marcoviappiani wrote:
Slowman wrote:
all i know is that when i look at the registration data - the last time i looked, a few years ago - the percentage of women v men from southern european countries was strikingly lower than in countries in northern europe. i attribute that to either a lack of opportunity during formative years, or lack of cultural acclimation to the idea of women participating in mass endurance sport. but those are just guesses on my part. anything you can tell me to help educate me on this i'm eager to read.
Respectfully, as an Italian myself I find there is some bias in your statement because you don't really have any evidence for what you're saying and seem to be asking for somebody else to bring the evidence to confute your thesis.
Also in a separate post, you said that even triathlon races in the USA had a low percentage of women at the beginning.
Every mass trend from the USA or the UK arrives in southern Europe with a certain delay. If you've seen a trend in the USA why do you expect a faster development elsewhere?
Take Italy, the country has had an Ironman on Italian soil only for a handful of years. Yet, you're comparing Italy with 5 years of Ironman history to races with 20-40 years of history.
You also have to consider that many don't speak English outside of English speaking countries. Northern European countries are different because they are much more anglophone.
Triathlon books aren't translated in every language. Triathlon doesn't get any time on national television. That epic NBC show? Not a thing in Italy.
This means that hardly anybody has seen Wendy Ingraham and Sian Welch’s crawl to the IM finish or Chrissie Wellington and Lucy Charles develop from age groupers to champions. And all the other inspiring stories that have been told in the English language.
Now, I'm not trying to say that southern Europe is a place were women are treated better than anywhere else or where they have more work opportunities than elsewhere - they don't. And maybe that's the issue since triathlon seems to be participated by 35-60 y.o. people with above average earnings. What I'm trying to say is that your statement related to sport is way too strong and a little unfair.
i realized that when i wrote the post i wrote that i might be expressing a bias that is undeserved. i don't know and i fully appreciate that the views of folks like you, who live in italy (or spain, or the south of france) are more informed than my own. and you're right, in the beginning it was like that in the U.S., and so the marathon before it. but that's because of the bias in the U.S. against women's participation in endurance sport. federal laws in the U.S. mandated that schools provide funding for men and women equally, but that was in 1971 and it took about 40 years for girls to compete in cross country running at the same rate as boys.
the only data on which i rely are participation rates. there's a pretty
comprehensive set of stats on RunRepeat on the state of running immediately pre-pandemic. the whole study is fascinating but i note this one graph:
it might be that women in switzerland and italy are cycling or swimming or rowing or walking or maybe they're running and they just don't, as a cohort, prefer to enter competitions. i don't know and you would know better than i.
i want to tread lightly here because i don't want to offend. in the times i've been in italy - a country i love and one in which i could easily live - it seems to me italians treasure and honor the position and status of women. it's just that in this one area - endurance sport participation by gender - italy looks a lot like the U.S. looked in women's participation a generation or two ago. maybe i'm misinformed or naive or i just have a blind spot that hides me from my own bias. i apologize in advance if that's the case and i ask that you bear with me and educate me.
my intention wasn't to denigrate those in certain countries, or speak ill of them. just to say that if the IM WC indeed takes place in nice then when it's the women's turn my hope is that the example it sets will be noticed in locations where participation rates in IM and perhaps in marathons and footrunning are low, and would provide an inspiration to women who might have an ambition to take part.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman