Kevin Stevens wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Jul 2001 Smokerbros@aol.com wrote:
>> What needs to change is attitude. We need to support women, whatever
their
>> choice in classes is. [...] Let's just work on our attitudes and let
the
>> women decide where they want to run!
That's fine, except that there's a clear penalty associated with the system
we have now - it creates way too many extra classes, with the
administrative overhead of scoring each class separately, awarding extra
trophies, and so on.
It means every time we do create a new class, we in effect create TWO new
classes - and the Ladies' side is almost always undersubscribed.
> When they run in the same cars as the men and go substantially slower,
and
> then stand up and collect first place and championship trophies, I think
> what a hollow victory it is - just like I do with the men collecting
> trophies in poorly contested classes.
I agree, with a minor caveat: there is a difference between "I don't want
to compete against the men" and "I want to compete against other women (but
they never seem to show up)"
> When they do it year after year, I see their stultified growth and
> improvement, think back to the demonstrated fallacy of "separate but
> equal" categorizations in general, and shake my head at the waste of
> potential for paucity of achievement - just like I do with men.
Again, I agree. It is my experience that you never do anyone any favours by
molycoddling them. Certainly you don't want to just pitch them pell-mell
into the deep end of the pool (lowering them gently into the shallow end is
a good way to start) but putting fences between the shallow end and the
deep end does nobody any favours.
Nationals, Tours, and Pros are by definition the top levels of our sport.
There is no need for a "novice" class in the top levels, and if that what
the Ladies' class is acting as, currently, then there can be no
justification for it. Certainly, any impulse to shield women from the
"agressively competitive" men is misguided.
Of all the reasons given for the continuation of the Ladies' classes, only
one has ever held any water with me - the desire to not put (married)
couples at loggerheads. The mark of a competitive driver is a certain
amount of self-centeredness and self-absorbtion; with the Ladies' classes,
co-drivers have the ability to allow the driving partner the opportunity to
be self-absorbed while the other helps out, the roles reverse when the
other class runs. When both are running the same class at the same time,
there arises the opportunity for some conflict - not to mention some "in
spite of themselves" bruised egos when one invariably beats the other. This
can be a real problem, especially when both halves of the couple are highly
competitive Type "A" personalities.
Does this justify *doubling* the number of classes run? Not on my books.
I think the best compromise would be do do something along the lines of
what ProSolo does: consolidate the Ladies classes into 4 (SL, SPL, PL, ML)
with some sort of indexing scheme used within the class to balance the
sub-classes. It's not a perfect idea: it suffers from the inherent
unfairness of the index, and it offers some logistical challenges for
Nationals (All the various categories would have to run on the same 2 days)
The latter may be the killer tomatoe for the idea - that the indicies are
unfair is a problem, but they have a recourse if they don't like it: run
Open class.
At the Regional (and even Divisional) level, I have no opposition to the
Ladies' classes at all. It's a participation and retention tool, and I'm
all for that. But at the National level, I think the time has come to move
on.
DG
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