Is Softball Sexist?

[davidn3600]

108. It depends on how you look at it... some of it is due to outdated norms

Softball has a bigger ball, softer ball, easier to hit and catch, and the field dimensions are smaller than baseball.

But it's not any different than most other sports. The female equivalent or female league of a sport is usually easier or "made safer" than the male league. In Golf, women shoot from a tee closer to the hole. In tennis, women play best of 3-sets while men play best of 5-sets. In gymnastics, women have 4 events while men have 6, and women are scored higher for the same skills. etc, etc, etc...

The philosophy here is that the female body is physically inferior to the male body in terms of strength, endurance, and resistance to injury...therefore the female version of the sport is adjusted to offset the difference. So in a perfect world, softball is just as difficult for women to play as baseball is to men. (no...we don't live in a perfect world).

Some if it is stereotypical. The popular notion that women's bodies are frail and weaker and therefore need to be treated more gently. The bio-mechanical differences play an obvious role in certain sports like tackle football or boxing which are designed for short bursts of strength that favor the male physique. But that doesn't explain why women play softer rules among themselves or get handicapped for endurance. There is no reason women play 3-set tennis matches while the men play 5 especially since women are only competing against women. The issue is the thinking that the female body won't be able to withstand the 5 sets.

Of course some of these rules is due to the fact that women in the past did not have much focus in sports. In the early 1900s, you didn't see female athletes as good as they are today. Not even close. Today's women would destroy those women. So some of these gender rules and stereotypes in sports is quite outdated.