Sean: Now, what about age? What if you have an older player, for example, not as strong anymore because he is 50 years old and everybody he is playing with is 25 years old. Should they be allowed to cut him off as well? Should older hockey players when they reach a certain age, it's like well you know, you're outside of this boundary so arbitrarily it doesn't matter if you're the 240 pound Russian woman that comes in and says I can kick Todd Bertuzzi's butt. It's ok, you're a woman, you can't come in. Can they do the same thing with age?
Steve: As I understand it right now, I'm not aware of a league that says you cannot play here pass the age of X. Sean: Right. Steve: No such rule exists.
Sean: Right.
Steve: Very few people participate in the top level of competitive sports past the age of whatever, 35.
Sean: Because they are not competitive anymore.
Steve: Because they are not competitive anymore.
Mark: But the analogy is probably the same. The reality is most women are not competitive at the top level of men's competition so if you talk about a certain age, above age 50 having that requirement you don't need, it's sort of the same situation. Those guys probably aren't competitive. Sean: Right, exactly my point.
Mark: So, to say we don't, I mean, it's pretty hypothetical, but to say we need a rule saying over 50 years old we won't let you play. Sean: Is it ok to have that rule in place if it's ok to have a rule in place that women can't play? Mark: It's like this golf club that's over in town there that had the men's only bar and they wanted to continue to have their men's only bar and they had members there protesting, the women members wanted to get into the bar. Are you allowed to have an organization and then decide who you want to let in as members of your organization?
Jill: Another thing I heard several months ago is that a guy here in Vancouver who was taking I believe, Just Ladies Fitness to court because he showed up there at this all women's gym and they wouldn't let him work out. I'm sorry, you can't stay here, this is a ladies gym and he was basically, his point, not even if he wants to work out there, but his point was well how come we are not allowed to have all men's gyms because that's discrimination but you can have an all women's gym? So he was going to actually take it to court and I don't know what ended up happening, but it's sort of the same thing where we've gotten to a point where men are not allowed to have sort of exclusive clubs or whatever for men because that's discrimination but women are allowed to and I don't know if that's necessarily fair either. Steve: This is why I talk about the abuse of the idea of human rights. Somebody has to pay this fellow who has no intention of working out at this lady's fitness place. He raises this issue so now it goes in front of the human rights tribunal, so now we, the tax payer are paying for all this legal garbage and the lawyers are just delighted. The whole thing is just silly. I think that women who want, because let's face it, most men prefer to go to mixed gyms because they get to ogle the women. That's the fact and some women don't want to be ogled. So they are selfish, so they want to have their own gym. Fair enough. That makes perfect sense to me.
I think these old coots there in this golf club that had their own little private man's only bar, why you would want to sit in a man's only bar is absolutely beyond me. But they've always had it. To me it's not a basic human right. Mark: It's the same issue. These women have no intention of sitting there with the men, but it's just because well, why aren't we allowed in? Steve: Well, no there is a bigger issue that the men, the pigs, so to speak have taken over the best part of the club. But they had the nice view and the men sat there and fell asleep in their chairs and played cards and whatever they did. But still, to me it's just not a big human rights issue. I think a much bigger issue to my mind is still the issue of race because we have a whole history of people being discriminated based on their race or their religion so that whole thing is more sensitive.
The gender thing and you're talking about physical differences, yeah, the different reasons like women want to have their own fitness club and you know, or even the men, they don't want the women there. As long as they are not hogging the best space, which I gather is the case here at this golf club, but if they want a men's only area of the bar. Mark: I think the space issue is probably just a red herring. I'm sure that if they had it in the back corner under a tool shed the women would still want to try to get in there. Steve: Perhaps, but I know that in our, for example, I play old timer's hockey and after our game when we sit around in the dressing room with a couple of beers we sure wouldn't want to have women there. I mean, maybe we would but, let's say that it would certainly change the nature of our conversation you know. So, a lot of the fun that we have and the jokes that we tell and stuff, we wouldn't be able to tell them.
