Why more men?

not to be too harsh here, but is that marriage even worth it?!?! i bet you the husband was getting more than 1 or 2 weeknights to do his own thing... :shakeshead: isn't marriage (and life, really) about compromise? I agree. What a jerk! Typical man :joker: ;)

I'm 24 and this statement offends me. I'm not popping out children and I don't believe that's what people think they are supposed to do when they are 25. None of my friends my age are married, and none have kids. They don't swim because they don't want to. Some gained too much weight and didn't want to get back, some peaked when they were 17, some just flat out get sick thinking about swimming anymore. It's most certainly not because all of us age 20-30 are having children. Not all women are baby farms. For that matter, there are plenty of mothers and fathers who are swimming. WHOA there.....nowhere in my post did I say that people 20-30 are expected to be having children! I'm sorry you are offended. I said it was my experience when I was that age (almost 15 years ago....:thhbbb: ) that women were having children at this age.

Not all women are baby farms. (QUOTE] Frankly, this statement offends me so I guess we are even. I was definitely not a "baby farm" because I had a child at 28.

Not everyone is here to be insulted. Yeah, I'm not here for that either, but I certainly have been. As far as I know, I have confined my insults to one person who went after me big time on this public forum before he covered himself by deleting his insults. I'm glad you're busy defending that guy.

PM not a good way to handle anything. I have received a few that I just junk, when I see who they came from. PM to me should only be used to pass on info, not crude remarks. But I also do not like to see personal attack posts. If a person thinks they can get away with personal attacks I would just copy the PM and put it in a post. I just received this personal attack in a PM it tells me how many days I have left.... I am going to expose the message sent to me. home.valornet.com/.../countchr.html George: The reason I believe the PM is the most effective way to settle disputes and differences is because its between two people and not the whole membership of the USMS forum or all of the people of the world wide net that happen to be visiting here. Plus in my experiences with disputes and differences with other members here its worked for the best for both parties. Plus if we can't be civil and settle the our differences, our ugly nastiness can be constrained to ourselves and not be thrown upon the members here who really do not want to be an audience to this. If this happens without the PM, ugly nastiness will begin to build and trouble will happen and we all don't want that. By the way George, I wish you a Merry Christmass. I say that not as an attack but as a warm greeting.

To reply to the original question: I think that the women who are about my age (51) and older had less opportunity to participate in sport than their younger sisters as they grew up. Certainly there were exceptions, but I clearly recall the women not having, say, a track team, to be part of. I suspect that, to some degree, it was probably true with swimming as well. As a result, many women my age and older simply never developed the "habit" of athletics and many carry that over now into middle+ age. Either that or women just have more sense then men - my wife tells me I think that. -LBJ Leonard: I believe your statement is correct. I made this observation on another thread a while back which I will post here. Leslie, if you notice on post 19 of thread I am linking, it has a breakdown of male/female registered swimmers by age group for 2005 provided by Julie Heather. If you notice the females start outnumbering males at the 30 - 34 age group and the reversal of roles start to happen at the 25-29 and 18-24 age groups big time. If this is indeed the trend then I think all of this discussion will be moot in 20 years. forums.usms.org/showthread.php

Fortress, I've wondered the very same question myself!! So, I'm glad you asked it. :) And, I too have had some funny responses from cranky old men in the forum directed at me as well. I find it humorous. I've often found myself (as a USA age grouper in the 80s and 90s and masters at present) asking where the heck the women are. Rarely are there any in my lane. (There is some variation from masters club to masters club in my area.) For example, I find Swim Atlanta has a very close (50:50) male to female ratio at practices. Another interesting note is that their coach is female. Now, I'm not going on USMS roster data posted online (which appear to be very out of date and inaccurate) but on who shows up regularly at practice each day. (I swim 6x a week and sometimes do doubles.) However, at Dynamo and Cobb Stingrays, I find myself surrounded by men. Both the coaches there are men. I wonder if there is a correlation between male to female participation ratios and the gender of the coach. I found I tend to identify more with women coaches (and the practice is a more enjoyable experience). Do know that I also have done well under male coaches. I tend to find my female coaches to be no-nonsense, direct, and straightforward. Obviously, some male coaches are like this as well. However, I do remember having some male coaches (and some were quite young - twenties), who would like to tease women/ girls excessively (for example, "some of us need to go down further on our pushups than others"), flirt with the female swimmers, or be indirect/ unclear with answers to questions regarding sets or technique (for example, "how was my backstroke turn?" with the response being, "you need to swim for yourself" and no further explanation was given. Now, correct me if I'm wrong here (and I have no doubt I will be corrected), but the number of male swimming coaches far, far outnumbers the number of female swimming coaches at say a USS or Masters level (I'm not talking about learn to swim and lower levels). If you look at the coaches inducted into the ASCA hall of fame, you see that only 1 of 50 was female (2%). I also noticed that from its inception, only one woman has served as the Georgia President/ General Chairman and that was in 2005/ 2006. Leadership starts at the top and trickles down. I'm in the 30-34 age group and soon to be 35-39 age group. Growing up, I was the only female along with one other girl on the senior team at my year round swim club in GA. The senior team was around 20 swimmers. It could be a bit intimidating at times! I think things have changed and more girls are getting into swimming or other sports which is awesome for the sport of swimming. I can also see how it could be intimidating now for women to enter masters programs. I'm pretty fast and it's a challenge to swim with the big boys each day. I love it, but I think a lot of women would be overwhelmed in terms of their speed, size (even if not in their lane), and practice habits. From my experience (and I've talked a lot about this with my female swimming buddies), men practice differently from women. Women tend to get in a lane appropriate to their speed and follow the set instructions where many men get in a lane too fast for them and then resort to drafting; stopping mid-set to catch their breath to then leave on your toes in attempt to draft; add in the fins and/ or paddles and buoys and/ or just swim free when it's IM or stroke; or my personal favorite, simply turn around in the middle of the lane to catch up. We've (my female swimmers and I) finally adopted the policy to let 'em cheat and we try our best to actually follow the set and race them regardless. I enjoy this having grown up in this kind of environment. I feel many women at the moderate to entry level would NOT find this daily experience pleasant. My female friends I'm referring to are at the Ironman Kona (top in their age group) and Dixie Zone Record level. And finally, from the female chauvinist pig perspective, I feel women are expected to: Carry babies to term Bounce back and look fantastic afterwards Be the primary caregiver for the kids Have a successful career at which we are making as much or more than the men Be the primary person who upkeeps the home including meals and cleaning the home Be a fantastic wife and mother while being sexy And then throw in the competing and physical activity?! That's a pretty overwhelming list. Yea, we're busing "popping out babies" along with a few other things. BTW, I skimmed the other responses, so who knows what the heck I repeated. Happy swimming! Thanks for the question Fortress!!

I took Frank's advice and hugged him in a PM.

Wow,that was some response. Venting is good, hope you feel better now :-)

i'm lucky i've never experienced this on my USS teams or my high school teams...there always seemed to be an even number, or even more females than males. In masters, it seems pretty even (on my team). The men on my team do not cheat or take breaks any less than the women on the team. They are too proud or too focused to just stop and sit on the wall. as far as coaches go - i've been through a lot of them (around ten), and only had a female once for a brief period. She wasn't very good. Of course, all of the men weren't good either, but there were some awesome ones. I think everyone has a different definition of a good coach - some might prefer friendliness, toughness, honesty, easiness, strict - whatever. I don't think a gender could specify what makes someone a good coach. The situations you have described (where male coaches don't coach but just flirt) I have never seen. Good coaches can be your friend and your coach, and joking around as a team or with teammates instigates bonding and unity. I for one, appreciate the good times I had with my team and my coaches, who were fun but also hard asses to make me have a good time and push myself.