To clarify, the pictured poster Caroline Kwan is an ally, not a TERF. The TERFs referred to in the title are the ones ‘protecting a very specific idea of what a woman is’
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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I'm so stoked for the future of women rugby. Partially, because it's a very inclusive sport and it inherits a lot from its lore and ethos - with only a few years left until a woman will referee a high profile test game. And partially, because I want to see the same ferocious generic selection applied to female athletes.
Anyways, give it a go - some really good footy. If you're absolutely unaware of it, look up highlights of Portia Woodman.
Inclusive? World Rugby is famously transphobic and exclusionary when it comes to women's rugby...
Not that it's necessarily a reflection on them today, but rugby union was also one of the last major sports to ban apartheid South Africa. Athletics banned them by '70, cricket tours were being called off from '70, soccer suspended them all the way back in '61, and they weren't allowed in the Olympics from '64. But they were still doing official international rugby union tours as late as '84.
I'm not saying it's ideal, but things do change rapidly. South Africa about to start giving female players centralized contracts, etc.
Your submission in "TERFs taking their gloves off for Imane Khelif" was removed for Transphobia.
Trans women are women.
The NRLW in Australia is an awesome comp and is growing rapidly in viewership too! It’s a great game to watch and young female athletes are finally getting some serious role models they can aspire to as well. I’m not much into rugby union being a New South Welshman but the league games are intense.
rugby is the sport predisposed to head injuries correct?
That'll certainly make for an interesting game, regardless of who plays.
Rugby, NFL football, hockey, boxing, and even WWE professional wrestling all have histories of multiple athletes suffering from CTE. Women’s hockey I think will have fewer incidences of CTE due to rule and equipment differences but it’s still early to say. We often didn’t find out about CTE in men’s hockey players until after they died young in retirement.
I have no idea what the rules for women’s rugby are like, if there are any differences. The real issue is a swinging motion of the head (caused by falls or sudden stops), not unlike the way a hammer swings. The movement of the brain inside the skull with sudden stops or changes of direction causes tearing like you’d expect if you swung around a bucket of jello and then slammed it against something.
I try to be cognizant of these things and not support these sports so much, yet they’re in my social circles and I do enjoy them. Every athlete makes their own choice to participate in these sports at the end of the day, though I wonder how informed they are about the risks.
yeah, most sports include increased rates of brain damage, weirdly enough, but to my understanding, as somehow who doesn't know much about sports, rugby is just football (the american one) but with more contact and less padding afaik. Is that accurate?
I don't have a problem with people voluntarily giving themselves brain damage, i think, but it's definitely an odd problem to have.
Rugby has some similarities but is otherwise a completely different sport from American (gridiron) football. American football actually evolved out of rugby, first by the introduction of the snap. This led to the concept of “downs” and the requirement to advance the ball a minimum number of yards (originally 5, now 10) within the allotted number of tackles.
The sport was extremely dangerous at the time because of the way mass formations of players would impact into each other at full speed. More rule changes were needed to make it safer, and the field was made wider to give more room for players to run around the other team instead of ploughing through.
is this rugby or the variant of it known as american football?
It was neither? Both? It was an intermediate sport between the two. They had made some of the rule changes to rugby that are more in line with modern American football but not all of them. Modern American football has the forward pass and rules for protecting the passer, called the quarterback. That dangerous in between sport did not.
ok i see, i know that spots have changed over time, i'm just not really sure how they've changed. Obviously football has a lot of protective gear now, though it's debatable how well it works.
The new equipment has also had rule changes brought in to prevent it from being used as a weapon. Helmets and shoulder pads in particular are a big cause of injuries when they’re used as battering rams. Some of the newer rules (such as fair catch) have been really successful at preventing injuries.
yeah, the irony in protective gear causing more damage is due to players quite literally just impacting harder in general. You wouldn't want to do it without any protective gear, and you wouldn't and if you did impact, it was a lot more gracefully.
Though it makes sense misuse of them would also cause problems lol, reminds me of the DOT standards for motorcyle helmets, utter dogshit standard, and you should basically just ignore it, but it's also "technically better than nothing"
I remember hearing somewhere that people are more likely to tailgate someone on a bicycle if they’re wearing a helmet rather than not! That’s crazy to me!
that could be true, the opposite is true for people in larger vehicles though, you feel safer driving in a larger, higher vehicle, which is true, but the problem is that you're more dangerous to other drivers on the road as well.