texafornia wrote:
Slowman wrote:
i see it as a pair of executable ideas that each deserves oxygen for discussion. there IS a set of competing ideas here.
Dan, this is the source of the problem right here:
1. The modern world doesn't see this as a competing idea. It's simply wrong. That's why people are so upset and acting the way they are. They wouldn't be acting this way if it wasn't so outrageous. So, the behavior actually proves the point.
2. There is no discussion coming from WTC. Just silence or non-action. Denying social media is a way to communicate further illustrates to the customer base that the company is lost in time, just like it's policy on female pros.
I'm no expert, but a company saying that this is the way it's always been and denying that social media is real has trouble written all over it.
I think KNY made the best point here with what was, admittedly, a reductio ad absurdum argument in the other big thread.
Basically, there is a sliding scale of perception. You can see this because when there were 180 pros in Kona, nobody ever really cared that there were more men than women, even though it was a much bigger disparity in terms of percentages than 35/50. This is also why no one really cares about fighting for equality at 70.3WC. WTC was barely able to get 35 women to take slots for 70.3WC. At HyVee - which had equal spots and where EVERY competitor got paid, WTC struggled to find 30 women who wanted to do it.
The issue is, at it's core, one of supply and demand.
If WTC were to keep proportional equality, but to drastically increase "supply," I bet you'd hear very few complaints.
Like, if suddenly, the qualification was "it's a pro only race on Sunday, and the top 90% of the KPR goes," I don't think you'd have any complaints that there were 600 men and 300 women. I just don't think that when you have such excess, that people care much.
On the flipside, I think it would be impossible to defend a championship where you had something like 10 men and 7 women. I don't think there's any way that you can argue that proportional equality is right when you are talking about talking the top 2% of the field.
But there's a crossover point. Everyone seemed okay when there were, basically, roughly 53 slots for women and 101 for men (that was the split in 2009). I've seen the data somewhere that basically tracks total slots YoY, that shows - on a percentage basis - that 50/35 is a pretty substantial "improvement" over the old slot model. You can get it off the Ironman website. 2007 was 90/52, 2005 was 86/57. There was a lot of variance.
I'm not saying that the old model was okay or not sexist. I'm just saying that nobody really seemed too upset by it.
Some of it, of course, was that some of the differences we now see - points, number of races, etc - were largely invisible during the slot model. I think that if it had been more obvious - like, if it was known at the start of the year how big the discrepancy would be as opposed to simply working out by "circumstance," I think there would have been more objections.
But I think that also shows that there's more to this debate than simply the disparity in slots. It's that it's more obvious. Because of that, I think it's a bit risky to say that we could just go back to unequal slots but handed out in a fashion more like the old system - one "advantage" (and disadvantage, depending on your perspective) of the slot model was that it COULD be a "one-and-done" model (in terms of locking up your spot in Kona). But it also could have been a system that overlooked someone who was really consistent but caught some bad breaks. Regardless, the slot model really had to go away for a number of reasons.
But I think that there is a valid lesson there that the total number of slots is a factor. It's not just about "equality."
I agree very much with KNY that at some point, proportional equality is acceptable. And at some point, it's not.
And I think that's important. Because I think that gets to a lot of how you solve this issue.
Here's what I believe (in a nutshell):
- there should be an equal number of men and women in Kona
- 50 pros (of any gender) is too many. At that point, the size of the field has a material impact on the race. In this sense, the women actually have it better in Kona because the number of women in the field doesn't change the race as much as it does on the men's side. The women do not have the same "Hawi Express."
- the size of the pro field is larger than it needs to be to make up for imperfection in the KPR as a ranking system. I.e., the 49th person on the KPR is not necessarily the 49th "best" Ironman athlete in the world.
I agree with Dan that the best solution reduces the total number of pros - something like 25/25 or 30/30. I also agree with Dan both in theory and based off what I've seen, that arguing for 50/50 is way easier than arguing for 35/35 because 50/50 doesn't ire the pro men. But I think that the larger the pro field, the harder it is to differentiate it from the age-group field in terms of position. This is especially true, I think, when the top age-group woman regularly finishes in the top-15 overall (that's a larger discussion since I realize that there are other factors at play there); strictly from a perception standpoint, I think that makes it tough. And perception is hugely important here.
The real key I think is that there are TWO separate discussions here that have been conflated into a single discussion.
ONE: what is the "correct" number of pros to have in Kona?
TWO: based on the answer to one, should there be an equal number of men and women?
I do think that one - how big should the pro field be - is the more important question, because it's about way more than just gender there. That's also about what does it mean to be a world championship, what is the best for growing the sport, bringing in sponsors, etc.
And I really do believe that the answer to question two is dependent on the answer to question one. If there are 1000 pro slots, will people really care if it's 525 and 475? Or 550 and 450? Or even 600 and 400? I don't think so. But they do care when you start to get down lower. At 25 or 30 slots, for example, i think equality is absolutely paramount.
And I think that's the discussion - both parts, together but also individually - that really needs to happen.
I also think that there's a real danger, with the internet, of diving into an echo chamber. There's been a lot of statements about WTC "losing the PR battle" here. But I think a lot of that is the "volume" of arguments made on one side. They just keep getting louder. But, based off my admittedly unscientific and anecdotal observation, it's based on an increasingly loud argument from a group that hasn't changed much in size as opposed to a increase in the number of folks making the argument.
It's also important to remember that this is hardly a national issue, which is important because it means that it's very hard to get a real gauge of the opposition. It's very unpopular within the microcosm of triathlon and social media to speak out "against equality." So why would you.
I've seen some age group women arguing on twitter that proportional equality works for them so why should the pros be any different. And I was shocked. Mostly because why would you want to open yourself up to the shit that will inevitably fly your way.
This is one of the downsides of the overabundance of media. You can easily only see the thoughts of like minded individuals. This thread has what, a total of 29 posts? It will maybe hit a couple hundred. But most of those posts will be made by a few folks. WTC will serve something like 200,000 customers around the world over this year. That's important to keep in mind. It's also important to keep in mind that you don't ever get to see the emails that Andrew and Dan or anyone else gets supporting proportional equality. I'm not saying that makes it right. Certainly there are plenty of examples of behind the scenes communication pushing to enforce an unfair status quo. I'm just saying that it's always dangerous - regardless of the side you are on - to look around at what you see and to assume that is representative of the total argument. That's true for WTC as well. It would be dangerous for them to just assume that people don't care.
Though, admittedly, most people, I'm sure, really don't care one way or the other. I'd bet with crafty survey design, you could probably get numbers to support whatever you wanted. I mean, the power that comes with how you simply phrase a question is pretty dramatic even when it's stuff people actually are passionate about... In any case, my point is that it's dangerous to assume that WTC is losing the PR war because you see a bunch of the same folks on twitter and facebook and here repeating the same arguments over and over. When a race doesn't sell out because customers explicitly say they aren't entering because of WTC's policy on gender within the pro ranks, THEN you can say WTC is losing the PR war.
This isn't meant to belittle the issue. It's really to just say that for most people, it's just a hobby, Kona is pretty much meaningless to them aside from watching it on TV, and that - as we've hammered over and over again - the pros really don't matter anyway. There's some irony in Ben Hobbs writing editorials on TRS about the importance of 5Q while also publishing Jim Gourley's editorials about how pros don't matter.
The most interesting discussion, I think, is really how this does - or does not - apply elsewhere. Like, for example, why isn't there any objection to the fact that the Bahrain Endurance 13 is not made up of an equal number of male and female pros. Should sponsors be held to the standard of strict equality as well. Why is it okay - or is it okay - that a given bike company sponsors more men than women? if not, why not? And if so, why?
I doubt anyone has made it this far, but if you have thanks...
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