Is it my imagination or is the smarter gender under represented in masters swimming. I would like to get some real numbers to confirm my observations. Forumites like Rick Osterberg, can you give some data about the ratio of men to women at USMS meets? Perhaps we could break it down by age group (I can hear the CPUs humming at Chris Stevenson's place all the way from up here in Mass).
If women are under represented, then I would like to discuss the causes of the imbalance and begin to work on improving the ratio.
I see what you mean. You seem to be asking a narrower question than the one I was addressing with my remark about history. Across the entire population of people who are now 40-ish, more men than women have childhood swimming experience (I think). But there ought to be about equal numbers of men and women who are now 40-ish and who competed in D1 20-ish years ago. So among those people, if more men than women return to serious swimming, the explanation for that imbalance can't be historical.
i know it's been mentioned somewhere on the forums before, about the whole mindset that it was bad (and unfeminine) for females to be competitive, so i think that might have something to do with it all...
case in point (although i know anecdotal evidence isn't all it's cracked up to be) is my masters team (terrapin masters in MD)... we have at least 2 groups of intervals at our workouts, grouped into the "A" and "B" practices. the "A" swimmers are almost all meet swimmers, with the "B" swimmers tending towards either open water or pure fitness... when you look at the gender breakdown between the two groups, the "A" group is just about exclusively men (with yours truly being the exception) and the "B" groups slightly favoring women...
again, that's just one team, but i'm wondering if other teams out there have similar breakdowns???
I see what you mean. You seem to be asking a narrower question than the one I was addressing with my remark about history. Across the entire population of people who are now 40-ish, more men than women have childhood swimming experience (I think). But there ought to be about equal numbers of men and women who are now 40-ish and who competed in D1 20-ish years ago. So among those people, if more men than women return to serious swimming, the explanation for that imbalance can't be historical.
i know it's been mentioned somewhere on the forums before, about the whole mindset that it was bad (and unfeminine) for females to be competitive, so i think that might have something to do with it all...
case in point (although i know anecdotal evidence isn't all it's cracked up to be) is my masters team (terrapin masters in MD)... we have at least 2 groups of intervals at our workouts, grouped into the "A" and "B" practices. the "A" swimmers are almost all meet swimmers, with the "B" swimmers tending towards either open water or pure fitness... when you look at the gender breakdown between the two groups, the "A" group is just about exclusively men (with yours truly being the exception) and the "B" groups slightly favoring women...
again, that's just one team, but i'm wondering if other teams out there have similar breakdowns???
