Kicking. Squealing.
At Double X, Amanda Hess writes of the recent Washington Post article about sex differences in throwing ability:
There’s no reason Haspel’s failure to launch should be a source of lifelong humiliation—outside the professional baseball diamond, throwing stuff does not constitute a serious life skill. But throwing remains an area of male superiority, and so it has taken on an outsized social status, from the schoolyard to the cubicle trashcan. Most prominent professional sports and recess-period feats of strength were designed by and for men, and are predicated on the idea that throwing harder, farther, and faster is better. (Mercifully, this gender divide is reversed in college, where frat boys are forced to adopt that weak-forearm motion to lob ping pong balls into red Solo cups weighted with High Life.)
In her article, Hess spends many words arguing that throwing is a pointless talent. In the modern world throwing isn’t necessary so it isn’t a big deal. But swimming, sprinting, playing basketball, and excelling at sport isn’t important in the grand scheme either. But we all know that when feminists believe that a woman has a chance to challenge men (as when the Chinese female swimmer swam the last leg of her race faster than Ryan Lochte) all of a sudden that sport will become the most important thing in the world and prime evidence that sex differences are socially constructed. It becomes oh so important then. To follow Hess’s argument a little bit further, most sports exist in their modern form because they draw “an outsized social status”. Yet, again, feminists have spent a lot of energy pushing girls and women to participate in sport. And they’re certainly only doing it because these are the traditional domains of men.
someone mentioned hand grenades in the comments there. It would be interesting if Hess has written of military women. I read that they had to significantly change the standards when it came to this non-useful skill.(women had to throw over a wall, men had to throw like 40ft)
pointless stupid comment
I don’t know why women are upset by that phrase. It’s only an insult when directed at guys and the smaller percentage of girls who actually feel the same social pressure to perform at sports that guys do. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Boo fixed Jem’s pants but he noticed that it looked like it was done by a boy. Was that insulting? Sewing is no longer a life skill either since everyone pays to have their pants hemmed and tears mended. Knitting is still very much a way of gaining status among women as a reflection of artistic talent.
Our motivations are affected by ability. Most girls can’t throw as well as boys. It’s frustrating and embarrassing for them to stand in front of boys and throw so weakly – especially since most kids can barely do it at all without training. Then they start doing cartwheels in the field. Why is it surprising that they gravitate towards gymnastics? Also, girls have a harder time overcoming the fear of balls coming at them and the whole pain of getting hit thing. I know a girl who kept breaking bones in her hand from catching line drives in softball. It’s a very tough sport.
BTW,
MARIN Luca placed 8th in the men’s 400IM final, time: 4:14.89
Ye won the women’s men’s 400IM final, breaking the world record, time: 4:28.43
Yes, after swimming 350m in 20 seconds slower, she swam her last lap nearly 2 tenths of a second faster than Lochte. He said some ridiculously flattering thing like he might not have won that race if he’d been in it, but still got labeled the biggest douche of the Olympics by a feminist website. Not that swimming is important beyond the tread-water-to-save-your-life skill most people can attain.
“pointless stupid comment”
That goes without saying from you.
Shut your mouth white boy. Anti-Racist you see the disrespect from weak ass racists here. It is because you are letting your comments get half ass. Bring it on and show the racists you are superior in mind. You can do it Brother. We are at your back. Boot to the head in the name of Justice!
I think PJ and Anti-Racist the same person yanking your chain, CR.
Throwing Is a useful skill, and always has been for most people who do physical work. It is sometimes simply a quick and easy way to move a small object from one person or place to another. And in less civilized circumstances, it’s a handy way to break things and hurt people.
culdesachero –
I’m pretty sure that Promoting Justice is mocking Anti-Racist (and doing it quite effectively).
It’s just another example of feminists not being able to come to terms with the reality that equal rights doesn’t create equal ability.
Most prominent professional sports and recess-period feats of strength were designed by and for men, and are predicated on the idea that throwing harder, farther, and faster is better.
Name me an activity where softer, shorter and slower are better….
Comedy gold.
Clearly Ms. Hess is unfamiliar with the atl atl.
Throwing was once the most important skill for a man to have if survival was part of his life strategy, roughly equivalent to a woman’s ability to forage while keeping track of her offspring, Ms Hess, being completely uninformed historically wouldn’t know about this, and consequently cannot understand that today’s “throwing” is merely a relic of a much older skill set that allowed here genes to pass forward so she can sit at her ipad and bang out clueless essays. The proper response would be an article written by a man demeaning a woman’s ability to shop for consumer goods, an absolutely worthless skill set that is given far more prominence in today’s culture than a man throwing something.
It is also presumed (though hardly proven) that the development of the expanded occipetal shelf was the result of a trotting counterbalance when stalking prey- it allowed for a stabilized view by off setting the up and down motion, thereby making it possible to accurately target a projectile while on the move. This extra space allowed for additional brain capacity, which, unfortunately, in turn led to Ms Hess’ stellar piece of writing.
“I don’t know why women are upset by that phrase. It’s only an insult when directed at guys ”
duh, because women want to be guys, at least a significant proportion do.