football, spies, war and wrestling

[amw]

I get most of my entertainment news through ohnotheydidnt, which i read more for the entertainment of the comments than the actual news. But, you know, at least by browsing that comm every day i knew the name Charlie XCX years before it unexpectedly popped up in the "serious" news, even though i still have no idea what her music sounds like

Comments

[siglinde99]

Analyzing the opponent’s previous games has been part of the game since televised soccer began. Drones are dumb because it’s too easy to get caught. Getting caught is, of course, the biggest failure in sport. I can feel myself getting worked up into a rant about Caster Semenya and others like her who have been “caught” having natural advantages, so I’m going to leave it at that before I start frothing at the mouth.

[amw]

You know I didn't reply to this comment because I had nothing pertinent to add, but here we are, not a week into the Olympics, and the nut jobs have apparently once again started crusades against AFAB women who look a bit too masculine for their tastes. You can't win with these bigots! If you're AFAB and your body produces more testosterone than the median woman, can't be treated as a woman. If you're AMAB and reduce your testosterone levels to equal or less than the median woman, still can't be treated as a woman. Let's not even get into how it always seems to be non-white athletes who are targeted. Why are these people so obsessed with policing who is allowed to be a woman? Why is it suddenly so important to them now when trans and intersex and gender non-conforming and "at the tails of the normal distribution but nevertheless part of the population" people have always existed? It's bananas. Do they really have nothing better to do with their lives?

[siglinde99]

Clearly they do not! I’m pretty sure most of them have never played any sports seriously, and they are sitting in their mom’s basement playing at being keyboard warrior. Unless they’re Russian bots. Speaking of the Russian influence in all this, you might find this piece interesting: https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/olympics-imane-khelif-angela-carini-boxing-controversy-1.7282002. It’s a pretty good summary of the origins of the nonsense (well not Rowling and the other TERFs, but the boxing organization and their shady dealings, and why everyone needs to take a deep breath and do some critical thinking and verify sources before spouting off).

[amw]

This is something that really irks me about the commentary on boxing in particular. Speaking as someone who was actually involved with women's amateur boxing for a couple years... it is not a sport where everyone is a conventionally attractive gym bunny wearing lipstick and pink gloves. Although there are a handful of those, there are also a lot of flat-chested, cauliflower-eared, bruised and bloodied fighters that a lot of men would be wary of encountering in a dark alley. It's a rough and tough working class sport, where a lot of the competitors are coming from hard backgrounds and wear those scars with pride.

People who feel uncomfortable watching women getting punched in the face should not be watching a sport where the literal goal is punching women in the face. It's violent. It's brutal. My mom hated boxing and thought it was barbaric... so she didn't watch it. It's okay to not feel comfortable with boxing and to watch something else instead. People don't need to constantly give their two cents.

[siglinde99]

I have zero boxing experience beyond sharing a change room with women who do a boxing fitness class at the same time as I swim. But even to me, it is obvious that boxers get intense looks on their faces, are sweaty, and either have very short hair or tie it back tightly. Most look much more stereotypically “feminine” once they are relaxed and have had a shower. But really, they look like most other elite female athletes: strong shoulders, very little body fat (including no boobs). Unsurprisingly, the outliers tend to be in the “girlie” sports where you wear skimpy bikinis for uniforms (Spanish beach volleyball team, I’m looking at you).