Nice! I wrote a script similar to this that triggers when I take a screenshot with Flameshot, OCR's the screenshot using an API and opens web page with the OCR'd text. I prefer to use a Japanese to Japanese dictionary when possible which I have as a browser extension (yomitan). I like that this approach doesn't require an external API.
How could women be better physiologically suited at long distance running than men, when for example there are around 2500[1] men that have a better time than the women's marathon world record at 2:11:53?
Or compare the men's record at UTMB (100 mile race) at 19:37:43 vs the women's record at 22:30:54.
As a former ultra runner who never competed in barely, women traditionally do better downhill, they are lighter, have a smaller stride length (more agile), and Barkley has a lot of downhill. It's a loop also so comparing it to utmb or any race that isn't a loop or onb isn't quite the same. Men do better uphill traditionally where there is more power and lung capacity required, which Barkley has plenty of also. One thing no one has really pointed out is most ultras alow for a pacer after a certain point. This is vital once you start to lose your ability to think. It keeps you from getting lost, keeps you on pace, ensures you drink and eat at the correct times, mentally it gives you someone to keep you motivated, keep you sane, so on. In Barkley you see runners grouping together to compensate for the lack of a pacer but the fifth loop they send each runner out in the opposite direction so they do the final loop solo, when everything is at its worst. For example, in 2022, Karel Sabbe was found asking a trash can for help getting back on course because he thought it was a women, on his fourth loop.
Honestly, I am surprised it hasn't happen prior to this year, minus the fact that there are just so few finishers.
The article isn’t about pure time, it’s about overall endurance over time. Women tend to finish ultramarathons at a higher rate than men, but not typically faster than men.
So to answers the OP's question: the reason she's the first woman to finish isn't necessarily because of bias or sexism, but could rather be simply because of the very challenging time limit, and the fact that the women's world record ultra times are around 10-15% slower than the men's on all distances from 50k up to 6 days (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon)
AIUI the difference between the sexes is less for long distances than it is for shorter, faster events, not that women are faster than men. Therefore the probability of a woman finisher in this race is theoretically not much less than a man finisher.
So it's not surprising that there's not much of a competitive tradition in marathoning that brings as many women into it as men, or that encourages them to train as hard.
It's also true that some peoples' body types seem more naturally suited to it. See Kenya's domination in distance-running events. They have a cultural tradition that celebrates endurance running going back thousands of years. Even if that timeframe is too short to exhibit genuine selection pressure, it still has an effect. Their children have been raised to run.
There is probably no inherent reason why women don't show the same speed or endurance as men, just as there was no actual science behind the widely-held notion that no one could break the four-minute mile. But it will take time to make up for past discouragement and outright discrimination.
We observe the same in ultracycling where Lael Wilcox is among the fastest.
The thing is traditionnally sports have been invented by men with charactetistics/rules that suited men first.
You also have to take into account that in any society influcenced by patriarcal and sexism schemes, it is logical that they ate simply more men participating. The base level of a group always increase with the participation and competitivity within that group.
> The thing is traditionnally sports have been invented by men with charactetistics/rules that suited men first.
Take a look at the history of the concept of marathon; I think your claim is a stretch. Running fast from point A to point B isn't some kind of patriarchal conspiracy.
Also you make two contradictory claims, which one is it?
1) that the sport inherently is sexist in design, so of course women aren't winning
2) that women would be winning if the sport had more women competing
The first claim is that less women are competing because it has been invented by men for men (and only a long time after were women allowed to compete)
which is not contradictory nor opposite to claim 2 that the level of women would increase if there were more women competing.
Look at pro cycling. 25 years ago I was riding in circle around an elite women cyclist as a junior. Now they haven't reached the same level as I had and are still far away from elite men (who are also much more to compete) but they are much closer because there is more money to the sport, more women competing. Now if races were 5to 10 times longer the difference would probably be lower as found in ultracycling events.
If you make something tilted against group X, group X will not look very good in the distribution of performance.
If those people in group X participate at a lower rate as a result, group X will look even worse in the distribution of performance. You'll be selecting the best from a much smaller population.
I do think there's some merit in the argument that many athletic events have been developed to showcase and compare male athletic capability. (Of course, a few are the opposite!)
To the opposite point: the reply says "women are failing cause the event design is biased" and also "women could do perfectly well if not for society making them not play"
Which one is it. If society didn't hold back women, would they win or not? Arg 1 says no, arg 2 says yes.
If the event were fairly constructed, arg 1 says they'd win, arg 2 says they still wouldn't.
So you've identified two possible problems; if the first is true (events are inherently biased) that completely proves that social discrimination is irrelevant (because the event design is so sexist women can never win)
If the second is true (women only lose because society holds them back) then the claim that the events are inherently biased (enough to totally prevent female wins) has to be false because either they can or can't win ex social bias. Qed either claim being true forces the other to be false, the args are contradictory.
EDIT: yes, I may be falsely thinking point-wise rather than distributionally. Both of the factors you mention do push women out further in the distribution of placements
> EDIT: yes, I may be falsely thinking point-wise rather than distributionally. Both of the factors you mention do push women out further in the distribution of placements
Even pointwise they are complementary arguments. When something is biased against you, you are less likely to participate. When less people like you are present in an activity, it's even harder. When there's fewer people like you around, the rules may tilt even farther away from being good for you. These effects all compound and reinforce each other.
Why have you locked off the easy complimentary answers: "women generally are smart enough to know running 100 miles at once isn't that useful" or "women on average have more important things to do". Nobody crows how men also have the largest Warhammer figurine collections and the largest trains sets due to sexism. Women just have different and generally more reasonable interests.
Why would someone trap themselves in an ideology which depends on believing that women are physically equal to men when men are obviously bigger, stronger, more insanely competitive and dedicated to meaningless status games. That's not necessarily a plus.
Also you still haven't really explained why "run X miles from A to B" is a tilted contest. Yet "swim Y miles from France to England" (an event I believe women are somewhat better at than men?) isn't.
> Why have you locked off the easy complimentary answers: "women generally are smart enough to know running 100 miles at once isn't that useful" or "women on average have more important things to do".
I think you've not understood the argument; the difference between women and men narrows as distance increases. Women might even have an advantage on the longest comps if they participated at a greater rate-- that's the topic that started the subthread we're in.
I would argue that NVC emphasizes curiosity because the aim is to understand the feelings and needs (what is alive) in the other person. This requires a deep curiosity and being present in the current moment so that one can connect with what is going on in the other person.
NVC does not encourage immediately asking questions to increase your intellectual understanding of the situation when someone is hurt/upset and it is not yet clear what that person wants from the interaction.
For example, take the author's example sentence: "I’m furious with my husband. He’s never around when I need him.". I would say that it's pretty clear that the person is feeling furious because their need for support isn't being met. What is less clear is what the person wants from me right now. My guess would be that the person wants empathy and understanding of their pain, but it may also be that they want some advice on how to solve the problem they're having with their husband.
Now this is where NVC says it's better to err on the side of the other person wanting empathy by guessing their feelings and needs (and this doesn't have to be done in the "classical" NVC way or even verbally at all depending on the situation). And if it turns out they actually wanted advice then of course it's fine to start asking questions to get a better intellectual understanding of the situation, but jumping immediately to "fixing" mode when the other person hasn't yet received sufficient empathy can be very hurtful.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that NVC doesn't want you to be curious. Just that the book focuses on getting you practice curiosity without telling you that the point of these questions is to spark curiosity, which leads to empathy.
The problem the author had with the example is the response has a little too much mirroring. Your response:
> I would say that it's pretty clear that the person is feeling furious because their need for support isn't being met.
Is better as it is rephrased, and mentions support.
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