous physical exception. Men come with Messi's physical ability as standard.
I've just answered your question in detail. Yes, hypothetically, they should be able to.
As it stands though, we've got years, decades, centuries even, of a societal influence that has created a gender difference like the ones I have described. We are not currently in a position, in many sports, to just suddenly pit them against each other. There are some that I think could compete with male counterparts fine. A relative lack of nutrition and severe lack of exercise when compared to boys means that girls are behind developmentally. I've said this three times now, these are the reasons. You can't ask me for more reasons when I've already detailed the most prevalent ones.
It will take a huge shift in attitudes for this to come to fruition, and unfortunately it's not something I can see happening any time soon, particularly not as men seem to want to resist any potential change at any given opportunity.
Obvs I'm taking the mickey out of some feminist theories I've heard int' past. Alex99's claims about physical differences mostly being caused by a social bias directing young boys towards sport is something I've heard before. I'm sure it's a factor, but sexual dimorphism is something we see in many animals- both in a physical and behavioural sense. No doubt he'll contest that by claiming that the scientists who did these studies were biased by our socially constructed understanding of gender norms, but anyway..