[MrAce]

I appologize if a related topic was already issued in the past.

As we all know, in duplicate bridge there are categories, such as Open, Ladies, Seniors, Juniors..I understand that the nature takes its toll from everyone and we become seniors by the time and Juniors needs to be promoted. One thing that confuses me is the "Ladies" category. When i debated this with couple of my female bridge player friends, it seemed that they thought i was insulting them. Truely and honestly, i thought that my disagreement with this category was completely to show them that accepting to play in this category is accepting that you are handicapped.

The things i debated with them was mainly;

-If bridge is a mind sport, why the need for gender category ? Do we believe one gender has advantages over other one in a mind sport ?

-If there is "Ladies only" category, why there is no "Gentlemen only" category ?

- Do you think, the average level of those ladies, expert ladies, would be much higher than now, if there were no such a category and if they had to go battle in the open category each year ?

- Some may argue that, due to proffesional reasons, some pro females has to play wherever their client wants them to play, but the client would not have this right if there were no such a category, no ? Unless you prefer a weaker field to place yourself in first 3, and if you are capable of convincing yourself that what u achieved was something that satisfies you. (not weak field due to gender, weak due to restriction of good players from other sex)

Regardless of you agree with me or not would you take my arguement as an insult ? Please say why if u think so. And any other comments are welcome about the topic.

[awm]

The purpose of these categories is to promote bridge for groups which are under-represented at the elite levels of the game.

Regardless of the reason you ascribe to it, the fact is that a very small percentage of the people who are competitive in the elite open events are female. The hope is that the ladies events give promising female players additional opportunities to compete and gain experience, find professional sponsorships, and so forth. This will promote serious competitive bridge among women (who might otherwise become discouraged upon seeing that most of the world-class players are male).

Given this, you can see that it makes little sense to have men's events. Actually ACBL used to have them until a lawsuit forced them to cease and desist.

Note that the existence of ladies events is not a statement about some inherent inequality in the bridge-playing ability of men and women. The reasons that so few of the world-class players are female are not relevant.

The "juniors" and "seniors" events have a similar purpose. While these categories exist in many endeavors, it makes sense that the ages assigned to them are relative to the people who are having success in open events. For example, many of the best soccer players are in their mid-twenties. It would be stupid to have a "junior world cup" for soccer players who are under 28, because this would include most of the people who are leading their teams to victory in the open events. In bridge however, while there have been a few cases of people in their mid-to-late twenties winning big open events, this tends to be remarkable and make news when it happens. Even the very young team which won the last US team trials had most of its participants around thirty years of age (Justin Lall being an exception of course!)

[MrAce]

 awm, on 2011-July-24, 16:37, said:

The purpose of these categories is to promote bridge for groups which are under-represented at the elite levels of the game.

They are not under-represented because of some restriction. This is very important.

Promoting a bridge groups ok, but promoting a gender and call them a group ? What makes us think they need to be promoted unless living in a country where cultural-traditional-religious-human and female rights kinda reasons kept them stranger to this game ?
I can think of 2 way to promote bridge. A-Introducing the game and teaching B-Reducing the factors that leads people to quit. Once someone gets this game in her/his blood and not faces a lot of negativity or bad manners to quit, you dont need to promote anything. Game promotes itself better. If we stop seeing them as female players and start seeing them as bridge players we will not have the need to promote a gender. And this will also help them to see themselves as BRIDGE players, rather than female bridge players and gain confidence imo.

 awm, on 2011-July-24, 16:37, said:

... the fact is that a very small percentage of the people who are competitive in the elite open events are female.

True, but stating a well known fact but avoiding to talk about the reasons for it, doesn't help me to understand the need of a lower category assigned to a certain gender. I say lower because they earn less masterpoints when they become world or european champ than open. Due to restriction of ability to play in it.

 awm, on 2011-July-24, 16:37, said:

Note that the existence of ladies events is not a statement about some inherent inequality in the bridge-playing ability of men and women. The reasons that so few of the world-class players are female are not relevant.

I believe inherent inequality is not a factor to decide bridge-playing ability of men and women. If i believed otherwise i would not post this topic. If you believe in what you wrote too, why did you think that seeing the best players are mostly male, may discourage ladies ? If the gender is irrelevant to the reasons of being a world class player, why would you think they care about which gender is under-represented or well represented at elite level ? If we all believe in what u wrote, and i think we should, regardless of gender, whoever worked and deserved for it will be represented there.

And regardless of how fancy explenations, sentences or promotion reasons you may come up with, at the end of the day, it is a MIND SPORT. Of course it is nice to write a sentence saying that " the existence of ladies events is not a statement about some inherent inequality in the bridge-playing ability of men and women." But dont expect to convince me when this category strictly chooses who can and who can not play in it by simply looking at people's inherent inequality

[barmar]

Another reason for these types of events is because bridge is a social activity, and sometimes people prefer to play games with similar peers.

A third reason for separate ladies events is that, even though it's not correct to say that either gender thinks "better" than the other, it's an established fact of psychology and neuroscience that we think *differently*.

One thing to note, though, is that attendance in women's events has been dropping pretty steadily, as more women have been moving over to the open events and doing very well. The size of the field in the Wagar KO, the ACBL's premiere women's team event, is about half what it was a decade ago.

[gnasher]

The arguments for women's bridge events are exactly the same as the arguments for flight-B events:
- People want to play in them
- They're willing to pay to play in them
- Almost no harm is done to anybody else by the existence of these events.
So why should we mind?

There are other similarities between women's events and flight-B events:
- The results are important to the participants and to relatives of the winners, but less so to most other observers.
- Playing in them is bad for your game.
- Many people who are eligible to play for them prefer to play in open events instead.
- The existence of these events makes the open events stronger.

I can think of only two reasons for objecting to the existence of women's events:
- It distorts the market for bridge professionals.
- Many bridge organisations use their member's money to subsidise representative women's teams.

[Free]

I don't have strong feelings about the categories, but I'd like to point out something about the following quotes:

 MrAce, on 2011-July-24, 16:20, said:

-If bridge is a mind sport, why the need for gender category ? Do we believe one gender has advantages over other one in a mind sport ?

Our brains are built very differently and they also work differently.
Tale of two brains

 MrAce, on 2011-July-24, 16:20, said:

-If there is "Ladies only" category, why there is no "Gentlemen only" category ?

Categories are created to give weaker people a chance to compete and win. In many sports, for example in boxing, you have categories based on weight. Without these categories, lightweights wouldn't stand a chance.
It's clear that in bridge, men are considered superior (even Sabine agrees). Therefore there's no reason to create a men-only category.

[Zelandakh]

I think the situation is worse than you say MrAce. For example, sometimes bridge authorities schedule Open Trials at the same time as important Ladies Events. In some cases it may be that women are not chosen for the Open team because they can play in the Ladies and having two strong teams is seen as better than a strong Open team and a weak Ladies team. It is hard to see how this might change in the future. Most likely it will take a rebel, someone like Judith Polgar from chess who made a point about not playing women-only events. Perhaps if such a woman won an Open BB or similar it might get discussed. I won't hold my breath though.

Just a further note to Free. It is true that there are known difference between "male" and "female" brains. What is less known is that women can have male brains and men can have female brains. I do not see this as any kind of argument for the separation.

[barmar]

 Zelandakh, on 2011-July-25, 04:11, said:

Just a further note to Free. It is true that there are known difference between "male" and "female" brains. What is less known is that women can have male brains and men can have female brains. I do not see this as any kind of argument for the separation.

Of course they can. All statements about male vs. female attributes are generalizations based on averages.

E.g. men are generally taller and more muscled than women. But there are plenty of women who are taller and/or stronger than the average man. But if putting together a basketball team, you're still more likely to do better by selecting mostly men.

[qwery_hi]

[quote name='awm' timestamp='1311547057' post='563383']
The purpose of these categories is to promote bridge for groups which are under-represented at the elite levels of the game.

Transsexuals are also underrepresented at the elite levels of the game. Why not have a category for them? How about a category for left handed players, born again christians and people with a BMI of less than 18?

In other words, I'm calling BS, the explanation that makes sense is the one gnasher gave.

[awm]

 qwery_hi, on 2011-July-25, 08:46, said:

Transsexuals are also underrepresented at the elite levels of the game. Why not have a category for them? How about a category for left handed players, born again christians and people with a BMI of less than 18?

In other words, I'm calling BS, the explanation that makes sense is the one gnasher gave.

Women are 50+% of the population. There is strong incentive for bridge organizations to make sure that the duplicate game is appealing to this 50+% of the population.

There is nothing particularly wrong with having events targeted to other groups... in fact there are "gay bridge regionals" to draw the homosexual population for example. There have been events for active members of the US military, and events for people working full-time at a big company.

However, as a general point none of these groups (or the groups you name) are anywhere near as high a percentage of the population as women. And it's not clear that all these groups are under-represented among top-level bridge players relative to their numbers in the general population.

I also don't believe Gnasher's claim that having the ladies events somehow causes women to play worse bridge. Does having the youth events make the folks who participate in them worse players? I mean, they could be getting smacked around in the bermuda bowl trials? Yet... an extremely high percentage of the best players in the world participated in their country's youth program! It is true that the standard of bridge in the ladies events is weaker than the open.... but simply playing in such an event doesn't make your game worse. In fact the ladies events strengthen the women's game, by allowing more women to play bridge full-time (more professional opportunities), and by giving promising female players an event to play where they can contend and gain a reputation (before they reach the elite levels of the game overall), and by giving them an event where they can be free of sexist behavior and remarks that one unfortunately hears from time to time from (some) male players.

[cherdano]

 gnasher, on 2011-July-25, 02:30, said:

I can think of only two reasons for objecting to the existence of women's events:
- It distorts the market for bridge professionals.
- Many bridge organisations use their member's money to subsidise representative women's teams.

- It encourages women to form partnerships with another woman, rather than with the most suitable partner they could find. This (and the fact that open and women events are parallel, unlike Junior events) decreases the number of women playing in the best teams in the open events.

[hrothgar]

 MrAce, on 2011-July-24, 16:20, said:

If there is "Ladies only" category, why there is no "Gentlemen only" category ?

The following is ACBL specific.

Jill Blanchard sued the ACBL claiming that the existence of events limited to men only was discriminatory.
The ACBL eliminated said event.

To my knowledge, no males have sued the ACBL arguing that the existence of events limited to women only was discriminatory.
Anyone who wants to should feel free to do so.

(I will note in passing that my sister was instrumental in making the late lamented Princeton Nude Winter Olympics a coed event...)

[gnasher]

 cherdano, on 2011-July-25, 10:26, said:

- It encourages women to form partnerships with another woman, rather than with the most suitable partner they could find. This (and the fact that open and women events are parallel, unlike Junior events) decreases the number of women playing in the best teams in the open events.

Is that a reason to object to the existence of women's events? Nobody is forced into an unsuitable partnership - if someone chooses to play in an event where their choice of partner is restricted, presumably they're willing to accept the consequences.

[ArtK78]

It may be that the existence of women's only events is more of a historical based occurrence than any of the reasons put forth in this thread.

Contract bridge was invented in the 1920s. Duplicate bridge is actually older, with its origins existing in Auction Bridge and then converting to Contract Bridge. Tournament bridge has existed since the early part of the century.

It doesn't seem odd that separate men's and women's events would exist in the early portion of the 20th century. There was certainly a great deal of separation of categories of persons existing at that time. Until the 1960s, the American Contract Bridge League, a virtually 100% white organization, was completely separate and apart from the American Bridge Association, a virtually 100% black organization. At least with the acceptance of non-whites into the ACBL, there were no separate events for whites and non-whites.

Back to the main topic. When I started playing, which was the early 1970s, the main controversy in the ACBL was not whether women should be allowed to play in men's events. It was smoking vs. non-smoking. Many solutions were attempted short of an outright ban on smoking at bridge tournaments. There were non-smoking sections in pair games, and there were parallel smoking and non-smoking events. Some players tried to analyze the fields in those events to determine which event would be easier to win - smoking or non-smoking.

Meanwhile, there was a regulation in effect for ACBL tournaments which prohibited the running of the same event twice in one tournament. There could not be two open pair events or open swiss team events during the same tournament. I know that for many years, the schedule of 5 day regionals would run like this: Wednesday, Men's and Women's Swiss Teams; Thursday, Master's and Non-Master's pairs; Friday, Men's and Women's pairs; Saturday, Open Pairs; Sunday, Open Swiss Teams. There might be some additional events running parallel to the main events, such as a KO Team event starting on Wednesday or Thursday (back in the 70s, KO Team events were not nearly as popular as they are now - there were no bracketed events and the best teams always won). There were a couple of 10 day regional tournaments - notably Los Angeles Bridge Week - which had to come up with quite a variety of events to comply with the non-duplication of events requirement.

The smoking controversy eventually went away with a total ban on smoking in the playing areas of bridge tournaments (largely forced on the ACBL by local laws banning smoking in public places, such as convention centers and hotels).

At some time in the 80s (if my memory serves me correctly) a group of well-known women players attempted to gain permission to play in the Men's events. There were two reasons for this. One was that many women had steady partnerships with men, and they disliked being forced to find a female partner for the days in which the events were segregated by gender. But the primary reason was that the women deemed the women's events to be inferior to the men's events, and they wanted to play in the stronger event.

As the ACBL was not willing to comply with the request of the women seeking the change, the women sued the league. The suit was settled with the league eliminating Men's events, switching to the system used by the WBF - parallel open and women's events. At about the same time, the ACBL eliminated its non-duplication of events regulation, which resulted in the present situation with tournaments consisting almost entirely of one form or another of open pairs and open swiss teams. Of course, there were innovations - bracketed KO events were invented and became quite popular, flighted events were introduced and then stratified events were introduced. But there are no men's only events conducted in the ACBL anymore.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing I leave to each of your individual determination.

[qwery_hi]

The claim was having women's events promoted bridge among women, who were underrepresented at the elite levels. Quick, name one transgendered/transsexual person to reach the R32 a national KO event in the last 10 years. The TS/TG population is estimated around 0.5 % to 1 % of the US population. Name one TS/TG in the top 100/200 of bridge.

The question can be asked, what is the ACBL doing to promote bridge among TS/TGs ? They are underrepresented in both the elite and non-elite stratas of the game. How about by income? 6 % of ACBL members earn between 35 K to 50 K. This group is vastly underrepresented at the elite levels of bridge, in fact at all levels. What is the ACBL doing to promote bridge among this group? We should have a National Championship just for this income bracket by your logic.

 awm, on 2011-July-25, 09:48, said:

Women are 50+% of the population. There is strong incentive for bridge organizations to make sure that the duplicate game is appealing to this 50+% of the population.

There is nothing particularly wrong with having events targeted to other groups... in fact there are "gay bridge regionals" to draw the homosexual population for example. There have been events for active members of the US military, and events for people working full-time at a big company.

However, as a general point none of these groups (or the groups you name) are anywhere near as high a percentage of the population as women. And it's not clear that all these groups are under-represented among top-level bridge players relative to their numbers in the general population.

I also don't believe Gnasher's claim that having the ladies events somehow causes women to play worse bridge. Does having the youth events make the folks who participate in them worse players? I mean, they could be getting smacked around in the bermuda bowl trials? Yet... an extremely high percentage of the best players in the world participated in their country's youth program! It is true that the standard of bridge in the ladies events is weaker than the open.... but simply playing in such an event doesn't make your game worse. In fact the ladies events strengthen the women's game, by allowing more women to play bridge full-time (more professional opportunities), and by giving promising female players an event to play where they can contend and gain a reputation (before they reach the elite levels of the game overall), and by giving them an event where they can be free of sexist behavior and remarks that one unfortunately hears from time to time from (some) male players.

[MrAce]

 gnasher, on 2011-July-25, 02:30, said:

The arguments for women's bridge events are exactly the same as the arguments for flight-B events:
- People want to play in them
- They're willing to pay to play in them
- Almost no harm is done to anybody else by the existence of these events.
So why should we mind?

So with the logic who makes these arguments, if WBF or ACBL or EBL made a cetgory of "WHITE RACE" or "BLACK RACE", it would be ok i think as long as if there are people who wants to play in them, as long as they are willing to pay to play in them, and no harm is done to anyone else by existence of these events. We may as well make a category of religions too. So i don't think any of these are good excuse to advocate this category.

 gnasher, on 2011-July-25, 02:30, said:

There are other similarities between women's events and flight-B events:
- The results are important to the participants and to relatives of the winners, but less so to most other observers.
- Playing in them is bad for your game.
- Many people who are eligible to play for them prefer to play in open events instead.
- The existence of these events makes the open events stronger.

I can think of only two reasons for objecting to the existence of women's events:
- It distorts the market for bridge professionals.
- Many bridge organisations use their member's money to subsidise representative women's teams.

I agree with all these

[gnasher]

 MrAce, on 2011-July-25, 14:22, said:

So with the logic who makes these arguments, if WBF or ACBL or EBL made a cetgory of "WHITE RACE" or "BLACK RACE", it would be ok i think as long as if there are people who wants to play in them, as long as they are willing to pay to play in them, and no harm is done to anyone else by existence of these events. We may as well make a category of religions too. So i don't think any of these are good excuse to advocate this category.

If such events existed, the people who played in them would be people that I wouldn't want to meet. They could go and indulge their wish for voluntary segregation, and I could play in the open event without having to endure their company. That appears to be a win-win situation.

If you had two segregated events but no open event, that would be a different matter. But nowadays women's events are generally held in parallel with open events, so nobody is discriminated against.

[qwery_hi]

Considering only bridge tournaments, what difference is there between a women only national level tournament and a for example, minorities or whites or whatever race only national level tournament?

 gnasher, on 2011-July-25, 17:00, said:

If such events existed, the people who played in them would be people that I wouldn't want to meet. They could go and indulge their wish for voluntary segregation, and I could play in the open event without having to endure their company. That appears to be a win-win situation.

If you had two segregated events but no open event, that would be a different matter. But nowadays women's events are generally held in parallel with open events, so nobody is discriminated against.

[barmar]

There was a time when the ACBL prohibited blacks, which prompted the formation of the American Bridge Association in the 30's. Although the ACBL was integrated in the 60's, the ABA still exists, and is predominantly black.

Women lobbied for the right to play in the men's events, and they got it through the legal system. If men wanted the right to get into the women's events, they could probably get them opened up as well. Or if women objected to these events, they could just stop entering them and they'd go away.

[MrAce]

 gnasher, on 2011-July-25, 17:00, said:

If such events existed, the people who played in them would be people that I wouldn't want to meet. They could go and indulge their wish for voluntary segregation, and I could play in the open event without having to endure their company. That appears to be a win-win situation.

Actually such events may exist due to neccesitty. Not neccesarilly segregation for negative intend, for example;

Islam men are not supposed to look at any woman who dont have outfits as desribed in The Kouran, unless they are married. They may request an Islamic Category just for that reason. They may claim that they can not be too close to other people, especially opposite sex at the table due to their belief. They may claim that if WBF comes up with such a category, there are a lot of people who can play bridge, while they can not now. There u go, speaking of promotion.. This is more dramatic than being JUST under-represented at the elite level actually.

I know it is ridicilious, but so is the women category to me.

Lets face the facts, lets be honest about it. This category exists because there are STILL a lot of men and women who believes the superiority of the male gender even when it comes down to human mind. They will never officially admit this and will always try to come up with water cooler definitions/explenations/excuses, such as " We are promoting them, we should not see them as gender but a group, male and female brains work different...etc" Some more straightforward ones like yourself, will say but still indirectly " Leave them alone and let em play there, they are happy and i am happy that they are not playing where i am playing" "Its a flight B quality and nobody pays attention anyway, it is bad for your bridge"

And to be honest, males are the last people to blame. If u look at my OP, i posted this topic after a debate with some female bridge players, who tought i was insulting them, while i think they are the ones who betrays women by simply accepting to play in this category. I thought and still think, i am the one who believes if they stop to be happy with achievemts in restricted tournaments and go for the real thing, they can and i am sure they will achieve this eventually.