Does anyone know why competitions are split by gender? I feel like yoyo is a sport where the biological differences between males and females don’t really matter, and from what I’ve heard from various YouTubers etc there just aren’t that many female players. So why can’t Betty or Tessa compete directly against Gentry or Evan or Nate?
I’m basing this off of Nats; are there competitions that don’t separate by gender? Just curious.
Comps are not separated by gender. There’s just a division exclusive for female players.
They can. Girls can enter the standard divisions and they have in the past. In 2016, Betty did made it to 1A semifinals at worlds. She also just won Mexican Nationals this year. In 2017, Reia Torita made it to 1A semifinals at Japan nationals. Normally girls do enter the main divisions but as far as i can remember no female player has made it to finals (at worlds or national/regional contests in the US).
This is why Women division exists, so we can get to see the routines from female players who normally don’t make it to finals in competitions flooded by male players. In some contests, women division’s registration fee is cheaper than the main divisions, to further encourage girls to compete.
Edit: Some girls on the most competitive divisions in contests
Betty Gallegos 1st place on 2019 Mexican Nationals
Betty Gallegos 2016Worlds 1A Semifinal
Reia Torita 2017 Japan National 1A Semifinal
Brenda Gonzalez 2016 Spain Nationals Final
Lol there just aren’t many girls competing ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Whoa, thanks! This was super enlightening. I just assumed they were separated by gender given how few female competitors there are.
I was just wonder today why there isn’t more girl throwers.
Or maybe there is and I’m just not aware of it?
But it seems like most the people on facebook, reddit and here on the forums are guys…most videos I see are guys, and most people at competitions seem to be guys.
Just seems really odd to me.
I see tons of girls on the #trickcircke on instagram
I’m not saying they don’t exist.
Just that there’s WAY more guys it seems than women. And I’m not sure why that is.
Definitely way more guys. I think men tend to be more into technical things, collecting, and competing than women.
Obviously there’s outliers on both ends, but make trends seem to lineup better with yoyoing than female trends.
For almost every hobby and even most sports they are dominated by guys. Pretty much every hobby I’ve been interested in and am aware of, they are dominated by guys. Yoyo, kendama, pool, bowling, ping pong, poker, tcgs, cubing, etc. For whatever reason females just aren’t nearly as interested in many hobbies or activities as males. And even if they are they’re generally not as competitive or passionate about it as males. There are very few things that have a large female member base and pretty much the only things that have more females than males are explicitly feminine activities like ice skating, specific types of dancing, makeup, etc.
This topic came up on the subreddit awhile back. Reddit - Dive into anything
Turned out there are a lot of female lurkers on the subreddit who just weren’t particularly vocal. Those who spoke up cited that it was a combination of the “boys club” effect—the hobby is predominantly male which makes it a bit uncomfortable for females—and the unfortunate reality that sometimes someone doesn’t know how to treat someone of the opposite sex with respect etc.
That boys club effect IMO is particularly hard to combat. You can tell off someone who’s being rude/creepy etc and try to make a welcoming and inclusive club/community. But it’s hard to overcome the awkwardness of being the only person of your sex in a club or contest.
I don’t think we encounter that as much as guys.
Yea, guys can be creeps to women to the point of annoyance. Whenever girls show up on forums or social media a decent amount of guys just start licking their boots and get a bit too “friendly”. It’s pathetic.
I had typed up a response a couple times to this and just let it go for fear it might not be taken right, but nonja raises a great (and probably THE) point.
Women in society kind of have to be guarded against getting hit on like all the time. And in guy-dominated nerd hobbies like yoyo and MtG and Pokemon and even the board gaming community you have guys who REALLY want to meet a girl but are SUPER awkward and thirsty. And girl hobbyists just want to do that hobby, they’re not looking to hook up. But now they are the only girl in a room of guys and some percentage of those guys just can’t help themselves and get awkward or creepy and the girl decides the fun of the hobby isn’t worth the constant judo she has to do to avoid advances or flirting.
We can all advance this by treating the women in any hobby just like we would treat a dude. Stop perving on them or treating them differently. Give them extra space. Let them just enjoy the hobby and escape from the chase.
Yes, but quite frankly it isn’t going to happen. It only takes one to ruin the experience. Tbh I’d recommend that girls who join communities like this keep their gender secret (or just lie) until they establish themselves into the community. It sucks to say this, but it’s the reality.
I get where you’re coming from but tbh that’s just gonna ensure that yoyo stays a male-dominated hobby. I think @bobafret is correct that we on the whole need to make sure we treat female players just like we would a male player. It’s not just about how a female thrower can stay safe; it’s about how do we make them feel safe.
That seems like a huge stretch to ask to girls. Yes, the community is not comofortable for girls but it’s getting better, way much better than it was before. There are more female throwers than ever, and contests are friendlier than ever.
Every girl in the community i’ve talked to on ig or reddit has beem more than ok with how the community treats them.
It’s more like, staring for too long. Standing too close. Repeatedly engaging in conversation when they’re obviously not interested. Paying extra attention when it’s their turn, or they’re doing a trick, or whatever. Doesn’t seem too bad as a one off thing, but when it’s an everyday, constant battle to just be treated the same as everyone else, even subtle behaviours can add up and overwhelm someone looking into a hobby for the first time. If one person throws a flirty line at you and you turn them down, no big deal right? Everyone goes about their business, no feelings are hurt. But when you go through the same interaction with the entire group of people, sometimes multiple times with the same person over the course of the night, it can be exhausting. You’re just there to throw, or play a game, or whatever, and you end up feeling like a piece of meat.
I think this is the actual problem.
Great description of the problem. Even being overly saccharine helpful is weird. My internal barometer is “would I act like this toward a scruffy little smelly dude?” and if the answer is no, I know I’m letting gender influence my interaction.
Ugh I remember being that guy back in high school. dies of cringe It takes awhile to develop that kind of awareness of what you’re doing.
I’ll turn 50 this year and it’s only now I’m seeing a lot of the matrix code in life. It just takes walking through a lot of experience to get it sorted all out.
The universe laughs at our futile attempts to force half our species to sublimate, under almost any circumstances, the most primal and powerful of biological imperatives.
Depends on division and how far back you want to go.
1A - Tessa and Ann have both made assorted regional finals. Kahli Evans was in Worlds finals a number of years as the Australian National Champion.
not1A - Bu-Ko and Jennifer Baybrook have both won Worlds. Farrah Siegel was a 2A finalist a number of times (I think finished 3rd at US Nationals a couple times if I remember correctly)