My Latest on PJ Media: Time to End Men's and Women's Divisions in Sports

[Mark Rippetoe]

Rip?s Modest Proposal: End Misogyny in Sports

[MattWI]

Jonathan Swift could not have written it better.

[Scaldrew]

I'm just going to come out and say it: I think post-modernism is a valuable, generally good thing

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like everything else, it has its limits. Based on my limited understanding of it, post-modernism is at the very basic level the realisation or awareness that everything can be called into question to an extreme degree. That is, asking the question "why?" incessantly, like you would when you were a child, is a helpful tool to pull people into the 21st century and to show others that absolutes are incredibly unlikely to be correct, if ever at all. For anything related to culture, to understanding, to history, to things that are not on or off answers (i.e. things that aren't facts, but necessarily based on facts, of course), I believe post-modernism to be a helpful consideration if you're very very smart or wish to be very very smart.

THAT SAID
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It's just another way of thinking, like marxist thinking or feminist thinking or psychoanalytic thinking or positivist thinking or stoic thinking or platonistic thinking etc etc etc. So where positivist truth is most relevant (like in the hard sciences), it's probably incredibly misguided to try to apply post-modernist principles in your reasoning. Where facts are chiefly of concern, for example "did Trump/Obama/Putin/whoever say X", post-modernism is probably most likely not at all relevant or useful. But whenever meaning is created in interaction with an object, its creator, and the tradition of the creation of the object (e.g. literature), I think post-modernism is not unimportant, even if only to stop someone before continuing and making them aware of their inherent biases (which need not be apologised for, but still need to be considered and kept in mind when interpreting). I just wanted to play devil's advocate because it really doesn't seem like a bad way of thinking in the hands (or minds) of someone capable of dealing with multiple interpretations that aren't self-exclusionary, though possibly self-contradictory.

But men are stronger than women on average and stating this fact of biology isn't sexist or demeaning to women. What is more troublesome than post-modernism, itself, is the malleable minds of the dear children who, thinking they've found the goose with the golden eggs, readily discard the other geese that lay golden eggs, too. That is, just because I can read Shakespeare as both an argument for and an argument against a monarchy instead of a republic doesn't mean the knowledge of splitting hydrogen atoms is very important to us. Just because other, seemingly pre-historic cultures can produce mythology and literature in oral form that isn't necessarily as backwards as their own customs (though, I'd argue, not nearly as advanced as our own mythologies and literatures) doesn't mean knowledge of general and special relativity is no longer important. Etc etc etc

At some level, you have to cling to some irrational axioms or assumptions in order to function as a human being in a society. Just like it's useful to ask "why?" about everything, it's useful to just answer "because" and move on. You can give every reason in the world as to why, for instance, men will most likely never be seen crying in public or seen crying at all, but at some core level, men don't even need a reason. They just don't feel the need to or believe somehow that they shouldn't, and that's just fine. At some level, clinging to mythology and tradition is all the reason you need for trivial little things like these that don't involve physical or mental harm to others. But maybe I'm just a sexist homophobe douchebag retard for believing so.

[George Christiansen]

I'm just going to come out and say it: I think post-modernism is a valuable, generally good thing

Postmodernism is based on the absolutely false assumption that modernism doesn't address the questions it raises. It is like some 16 year-old telling the manager how things should be done at work....on his first day.

It is the same stupidity that thinks that ancient people were somehow stupid for not having cell phones or the internet.

[JTX]

The following is something i PM'd Mark on Spacebook earlier. He asked me to repost here.

Hi Rip: I'm a long time follower of your techniques. Although my success has been mixed, it's mostly trended upward since pushing more heavily into SS. I have three of the books, and actually trained briefly with Andy Baker in Kingwood, who was a great guy and very helpful.

I'm saying this to point out i'm not some internet troll, i'm a legit fan. But my question is that what's up with the trans article? Is it snark? Look, if PJMedia is your preferred outlet, fine, i can tell where your politics lies. I'm fortunate enough to not have any gender struggles, but i do know several that do, and the subject deserves better than sarcasm from a leading industry professional.

The conflict on this issue and sports competitions are almost always caused not by the trans individual, but by the ruling bodies themselves not acting in the athletes' best interest (both trans and cis). Many trans men love working out and sports because it gives them the chance to be where they're most comfortable: athletic MEN. I'm aware of the wrestling kid. That clusterfuck was not caused by him.

Sorry if i read the tone wrong, but i'm just being honest in how it sounds. If i'm right, then i'm disappointed to see you take the issue so lightly on a national platform.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Do you believe that a congenital male who has spent 30 years as a male and 2 as a trans-female should be allowed to compete in the women's division of an athletic competition?

[Bestafter60]

Goddamn, that was funny and poignant! Where exactly is the "taint of twice"?

[JTX]

I can't tell if my first response got devoured (user error). If not, sorry for the rough repost and/or disregard.

Do you believe that a congenital male who has spent 30 years as a male and 2 as a trans-female should be allowed to compete in the women's division of an athletic competition?

I don't know. Not my field. Do you think a congenital woman who has spent a lifetime as female but is now transitioning to male should be allowed to compete with other men? Because that's not what happened with the wrestler, and it didn't end well (for the girls he was forced to compete against).

This discussion isn't my point, though. My point is that i clicked thinking i was getting an article on combating misogyny in sports written by a nationally recognized strength trainer/expert, and i got something else. If your point was to raise the issues above, the article is an interesting way to do it, to say the least.

[quikky]

I think sports should be judged entirely based on feelings. Any kind of objective scoring implies a bias towards a particular skill that an individual is to be judged on. More importantly - some individuals might possess less of said skill, or even none at all, which makes scoring a discriminatory approach to sports. I am hurt and offended that I cannot play in the NBA. Why should I, a white man of slightly above average height, with no particular talent in basketball, be denied entry into the NBA? I perceive myself as an NBA player, stuck inside said non-so-NBA-material body. I propose that we end the discrimination, and allow individuals such as myself to compete in the NBA. It is time to end the bigotry of objective performance.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I don't know. Not my field. Do you think a congenital woman who has spent a lifetime as female but is now transitioning to male should be allowed to compete with other men?

She can't compete with other women unless they waive the rules against steroids for the other women. I suppose the boys wouldn't care, unless she beat somebody, which would not be likely.

To get you up to speed, let's start here: Training Female Lifters: Neuromuscular Efficiency | Mark Rippetoe