Well, there is nothing stopping women from trying out for various teams. The thing is, that even in the less physical sports that you listed, women just don't compete well in comparison to men.Brian Peacock wrote:While I was watching the rugger the other day my daughter volunteered the opinion that the world cup teams should be mixed - it was the 'World Cup' after all, so it should have everybody in the world taking part, half of which are women. I pointed out that the physical nature of the game probably precluded men and women matching each other in contact situations, which she admitted, but then she went on to say that football (soccer) was basically a non-contact sport, and cricket, and golf, darts, snooker, cycling, rowing, and a few others. She also said that things like the shooting, archery were skills of co-ordination not strength, and then listed a few more; gymnastics, figure skating, fencing, and some others. Turns out that while I was in front of the telly she'd been talking on facebook with some of her friends whose dad's had also been swearing at the television. I must admit that I couldn't come up with a reason why most of the sports she mentioned couldn't or shouldn't be made up of mixed teams. She's 16. Does that make her a man-hating feminist Dave?
Take golf, you can allow women all you want compete against the men, but unless you made it a rule that each golf foursome had to have two women on it, the teams would generally be all male, with very, very few exceptions, because so many more men are much better than even the best women.
If you force two women on each foursome in golf, then you'll just have worse golf played.
Similarly, women aren't kept off of men's soccer teams because they ware women. Women are kept off because they are generally not as competitive -- they are slower and don't shoot as hard, for example. Don't get me wrong, I love women's soccer and I found that in the World Cup, it's as fun to watch the women as it is the men, and in some respects the women's play is more fun to watch because it doesn't have as much diving and faking of injuries. But, that doesn't change the fact that men overall are far better at soccer than women overall.
This is true even in amateur games. I've played soccer for much of my life, in school and recreational adult leagues. When we play on men only teams, the games are competitive and hard fought. When you play on mixed teams of men and women, it's "just for fun" and none of the men actually play hard. You often just let the women run a bit, because you don't want to be a dick and take the ball away from them. You never drive them off the ball, slide tackle them, etc. You just don't play hard. Often, if you're racing to the ball as a woman is doing the same, you'll just sort of lay off a bit. Nothing makes a guy look worse than playing hard against a woman -- you just have to govern your play such that she doesn't get by you or score on you, but not so hard that it looks like you're kind of beating up on her.
The rules in recreational soccer and mixed groups can get really stupid because of the mixed groups. They have rules requiring minimum numbers of women, and in one league, they required that men and women alternate as goaltender, but when a woman was in the goal the men couldn't shoot. They had to pass to a woman to shoot. That's fun if you're just dicking around to have a bit of exercise and include the wives and girlfriends, but it's no way to really play the sport.
For middle school and teenage boys, it's very very difficult. Many leagues make the kids play in mixed sex groups, but the girls learn fast that they can take advantage of the boys, for the very reason that the boys can't play hard against them. They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. If you get beat out for the ball by a girl, you are embarrased, and if you play hard against them you look like a bully.
it's ridicule in the face of your continuing fallacious generalisations.
What does that tell you about brain mass and intelligence?