What do folk think about gender equality in virtual orienteering where women have no physical disadvantage to contend with? Everyone can compete on the same 'courses' but should there be separate classes for women and men?
The ongoing Catching Features World Championships chose not to have separate classes because women can compete on an equal basis, but other events such as Orienteering Unlocked and SYO Catching Features competitions have separate classes presumably intended to encourage women and girls to take part.
Judging by the entries for each it would seem separate classes is more effective in the short term, but is there a long term gender equality argument?
Gender Equality in UK Orienteering
Moderators: [nope] cartel, team nopesport
40 posts
• Page 3 of 3 • 1, 2, 3
Re: Gender Equality in UK Orienteering
To oblivion and beyond....
-
buzz - addict
- Posts: 1197
- Joined: Mon May 09, 2005 10:45 pm
- Location: Sheffield
Re: Gender Equality in UK Orienteering
I find gender equality in non-physical sports intriguing. Is there any reason why women should not be as good at snooker, darts, or chess? I assume the male dominance in these sports is more to do with tradition, and the fact that men just enjoy them more. At my school, chess has always been extremely popular among the boys, but rarely played by girls, so it stands to reason that boys always win the competitions.
The same is true in a national schools maths competition - The UKMT maths challenge. The highest scores qualify for the prestigious British Maths Olympiad. As very few girls ever qualify for this, the UKMT recently introduced a Girls Olympiad. This caused strong reaction from some female staff at my school, who thought it was sexist.
The same is true in a national schools maths competition - The UKMT maths challenge. The highest scores qualify for the prestigious British Maths Olympiad. As very few girls ever qualify for this, the UKMT recently introduced a Girls Olympiad. This caused strong reaction from some female staff at my school, who thought it was sexist.
- Norni
- string
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:25 pm
Re: Gender Equality in UK Orienteering
Norni wrote:I find gender equality in non-physical sports intriguing. Is there any reason why women should not be as good at snooker ....
Does it help to be taller for snooker?
- Gnitworp
- addict
- Posts: 1093
- Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:20 am
Re: Gender Equality in UK Orienteering
I recall that there is a break even point whereby female performance in ultra distance running events exceeds male performance, is anyone aware of a similar effect with ultra distance orienteering?
- canol
- orange
- Posts: 136
- Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2013 8:33 pm
- Location: In the middle
Re: Gender Equality in UK Orienteering
canol wrote:I recall that there is a break even point whereby female performance in ultra distance running events exceeds male performance
This is still moot - it may be that women have mental and/or physical advantages that come into play at very long distances but the evidence isn't clear: there have been fantastic performances - winning races and setting outright FKTs - by amazing athletes such as Camille Herron and Jasmin Paris but they are still a fair way slower than Yiannis Kouros (for 24hr) and Finlay Wild (for the Ramsay Round) respectively (similarly it's not unusual for local parkruns to be won outright by women but no-one uses that as the basis for arguing that women are better at 5k...)
I think most studies have suggested that the gender performance gap is stable, or only decreases slightly with increasing distance - I do remember seeing one non-academic report recently that suggested the mean race speed of women finishers was marginally better than men for races over 200 (?) miles but IIRC there was no correction for age or course type and the women made up only a very small proportion of the fields studied, so there were likely to be many more male "punters" dragging the average time down. There is pretty good evidence that women are better at preparing for and pacing long distances - as Jasmin P said "There are far fewer women in the room: because they have less ego, they wouldn’t turn up unless they were well-prepared. Whereas men can be a bit like, how hard can this be?"
-
greywolf - addict
- Posts: 1416
- Joined: Sat Apr 07, 2007 12:45 pm
- Location: far far away
Re: Gender Equality in UK Orienteering
For the ultra-long type race I believe that preparation, mind set and mental toughness are the deciding factors between winning or not. I suspect these factors are not gender specific.
- Big Jon
- guru
- Posts: 1895
- Joined: Tue Nov 14, 2006 11:59 am
- Location: Dess
Re: Gender Equality in UK Orienteering
I was interested by the points made in this radio programme about navigation skills and the apparent impact of gender. Many other scientific aspects are also taken up. Orienteering gets a mention (although described as a "game"), including reference to David Eccles, Professor of Sports Psychology at Florida State University. I see he's done some work with the British squad in the past.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszv71
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszv71
- Domhnull Mor
- light green
- Posts: 286
- Joined: Wed May 05, 2004 11:16 am
- Location: Way, Way Up North
Re: Gender Equality in UK Orienteering
Interesting programme... the work of Lazslo Polgar (chess) is also worth looking at.
Poignant that the radio programme stressed the importance of going to new locations, especially for old folk!
Poignant that the radio programme stressed the importance of going to new locations, especially for old folk!
- yted
- light green
- Posts: 222
- Joined: Wed May 12, 2010 1:53 pm
Re: Gender Equality in UK Orienteering
Lard wrote:I agree - Future Champions Cup was the best thing to happen to junior orienteering. The final weekend wasn't too limited in numbers either so it made for an excellent sociable weekend. The Regional Squads are great but they are simply limited by numbers that can be catered for so the squads/club groups below that are where we should be focussing our attention - making sure having fun and time to socialise/mix is integral here to the continuity issues.
What happened to the Future Champions Cup? What do the juniors have instead of it now? I presume the current programme doesn't have the same opportunities for socialising that the FCC did?
- NickTaylor
- string
- Posts: 8
- Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2020 5:39 pm
Re: Gender Equality in UK Orienteering
Norni wrote:The same is true in a national schools maths competition - The UKMT maths challenge. The highest scores qualify for the prestigious British Maths Olympiad. As very few girls ever qualify for this, the UKMT recently introduced a Girls Olympiad. This caused strong reaction from some female staff at my school, who thought it was sexist.
The International Physics Olympiad gave a "Special prize for the best score among female participants" until 2009. That year the highest scoring female participant was also the overall winner, which is perhaps why they stopped giving the special prize!
- babs f
- light green
- Posts: 210
- Joined: Tue May 03, 2011 10:32 am
40 posts
• Page 3 of 3 • 1, 2, 3
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 158 guests