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Question Background

Another question got me thinking about gender within the martial arts.

I do Judo, and seeing as that's a grappling art, it's a particularly interesting/relevant topic.

I have never come across explicit sexism / gender issues in my experiences with Judo, even though the nature of it is close-contact (especially ground work).

However, there is a very obvious difference in participation levels across the genders...

The question:

The old question, which caused considerable confusion

Does the sex of a competitor (directly, or indirectly) affect the level at which they operate/compete at within (sport based) martial arts?

The new, simplified question: If I was born a female (I'm a male) and everything else remained constant, would I have a different chance of success at a martial arts competition just because of my gender?

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Nathan
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  • Can of worms. Kill it with fire! Also, you literally said "opinion" in your question. Ergo, I am voting to close as primarily opinion based. I can see you getting some mileage out of a more specific question, perhaps one having to do with center of gravity in throws male vs female. – The Wudang Kid Mar 22 '16 at 12:11
  • @TheWudangKid Hehe, yes, a very emotive topic - and therefore worth discussing. Used the word opinion because there will never be a right or wrong answer for such things... unless my wife is reading this, then I'm wrong and she's right!! :P – Nathan Mar 22 '16 at 12:13
  • @TheWudangKid I think there wouldn't be much of a site here if you closed all the opinion based items... martial arts, by their very nature, invite opinion based discussions and/or questions. :) – Nathan Mar 22 '16 at 12:16
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    It's not clear to me how the first three paragraphs relate to the last, nor how the extremely vague title relates to the question. Are you asking if sports performance is differentiated by sex? – Dave Liepmann Mar 22 '16 at 12:26
  • @TheWudangkid Think its perfectly fine he could just remove the word opinion; then read it. – YesTeacher Mar 22 '16 at 12:27
  • @DaveLiepmann Will update, thanks. Have removed the word "opinion" and given an example of what I mean by answering my own question, will also try to reword for clarity. – Nathan Mar 22 '16 at 12:37
  • @Nathan Now I'm even more confused than before. – Dave Liepmann Mar 22 '16 at 12:39
  • @DaveLiepmann I'm trying to get at the direct impact of gender on competitive potential... can you please advise / edit? Sorry, not trying to be confusing. – Nathan Mar 22 '16 at 12:41
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    What concrete problem are you trying to solve here? – Sardathrion - against SE abuse Mar 22 '16 at 12:47
  • @Sardathrion If I was born a female, would I have a different chance of success at a martial arts competition. – Nathan Mar 22 '16 at 12:52
  • Your new question is over board and has no useful answer -- it depends is the best answer. – Sardathrion - against SE abuse Mar 22 '16 at 13:12
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    "I have never come across explicit sexism / gender issues in my experiences with Judo" -- this may be influenced by the fact that you're male and therefore wouldn't be on the receiving end of misogyny, or that you don't consider sexist comments to be sexist. – Dave Liepmann Mar 22 '16 at 14:14
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    Or modern judo has moved on... I've only been doing judo 6 years :) – Nathan Mar 22 '16 at 14:15
  • @Sardathrion why not outline what it depends on? As to how useful an answer may or may not be... beauty is in the eye of the beholder. – Nathan Mar 22 '16 at 14:37

4 Answers4

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Here in the UK, competitive participation for female judoka is lower than that of male judoka - a statement which is easily supported by looking at pool sheets (Eg Here) and noting that usually the pool sizes for the female categories are lower.

Now, from this fact, you can directly infer that female judoka have fewer opportunities to learn their craft at a competitive level.

That's a demonstrable indirect affect of gender on martial arts athletes and is the sort of thing which I believe should be not only a valid discussion here, but indeed an important one.

Nathan
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I would look at this two ways for gender segregated sports:

  1. Gender has no effect on whether you win or lose any competitive match. Competition pits your strength, speed, skill, tenacity, etc. against your opponent's.

  2. Gender does affect your chances of being a champion. If there are N competitors, only 1 / N competitors can be champion. If N = 1, this is trivial. If N = 100, then this is quite a bit more difficult; you have to win more matches. As you have noted, there are generally fewer female competitors.

I am also surprised you have not encountered sexism in judo. To start with there is the business of female dan ranks with striped belts. These are disappearing now, but they were a very clear indication of sexism.

mattm
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    "These are disappearing now, but they were a very clear indication of sexism." So true and so sad :( – YesTeacher Mar 22 '16 at 14:09
  • Good point about the belts, I hadn't considered that - though females I know always wear plain black belts just like the males. – Nathan Mar 22 '16 at 14:12
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No.

Hard lesson the hard way - When I did competitions.

Though in general terms strength, build, and size do have to do with fighting or self defense in general doing it for sport is more skilled based.

Even if your adversary is twice your size if you can out maneuver them you have the advantage (this stands for male vs female or male vs male etc)

The counter aspects.

An opponent that has similar skills or teachings that has a bigger build, size or mussel mass. (Even though you can still out maneuver them its alot harder)

Note: Grappling- Many mma fighting styles foucua on just this point of view that size doesn't matter only skill and to use your opponents size against them.

YesTeacher
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  • I agree with all your points, but what if you're in a sport where you're not allowed to fight/compete with members of the opposite sex? – Nathan Mar 22 '16 at 12:44
  • Of course if a sport has guidelines to make the sport segregated there may be an avantage however I think some female's would completely disagree with me. – YesTeacher Mar 22 '16 at 12:47
  • Are there any sport-based martial arts that aren't segregated? Think that might be a whole new question :) – Nathan Mar 22 '16 at 12:56
  • What i competed state against girls all the time so yes – YesTeacher Mar 22 '16 at 12:57
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The color (red vs blue) has an implication according to this research: In Sports, Red Is Winning Color, Study Says. We can quote:

"red seems to be the color, across species, that signals male dominance and testosterone levels," Barton said.

So certainly the genitals matter as it do in our daily job life.

FloFu
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