Favouritism in Competition

Cass · Post by **Cass** » 30 Jun 2007 19:31

I started this thread in the Shreditas subforum about a month ago:

Cassy wrote:This weekend I attended the circle contest in Montreal, this was my first ever competition and I had an awesome time. I competed and to my suprise I got 3rd place in the intermediate circle comp. But the thing is, I can't help but think that I didn't really deserve this ranking. In my opinion there were guys competing who were better than me, and I feel like the only reason that I made it to the finals was because I am a female. Has this happened to anyone else? Do you girls think that it is acceptable for females to be judged more leniently solely because of their gender? I kind of feel like I cheated. Personally, I would much rather earn my ranking (or lack thereof) than be given it just because I am a girl. I'd love to hear some opinions on this topic from some other females.

Moxie thought it would be a good idea to post it publicly and discuss it with the boys. So.. what do you think?

brinard · Post by **brinard** » 30 Jun 2007 22:04

i think this sport is too diverse to be judged evenly. in golf, women get a few feet closer to the hole at the start. or a bigger handicap. in womens basketball, the ball is 1'' in diamater smaller. (easier baskets)

i think women should have a handicap when competeing against men for the reason that most sports would. men are more well adapted. bigger muscles, and probably testosterone drive. and i guess guys take training and acceling way more seriously (like jocks...

).im not saying girls dont take it seriously, but this is a tough sport, and were talking about competition.

i would judge them both evenly, only females with a tiny handicap. like same judging equations, but give them like 2-3 free drops, and guys get none.

props on getting good placement in ranks. i wouldnt worry much about gender related issues when competeing, its just hacky. sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

LEGOMAN · Post by **LEGOMAN** » 30 Jun 2007 22:42

I don't think they should but I can't explain myself out without making myself look like an asshole. I'll edit this later when I can put it in a nice non assholeish way.

CIC flurry · Post by **CIC flurry** » 30 Jun 2007 23:44

Honestly, when I see a video - I might prefer a female shredder of the same skill set as her male counterpart. Because it's different.

Same reason I get excited when a fellow shredder busts a new link in a run that they don't normally do. Even though the whole run is dope, I only focus on the new and different part.

Also, I love girls in a non-footbag way. And I love footbag. Put the two together and it's a dynamite combination that I might prefer to watch or think higher of. And I think some people may have their judgment affected by this.

There are other biases in competition as well. Simply having favorites b4 competition starts.

I think it is important to talk about this, and make sure judges are reminded to be unbiased.

I dunno if any of this helped but it is trying to be helpful and honest.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 30 Jun 2007 23:47

I definitely think that women in footbag receive far more praise for what they do than men doing the same things.

I don't know if it's a bad thing or not. Personally I get very frustrated when people give me compliments that I don't deserve, and don't feel like it's sincere or that they're even actually paying attention to what I'm doing. I don't really know how other people feel about it.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 01 Jul 2007 01:17

Jeremy wrote:Personally I get very frustrated when people give me compliments that I don't deserve

I feel this way too, and it seems like that is what Cassy is feeling. I'm really conflicted on this issue and almost posted a couple times, but gave up because I have too much to say.

HG · Post by HG » 01 Jul 2007 05:56

I was going to say something about this when it was posted, but decided against it. Now seems as good a time as ever.

When it was said that Tina Aeberli hit TATW, a lot of people got super excited. Not just "Hey props" excited, but "wow groundbreaking for the sport" excited. TATW had been hit yeeeeeaaars ago, and if women want to be treated equally in sport, we shouldn't have these double standards.

Probably doesn't make sense, or makes me look like an idiot

LEGOMAN · Post by **LEGOMAN** » 01 Jul 2007 06:35

That's actually what I wanted to say Hendog. I just couldn't firgure out how to

shreddaily · Post by **shreddaily** » 01 Jul 2007 07:22

i'm going to ignore all the above posts and just ramble about favoritism.

favoritism is what make judging everything other than shred 30 sooooooooo hard. especialy when u r dealing with really talented shredders.
like what deserves first 1st in a sick one gyro double pickup ending on inside, or clownface... my favoritism would say the first but someone like Mr Abshire who loves the shuffle might argue.
or what deserves 1st in a routine a dropless creative routine, or a dropless routine with 80 more adds. I would probably just pick who i liked better, and that sucks, but its a part of a subjective sport.
and favoritism plays a huge role in pre-comp ranking. I know all about that. I really had a problem with how i felt got shafted the first year I competed open, but then i judged, and had to put the Outsider second to last with a GREAT routine. And felt like crap about it. judging is hard and when u feel u get shafted playing "favoritism" card is pretty easy. Sometimes its true, sometimes its just hard to pick.

Cass · Post by **Cass** » 01 Jul 2007 12:16

brinard wrote:i think this sport is too diverse to be judged evenly. in golf, women get a few feet closer to the hole at the start. or a bigger handicap. in womens basketball, the ball is 1'' in diamater smaller. (easier baskets)

i think women should have a handicap when competeing against men for the reason that most sports would. men are more well adapted. bigger muscles, and probably testosterone drive. and i guess guys take training and acceling way more seriously (like jocks... ).im not saying girls dont take it seriously, but this is a tough sport, and were talking about competition.

I disagree. I can understand why in sports like basketball and golf women get a handicap. Its true that we generally have less muscle mass and are smaller. But I don't think these factors matter much in footbag. Yes it is a tough sport, but physically I think that females are capable of just as much as males. As for how serious one takes the sport, I don't think this has anything to do with gender, and much more to do with each individuals drive and personality.

Jeremy wrote:I definitely think that women in footbag receive far more praise for what they do than men doing the same things.

This is true. And in some cases understandable. There are very few women in the sport and I know that a lot of guys(and girls for that matter) like to see women footbag. However, just because the judges are excited to see a girl compete/do well in a competition does not mean that they have the right to favour them over other competitors.

Jeremy wrote:Personally I get very frustrated when people give me compliments that I don't deserve, and don't feel like it's sincere or that they're even actually paying attention to what I'm doing.

This is exactly how I feel.

shreddaily wrote: favoritism is what make judging everything other than shred 30 sooooooooo hard. especialy when u r dealing with really talented shredders.

Obviously favouritism is difficult to avoid in most circumstances. But I think that there is a pretty big difference between preferring one style or one trick over another equally difficult one, and preferring one competitor who has less skill but is female over a more skilled male.

BuckRuckus · Post by **BuckRuckus** » 02 Jul 2007 14:49

Meh. I was a little miffed when you knocked me out of the first round, Cassy! I thought I played ok. But your strings were longer, and you showed better mastery of the basics. I (and some of the other dudes you beat) fell into the trap of trying the hardest tricks we knew and dropping.

Notice that Josh - who beat us both - played slightly below his skill level and went for long, smooth tiltless. If I had hit that phoenix and atom smasher I would have beat you! It was a big gamble and I lost.

I think that being a girl has less to do with the outcome of that comp than you think. Give yourself some credit! You rock!

Cass · Post by **Cass** » 02 Jul 2007 15:40

Thanks Mike, that makes me feel a little better

. But it still kinda bugs me knowing that I beat people who obviously have more skill than me. I may have had a couple good strings, but I also dropped quite a few times as well.

BuckRuckus · Post by **BuckRuckus** » 02 Jul 2007 16:18

We all dropped alot. You should just practice TONS, so that next time you beat a bunch of boys at footbag, there is no question that you deserved the win.

Cass · Post by **Cass** » 02 Jul 2007 17:24

Haha, will do!

MatS21 · Post by **MatS21** » 02 Jul 2007 20:07

BuckRuckus wrote:Meh. I was a little miffed when you knocked me out of the first round, Cassy! I thought I played ok. But your strings were longer, and you showed better mastery of the basics. I (and some of the other dudes you beat) fell into the trap of trying the hardest tricks we knew and dropping.

The other dude being me I just agree with all that. The round was really hard to judge because as Mike mentionned we all dropped a lot. Josh easily won the round but for the second place it was real tight. After the round I really didn't know who was going to be in finals, in my head us 3 we're involved. Definitely because of what Mike Mentionned, you showed better mastery of basics. I only gone basics for one string on the seventh if I'm not wrong so obviously I dropped often and had pretty short run. Longevity definitely beat difficulty so you deserved it.

ianek · Post by **ianek** » 04 Jul 2007 21:34

i was not a judge, but the way you did shred in competition definitely earn yourself 3rd place. I'm sure the fact that you (and Camille) are a girl did not affect the judges.

Max Power · Post by **Max Power** » 05 Jul 2007 15:40

I was there but I didn't watch carefully, and it did seem close, I don't think that you are right about it being favoritism, and you can't assume that it was. I thought you did great and I was really impressed, It almost seems like a non issue to me but i could be wrong. If you are going to worlds would you compete against the women or the men? Should we try and do away with the womens category? I think Carol would have made finals for many years in a row, she was so solid, but she choose to compete with the women and beat there butts senseless. who knows she could have been the world open freestyle champ. Whatever theres a womens catagory and women compete in it is that wrong? don't ask me because I don't know.

james · Post by **james** » 05 Jul 2007 17:02

You earned your 3rd place, of that there is no doubt.

Cass · Post by **Cass** » 05 Jul 2007 18:29

I wasn't sure at first, but I guess favouritism wasn't as big a factor as I had thought

. Although I did receive some comments/props that I wouldn't have received if I were a male while at that tournament. Unfortunately I will not be going to worlds this year anyways

, but if/when I do go I think that I would rather compete against intermediate males than females.

Rieferman · Post by **Rieferman** » 07 Aug 2007 07:14

I think women get more props for comparatively less for the same reason that really young kids do... there's less of them in the sport and everyone wants to encourage them to stick with it. It goes away eventually >> I can't ever remember Carol getting unworthy props. Once you get to her level, the guys are just trying to bust as hard as her so it doesn't come into play anymore.

In terms of how good women can be at footbag (re: women vs. men in other sports such as basketball etc.) I would argue that women might be better at footbag naturally. You figure there's about 1 female "serious" player to every 50 (just guessing) serioues male players. And from that small sample, there's quite a few women that are pretty darn good. That is, part of the reason that we see more elite players that are male, is because there's a larger sample size.