I think the real gem we're all missing is that everyone but fanofgreen is agreeing with Lebron James about something. For that, we should all be ashamed.
And myself. I stand by my arguments from earlier this thread. I see this "Women in the NBA" happening one day.
If Bill Russell and Michael Jordan would've listened to "Conventional Wisdom", they would not have fulfilled their destinies.
I guess I am stubborn like that.
One, though, was a thought that black men are biologically different from white men, a fact that genetics has proven false repeatedly. The other has to do with measurable major differences in testosterone and physiology, i.e. biological differences that have not come close to being proven wrong.
And here's the funny thing, I stayed out of this conversation for a long time. I am a feminist, I adhere to much feminist philosophy, I agree completely that women fit basically every definition of second class citizen, I think their socially assumed roles are unfair and pose a major barrier to equality, I think they deserve equal pay for equal work as well as (not instead of) allowances for pregnancy, I fully support every woman's right to choose what to do with their own body, and I take basically every liberal stance on this blog.
But unless there is an absolute genetic aberration of a woman who somehow produces the same muscle mass ratio of a man (which is only possible if they somehow naturally produce the same levels of testosterone, i.e. if they are born with fully functional testosterone producing male genitalia AND the appropriate puberty triggers from their brain) AND they happen to also be tall enough to play the NBA (an already very small fraction of women) AND still identify as a woman, then I suppose it may be possible, but I've never seen anyone close to resembling that before.
Look at the East German women. They were the closest we've come to seeing a biological women with male levels of testosterone. Were they close to as good at their chosen craft as men?
Was Flojo, on inhuman amounts of testosterone, close to as good as the men in her chosen craft? And remember, you have to compare sprinters to sprinters and ballers to ballers. You can't say a juiced up sprinter is as fast as the fastest 15 year old boys so therefore a she's faster than some NBA players so therefore some WNBA players are faster than NBA players. She sculpted her body for sprinting, not basketball, just like WNBA and NBA players sculpt their bodies for basketball, not sprinting. No, at her chosen dedicated craft, Flo Jo (best ever) was about the level the best 15 year old boy at his dedicated craft. The same held true for soccer: the best women were about equal to very good 15-17 year olds at their dedicated craft. The argument about flojo is like saying "the u.s. womens soccer team can beat some clubs of 15 year old boys so therefore they are better at soccer than the worst NBA players are at soccer so some women could play in the NBA." So the best female soccer players are better at soccer than some NBA players who don't practice or play soccer. Great. How does that affect the NBA argument?
Topic: is it really that hard to imagine a woman playing in the NBA? (Read 60194 times)