Women's gymnastics struggles to overcome its roots
July 14, 2021 12:17 PM Subscribe
Women’s gymnastics was created to be a feminine sport, and the femininity that it promoted was the white, Eurocentric kind. As the sport progressed from its very white, very dancey origins and increased in acrobatic complexity, the WTC and FIG held fast to a certain set of self-consciously feminine artistic ideals that were seen as being at odds with the more athletic components of gymnastics.Dvora Meyers writes about why Simone Biles seems to be constantly low scored and how that fits in with the history of Women's gymnastics and its scoring system.
Yeah this made me think of figure skating also. But that's divided into different sub-sports - while the Olympics just has "figure skating," there's also professional level "ice dance" which was even an Olympic sport in '76. Isn't Rhythmic Gymnastics supposed to take the "artistic" part of the sport versus the "athletic" part?
posted by GuyZero at 1:22 PM on July 14, 2021
posted by GuyZero at 1:22 PM on July 14, 2021
Ice skating's been its own pile of messes here for many years, including the 2002 controversy as well as the sport's treatment of e.g. Surya Bonaly.
Does diving have this problem?
posted by nat at 1:45 PM on July 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
Does diving have this problem?
posted by nat at 1:45 PM on July 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
I really liked the discussion of concerns for the "safety" of the athletes as essentially rooted in a patronizing sexism. I genuinely can't think of any other athletic context in which there are actions are allowed but disincentivized by the scoring mechanism, as a way of protecting athletes from themselves.
posted by rishabguha at 2:12 PM on July 14, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by rishabguha at 2:12 PM on July 14, 2021 [3 favorites]
I really liked the discussion of concerns for the "safety" of the athletes as essentially rooted in a patronizing sexism. I genuinely can't think of any other athletic context in which there are actions are allowed but disincentivized by the scoring mechanism, as a way of protecting athletes from themselves.
I mean in principle, safety should obviously be a factor. It's a dangerous sport, nobody wants athletes getting maimed, so discouraging athletes from particularly dangerous moves seems like it would be in everyone's interests. The problem is that they seem to apply that argument differently based on gender.
posted by Urtylug at 2:33 PM on July 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
I mean in principle, safety should obviously be a factor. It's a dangerous sport, nobody wants athletes getting maimed, so discouraging athletes from particularly dangerous moves seems like it would be in everyone's interests. The problem is that they seem to apply that argument differently based on gender.
posted by Urtylug at 2:33 PM on July 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
figure skating [is] divided into different sub-sports - while the Olympics just has "figure skating," there's also professional level "ice dance" which was even an Olympic sport in '76.
Apologies if I'm misunderstanding this comment, but the Olympics doesn't "just" have Figure Skating. There are four different medal events (Mens, Womens, Pairs, and Ice Dance), just as there are multiple Gymnastics medal events. Ice Dance has been in every Winter Olympics since 1976.
The comparisons with Ice Dance seem very relevant to me. In its early years it was very Traditional European style ballroom dance-on-ice, and it took decades before more modern dance styles weren't penalized in scoring. There's a lot of institutional opposition to change, mostly because the ruling bodies/coaches/judges are naturally from the older generation that was used to the older forms.
There should be a certain amount of resistance to changing the scoring in case these new forms/moves/styles are just temporarily fashionable, but they need to do a better job of adjusting as it becomes clear we're dealing with better trained/developed athletes now.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 2:34 PM on July 14, 2021
Apologies if I'm misunderstanding this comment, but the Olympics doesn't "just" have Figure Skating. There are four different medal events (Mens, Womens, Pairs, and Ice Dance), just as there are multiple Gymnastics medal events. Ice Dance has been in every Winter Olympics since 1976.
The comparisons with Ice Dance seem very relevant to me. In its early years it was very Traditional European style ballroom dance-on-ice, and it took decades before more modern dance styles weren't penalized in scoring. There's a lot of institutional opposition to change, mostly because the ruling bodies/coaches/judges are naturally from the older generation that was used to the older forms.
There should be a certain amount of resistance to changing the scoring in case these new forms/moves/styles are just temporarily fashionable, but they need to do a better job of adjusting as it becomes clear we're dealing with better trained/developed athletes now.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 2:34 PM on July 14, 2021
Before we dismiss concerns about safety entirely, it's worth remembering that Julissa Gomez, Elena Mukhina, and Sang Lan all ended up paralyzed in what should have been their early careers. Only Sang Lan is still alive to tell the tale. "Difficulty" in their case was merely a euphemism for "danger" -- under-training, pressure to compete while injured, or even just skills that would eventually be banned outright for their high likelihood of killing those who attempted them.
That said, the sport has a long history of disregarding the safety of its female athletes in less-athletic, more "gender-appropriate" contexts, from eating disorders to sexual assault.
We tend to recognize a different kind of "risk" in macho, ball-focused sports than we do with the ones whose top athletes make dainty moves and wear pretty outfits. We worry over football players getting TBIs, but the glitzy spectacle of a cheerleading stunt is coded feminine, so we don't really think about it in the context of mortality.
Simone Biles is probably the most talented athlete the United States has ever seen, and her moves are astonishing. The Code of Points may be trying to discourage abusive coaches from pushing those moves on athletes who can't reliably execute them.
Last year, Kurt Thomas went to his grave knowing that his signature move debilitated and ultimately killed someone. I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
posted by armeowda at 2:38 PM on July 14, 2021 [32 favorites]
That said, the sport has a long history of disregarding the safety of its female athletes in less-athletic, more "gender-appropriate" contexts, from eating disorders to sexual assault.
We tend to recognize a different kind of "risk" in macho, ball-focused sports than we do with the ones whose top athletes make dainty moves and wear pretty outfits. We worry over football players getting TBIs, but the glitzy spectacle of a cheerleading stunt is coded feminine, so we don't really think about it in the context of mortality.
Simone Biles is probably the most talented athlete the United States has ever seen, and her moves are astonishing. The Code of Points may be trying to discourage abusive coaches from pushing those moves on athletes who can't reliably execute them.
Last year, Kurt Thomas went to his grave knowing that his signature move debilitated and ultimately killed someone. I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
posted by armeowda at 2:38 PM on July 14, 2021 [32 favorites]
I mean in principle, safety should obviously be a factor. It's a dangerous sport, nobody wants athletes getting maimed, so discouraging athletes from particularly dangerous moves seems like it would be in everyone's interests. The problem is that they seem to apply that argument differently based on gender.
If a technique is actively dangerous to everyone who performs it, then it should be banned. If some people (in this case Simone Biles) can do it perfectly safely, I don’t see why they should be penalized for that. If I tried my hand at Olympic skiing or skeleton I’d almost certainly injure myself, but the experienced professionals can fo it just fine so more power to them.
posted by rishabguha at 4:46 PM on July 14, 2021
If a technique is actively dangerous to everyone who performs it, then it should be banned. If some people (in this case Simone Biles) can do it perfectly safely, I don’t see why they should be penalized for that. If I tried my hand at Olympic skiing or skeleton I’d almost certainly injure myself, but the experienced professionals can fo it just fine so more power to them.
posted by rishabguha at 4:46 PM on July 14, 2021
That's not how risk, incentives, or responsibility work.
posted by tigrrrlily at 8:04 PM on July 14, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by tigrrrlily at 8:04 PM on July 14, 2021 [6 favorites]
I'm a white person. I can remember watching the Olympics as a kid and realizing that white people dominated the sports that involved judges or horses.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:08 PM on July 14, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:08 PM on July 14, 2021 [13 favorites]
A really important bit of context for anyone who has never been a gymnast: there is no such thing as a skill that can be executed “perfectly safely,” no matter how healthy and well-trained the athlete. Yes, they make it look totally effortless on TV. Yes, the sport has implemented a number of safety precautions (springboards nested in mats, vaulting tables instead of horses, spotters on call with crash-mats) in response to catastrophes.
It’s never going to be “perfectly safe.” It’s always risk assessment. It’s always cost-benefit analysis.
If some abusive jackass coach (Al Fong, Bela/Marta Karolyi) wants an athlete to take more risk than her health and training can realistically cover, it’s the gymnast who’s likely to bear the consequences — and she’s likely young enough not to be able to judge the risk for herself. Even if she judges correctly, the power imbalance makes it damn hard for her to self-advocate.
When the Code of Points inevitably adjusts to reduce this margin of error, the gymnasts get penalized because there’s a sense that their coaches/parents/countries aren’t looking out for their best interests. The conflict of interest is too great. It’s absolutely unfair and it sucks, but there’s real-life precedent behind it.
posted by armeowda at 9:12 PM on July 14, 2021 [12 favorites]
It’s never going to be “perfectly safe.” It’s always risk assessment. It’s always cost-benefit analysis.
If some abusive jackass coach (Al Fong, Bela/Marta Karolyi) wants an athlete to take more risk than her health and training can realistically cover, it’s the gymnast who’s likely to bear the consequences — and she’s likely young enough not to be able to judge the risk for herself. Even if she judges correctly, the power imbalance makes it damn hard for her to self-advocate.
When the Code of Points inevitably adjusts to reduce this margin of error, the gymnasts get penalized because there’s a sense that their coaches/parents/countries aren’t looking out for their best interests. The conflict of interest is too great. It’s absolutely unfair and it sucks, but there’s real-life precedent behind it.
posted by armeowda at 9:12 PM on July 14, 2021 [12 favorites]
I said this on Twitter and I'll say it here again, because this keeps happing in High Level Professional Sports:
- - -
Racists: Black people have to Excel to compete with White People.
Black People Excel and surpass everyone through Skill and Determination and Sheer-Force-Of-Will
Racists: What are you doing? No, don't do that!
posted by Faintdreams at 6:06 AM on July 15, 2021 [13 favorites]
- - -
Racists: Black people have to Excel to compete with White People.
Black People Excel and surpass everyone through Skill and Determination and Sheer-Force-Of-Will
Racists: What are you doing? No, don't do that!
posted by Faintdreams at 6:06 AM on July 15, 2021 [13 favorites]
The article brings up the fact that men’s gymnastics and women’s gymnastics are so different in terms of events that they might as well be different sports.
On a practical level, the men’s events are way more focused on upper body strength, which makes sense, but given how insanely strong female gymnasts are, I feel like they can probably still do cool, impossible-looking stuff on rings or a pommel horse. Any chance there are good examples of that?
posted by evidenceofabsence at 7:17 AM on July 15, 2021
On a practical level, the men’s events are way more focused on upper body strength, which makes sense, but given how insanely strong female gymnasts are, I feel like they can probably still do cool, impossible-looking stuff on rings or a pommel horse. Any chance there are good examples of that?
posted by evidenceofabsence at 7:17 AM on July 15, 2021
Tsk, tsk, evidenceofabsence, did you not think of how unfeminine that would be? Why would these lovely young ladies try to be like men?
posted by tigrrrlily at 7:23 AM on July 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by tigrrrlily at 7:23 AM on July 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
Racists: Black people have to Excel to compete with White People.
Black People Excel and surpass everyone through Skill and Determination and Sheer-Force-Of-Will
Racists: What are you doing? No, don't do that!
Elsewhere on Metafilter, there's a link to a Michael Harriot discussion of how this exact dynamic played out in the 1908 National Spelling Bee.
posted by jackbishop at 7:45 AM on July 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
Black People Excel and surpass everyone through Skill and Determination and Sheer-Force-Of-Will
Racists: What are you doing? No, don't do that!
Elsewhere on Metafilter, there's a link to a Michael Harriot discussion of how this exact dynamic played out in the 1908 National Spelling Bee.
posted by jackbishop at 7:45 AM on July 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
It's worthless to evaluate art via a panel of judges. I move gymnasts start to ridicule judges as hack losers with bad judgement until they just go away. Nobody watches gymnastics to see what numbers some dickheads hold up on the side. Unless those people have routines of their own to do, they should be neither seen nor heard.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:14 AM on July 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:14 AM on July 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
I feel like they can probably still do cool, impossible-looking stuff on rings or a pommel horse
They aren't that common, but flair mounts exist for balance beam.
posted by thomas j wise at 8:33 AM on July 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
They aren't that common, but flair mounts exist for balance beam.
posted by thomas j wise at 8:33 AM on July 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
I think artistic gymnastics is really hampered by the men's and women's events being so different. Women in sport are treated paternalistically, and the women in gymnastics are often really young, so taken even more so. And then on top of that you have all the problems inherent to sports with subjective elements like diving and ice skating. And then you have systemic and individual racism. Or put those factors in a different order, but they're all there and they mean that women's gymnastics just doesn't have a way of being fair to Simone Biles. As an individual, she is so far and away the best gymnast currently (and probably the best ever) that it doesn't matter, she will still win all the things that she was going to win. But there are other gymnasts who are like her but not quite as good for whom it will make all the difference in the world.
I think that things could change, but how can that kind of culture change happen when almost all the athletes participating in gymnastics as a sport (ie at pre-international or NCAA level) are genuinely children.
posted by plonkee at 9:23 AM on July 15, 2021
I think that things could change, but how can that kind of culture change happen when almost all the athletes participating in gymnastics as a sport (ie at pre-international or NCAA level) are genuinely children.
posted by plonkee at 9:23 AM on July 15, 2021
Adding to all of the other race & gender considerations, is it possible the WTC/FIG consider it unladylike (beyond a certain polite measure) to win?
posted by anshuman at 9:43 AM on July 15, 2021
posted by anshuman at 9:43 AM on July 15, 2021
Is it possible to use Computer based judging and take the humans out of it altogether?
I have always disliked sports that involved judging in some way to determine winners. Things like Diving, Gymnastics and even Boxing. These are undoubtedly fantastic levels of athleticism, strength and skill on display; but the judging part always bothered me about them.
Automate the judging!
posted by indianbadger1 at 9:58 AM on July 15, 2021
I have always disliked sports that involved judging in some way to determine winners. Things like Diving, Gymnastics and even Boxing. These are undoubtedly fantastic levels of athleticism, strength and skill on display; but the judging part always bothered me about them.
Automate the judging!
posted by indianbadger1 at 9:58 AM on July 15, 2021
Automate the judging!
This isn't a binary decision regarding a few seconds in time, like judging whether an American football player crossed into the end zone, or whether a ball in tennis went in and out. There are number of factors to be measured in just one skill (height, body position, pointed vs. flexed feet, full rotation of twists vs. partial, security of landing, and probably a lot more that I've forgotten). Every event except vault contains at least 10-15 skills and lasts for about a minute and half. Given that, I cannot imagine that there is an automated solution that would be affordable on the Olympic level, much less at the lower levels of the sport. (And as many people have pointed out, it's not like AI is magically free from racial bias.)
posted by creepygirl at 11:08 AM on July 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
This isn't a binary decision regarding a few seconds in time, like judging whether an American football player crossed into the end zone, or whether a ball in tennis went in and out. There are number of factors to be measured in just one skill (height, body position, pointed vs. flexed feet, full rotation of twists vs. partial, security of landing, and probably a lot more that I've forgotten). Every event except vault contains at least 10-15 skills and lasts for about a minute and half. Given that, I cannot imagine that there is an automated solution that would be affordable on the Olympic level, much less at the lower levels of the sport. (And as many people have pointed out, it's not like AI is magically free from racial bias.)
posted by creepygirl at 11:08 AM on July 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
There are number of factors to be measured in just one skill (height, body position, pointed vs. flexed feet, full rotation of twists vs. partial, security of landing, and probably a lot more that I've forgotten).
And, all this is being performed on a split second basis. Which is why I think human judging is not useful anymore. AI can have biases built in, but it can be a combination of algorithmic and AI based judging. I am not saying it should be implemented tomorrow, but that the IOC and related orgs start investing in this proactively.
posted by indianbadger1 at 12:06 PM on July 15, 2021
And, all this is being performed on a split second basis. Which is why I think human judging is not useful anymore. AI can have biases built in, but it can be a combination of algorithmic and AI based judging. I am not saying it should be implemented tomorrow, but that the IOC and related orgs start investing in this proactively.
posted by indianbadger1 at 12:06 PM on July 15, 2021
I don't see why a gymnastics federation (especially the smaller ones) would want to invest a lot of money in something that may never become usable and may never be any less biased than human judges. It's not like self-driving cars where there's a potential of a huge financial payoff if someone can make the AI work.
Anyway, that's all I have to say about it, because this is kind of a derail. Even 100% perfect human or perfect AI judging would not solve the problem described in TFA, which is the undervaluation of skills in the women's Code of Points. I haven't heard anyone complain about the actual judging of Simone's Yurchenko double pike she performed at U.S. Classics--the sticking point is that the vault itself is valued at 6.6 difficulty rather than 6.8.
posted by creepygirl at 1:34 PM on July 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
Anyway, that's all I have to say about it, because this is kind of a derail. Even 100% perfect human or perfect AI judging would not solve the problem described in TFA, which is the undervaluation of skills in the women's Code of Points. I haven't heard anyone complain about the actual judging of Simone's Yurchenko double pike she performed at U.S. Classics--the sticking point is that the vault itself is valued at 6.6 difficulty rather than 6.8.
posted by creepygirl at 1:34 PM on July 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
Adding to all of the other race & gender considerations, is it possible the WTC/FIG consider it unladylike (beyond a certain polite measure) to win?
This is Bruno Grandi's legacy being continued by Nellie Kim.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:27 PM on July 15, 2021
This is Bruno Grandi's legacy being continued by Nellie Kim.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:27 PM on July 15, 2021
Automate the judging!
Turn Olympic Judging into an Olympic sport of its own, and appoint medalists like Simone Biles as the MetaJudges.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:27 PM on July 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
Turn Olympic Judging into an Olympic sport of its own, and appoint medalists like Simone Biles as the MetaJudges.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:27 PM on July 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
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Artistic judging does allow conscious or unconscious prejudices to slip into the scores, though, so I certainly hope the gymnastic community, especially the judges, are especially vigilant about preventing racism in their scores.
posted by eye of newt at 12:50 PM on July 14, 2021 [6 favorites]