2017 in Review

[rowan]

I see where you guys are coming from with this:



"Only reason to watch netball is to have a perve, eh! Guffaw guffaw!"

[morepork]

Nobody said it was gender-specific. That's a moronic argument. Is netball gender-specific? No. So why doesn't the media give men's netball as much coverage as women's?

You're imposing male preferences on women's sport and ignoring women's sports that are more popular among women themselves - even ridiculing them by suggesting the only reason anyone would be interested is to have a 'perve.'

You have as many issues with women as you do with Pacific Islanders.

Oh come on. You defined netball as "women's sport". At the risk of sounding redundant, this is a discussion about rugby. I also find it ironic that someone who champions minority nations, and even ethnicities in their relative contribution to the appeal of the game reacts so strongly to the contribution made by women.

[Mellsblue]

No. I was saying you were a crap journalist.

[rowan]

Nobody said it was gender-specific. That's a moronic argument. Is netball gender-specific? No. So why doesn't the media give men's netball as much coverage as women's?

You're imposing male preferences on women's sport and ignoring women's sports that are more popular among women themselves - even ridiculing them by suggesting the only reason anyone would be interested is to have a 'perve.'

You have as many issues with women as you do with Pacific Islanders.

Oh come on. You defined netball as "women's sport". At the risk of sounding redundant, this is a discussion about rugby. I also find it ironic that someone who champions minority nations, and even ethnicities in their relative contribution to the appeal of the game reacts so strongly to the contribution made by women.

It's completely false to suggest I have reacted to the contribution of women. I have quite clearly reacted to attempts to impose male preferences on women's sport - by someone who has ridiculed a female-dominated sport which is far more popular with women themselves. Women's rugby is more popular with male spectators than female and has a miniscule following in comparison to mainstream women's sports - which are the women's sports I'm interested in, though you yourself have ridiculed one of them.

[morepork]

I was not aware that popularity was so inherently subjective. I would say however that the rise in women's participation in the sport in NZ and England doesn't fit your working hypothesis. I can also recommend viewing the women's rugby league world cup final between NZ and Oz as an example of both the enthusiasm for quality non-netball competition exhibited by females and something that you have categorised as an irrelevant on the world stage. Union and league are main stream sports that also happen to be played by women. Why is this so difficult for you to acknowledge?

[rowan]

The popularity of women's sport is not subjective. It is entirely dependent on figures, and last time I looked those figures did not support your hypothesis. Indeed, they stated quite clearly that women's rugby was more popular among male spectators than women themselves, and that it was nonetheless miniscule in comparison with mainstream women's sports. & once again, New Zealand is not at the center of the universe; it is a tiny nation population-wise and of very little interest to the global community at large. Therefore you are attempting to attach disproportionate importance to a minor code among women, in terms of both participation and followers, simply because the sport is popular among men. At the same time you ridicule a sport which is highly popular among women themselves, in terms of both participation and followers. So you are attempting to impose a male perspective on women's sport, while ignoring and ridiculing the female perspective. That's there and plain to see.

[rowan]

Actually, I started a women's rugby thread on this forum, where you can express your views about women's rugby, but none of you did, curiously enough. Upon that thread, if you care to look, I posted women's playing numbers and rough comparisons to nations with the equivalent number of male players. It is admittedly 2 years out of date now, but I haven't come across any more recent data of this nature:

Women's team/players in thousands/nation with similar number of adult male players

USA 15K Senegal
England 8K Zambia
France 6K Switzerland
Canada 4K Moldova
Ireland 3.6K Sweden
Australia 3.4K Ivory Coast
Italy 2.2K Denmark
Spain 1.4K Croatia
Wales 1.3K Andorra
New Zealand 1.2K Kazakhstan
Hong Kong 0.650K Finland
Japan 0.450K Barbados

Compare that to approximate 4 million registered male players worldwide.

[morepork]

Can you provide these figures that validate the popularity by viewer gender statement? For purposes of clarity, the hypothesised minimality of the female sample space in metrics of popularity is owned by you, so the burden of proof lies upon you and not me. NZ is not the center of the universe, but is a nation that claims rugby as a national sport, so metrics within are surely relevant? Likewise, the comparable trend for female participation in the same sport within England, which has ~1990988 registered players (562126 of them female) raises questions over your understanding of the term "global". By your logic the 23372 registered players in Samoa are also irrelevant in this discussion. We could go on indefinitely, but a more constructive conclusion would be your admission of women to the global rugby community. What say you savage?

[morepork]

I've triaged postgraduate students on the spot for more accurate objective presentation than you provide here. You should be ashamed of yourself.

[rowan]

There is no burden of proof on me, as I didn't start this silly argument. If you want to claim you're interested in women's rugby, though you never commented on a thread devoted to it, that's fine by me. But you then suggested everyone else should be as well, so it is for you to prove that women's rugby warrants the attention. I just provided some statistics for you which indicated women's rugby was miniscule in comparison to men's. Admittedly that's a couple of years out of date, but if you have more recent figures for all those nations, bring them on. If they even remotely match men's across the board, you'll have a point. If not, you're spouting waffle, because by the same logic everyone interested in women's netball should be equally interested in men's netball, but this is clearly not the case, as it receives no coverage at all in the press. Thus you are clearly trying to impose a male perspective on sports, while dismissing and even ridiculing the female perspective. & therefore it is you who should be ashamed of yourself.

[morepork]

Your definition of logic clearly differs from mine.

[morepork]

Please define "statistics". Look up "irony" while you are at it. Your statistics are uninterpretable. If you are, as I understand it, presenting female player numbers per nation, with that gender demographic defined by relative male numbers in other nations, then you had more lunch than science at school. It's not the most biased sampling methodology I have ever seen, but is almost certainly the most biased I will see this week. You are saying that the 6K female French registered players being similar in sum to the number of Swiss registered male players is evidence of more males being interested in women's rugby than women in women's rugby? You've gone completely sideways man, and are hereby triaged.

[rowan]

I think it's a bit rich for someone whose perspective of women's sports is based entirely along patriarchial lines to be lecturing the rest of us about bias. You are attempting to force everyone to be interested in women's rugby, whether they like it or not, because rugby is a major sport among men, which is twisted, childish logic and very ironic indeed. You then ridicule a women's sport which is of far more interest to women themselves by suggesting it's only good for a 'perve.' Anybody can see how extremely sexist that is.

[morepork]

Wow.

[rowan]

& as mentioned earlier, I did actually start up a women's rugby thread a few months back but it has received practically no interest from anyone, with 3 of the 5 posts being my own, no contributions at all from yourself, and relatively few views as well. That's probably because there are no female posters on this forum who actually post about rugby. & that has been my experience on other forums as well, more or less. Now why would that be, do you think?

Now, anybody want to get this thing back on track and post your international XV of the year? Top try? Breakthrough player? or anything else that would contribute in a constructive manner...

[Digby]

You think your thread got little attention 'cause there aren't any female posters? If I was to guess why your threads got little attention, on here and on on other forums it'd be 'cause they're your threads

[rowan]

Like this one you mean? Nice try, but that only reflects on you - obviously. & if you were all so amazingly interested in women's rugby as you claim, you would've started your own threads on it - obviously. But it is a fact that women's rugby is rarely discussed on forums like this, and one of the reasons for that is that there are practically no female users writing about rugby on these forums. So, as they say, the proof's in the pudding.

Now, anybody want to get this thing back on track and post your international XV of the year? Top try? Breakthrough player? or anything else that would contribute in a constructive manner...

[morepork]

No.

Get Fucked.

XX

[Digby]

For myself I haven't posted much on women's rugby as I'm just not that interested in it, though I'm pleased it's getting more coverage and that it's improving so fast. What I like to ponder on is the elite level of the game of rugby, and the women's game just isn't there (yet)

I have coached in women's rugby, I've been to club games and to national games, and I've a number of friends in that side of the game, just I'd still rather talk about games featuring AP sides or England

[rowan]

Good for you. I have found a few other threads here on women's rugby actually, though in total it looks like just over 100 posts out of over 105 K on this forum - ie about 0.01% of the posts, and none of them appear to have been made by female users, but I'm just guessing on that count. Also, while you guys have each posted several thousand times on this forum, none of you has posted more than a couple dozen times on women's rugby threads in total, from what I've seen. So I think that puts things into pretty clear perspective.

[Digby]

Always nice to be lectured on the value of women by the lad with the restraining order

[morepork]

Good for you. I have found a few other threads here on women's rugby actually, though in total it looks like just over 100 posts out of over 105 K on this forum - ie about 0.01% of the posts, and none of them appear to have been made by female users, but I'm just guessing on that count. Also, while you guys have each posted several thousand times on this forum, none of you has posted more than a couple dozen times on women's rugby threads in total, from what I've seen. So I think that puts things into pretty clear perspective.

You are such a moron. Do you actually believe the shit that tumbles out of your head?

Look at me. I'm Wowan. I is a journalist, and my knowledge of everything is vast. My intellect crushes all before it and my logic is infallible. I will smite thee with my sword of obtuse stupidity.

[rowan]

In fact, while Moronpork has been lecturing others about having to be interested in women's rugby, less than 0.3% of his own posts on this forum have been about women's rugby. Oops! Looks like someone hasn't been practising what they've been preaching. Surprise surprise!

GOTCHA!

[rowan]

Always nice to be lectured on the value of women by the lad with the restraining order

Moronpork has a restraining order? Now why doesn't that surprise me??

[morepork]

Remedial logic 101. What colour is the sky in your world....

WOWAN