Male/Female Inequity in Tournaments?

[Stac3y]

Have any of you noticed an inequity or just weirdness in the divisions offered for women in tournaments?

I've competed in 3 different organizations' tourneys, and here's what I've seen:

In one of them, there is a Senior Executive (40 and up) division for men, but not for women, though they do have an Executive (32 and up) division for women. In the same org, only black belt women's divisions compete in Grand Championships, but brown belt (as well as black belt) men's divisions compete. Also, black belt women's sparring divisions only have lightweight and flyweight groups, while men have 4 groups.

In another, the only division with money prizes is black belt men.

In the third one, the special "big money" event is for male black belts only; and men's kata has more age divisions than women's.

I don't think this is fair, obviously, or I wouldn't be bringing it up.

Is this typical in the tournaments you go to (if you go to any), or is this just a geographical (Southern U.S.) thing?

[Ironcrane]

I have never seen that in any of the tournaments that I've been to. But I've never been outside of my state(Oregon) So I still can't say if that's a standard for any place else, or not.

[LuckyKBoxer]

When was the last time you were at a tournament that had more female competitors then men? Especially older Women in those age groups?
How about even half the competitors as the mens groups do?

The answer is pretty evident if you look at it. I have no doubts that if ten times the women started competing then men did, that you would see the opposite scenario happen.

It is what it is.

[KELLYG]

Like you I live in the Southern US. I don't compete much but the tournaments that I have been involved in seem to have bracketing problems. There does not seem to be enough women competitors that compete to allow for direct age, weight, belt match up's. At that point you are then matched with the closest competitor. Weight classes there were only 2 light lbs lighter heavy lbs and heavier. As for fighting for money I have no knowledge.


I don't know if is a slight against women or if there just isn't enough competitors to allow for more refinement in brackets and such.

[jks9199]

In my experience, there's no plot behind the different opportunities in competitions for men and women; it's simply the number of competitors. "Senior men's" divisions and the like didn't show up until there were a few "senior" men who wanted to compete, for example. I've seen plenty of cases where women's divisions had to be combined because there simply weren't enough competitors to field the separate divisions. I don't know about you -- but the women I know didn't want to take home a trophy/medal for showing up. They wanted to compete! (Even had more than a few willing to go up against the guys...)

[Blindside]

As for the "big money" events, it is a simple matter of having enough competitors in the potential pool to at least not lose money on the grand prize. One of the few tournaments that I go to that does offer money does it very equitably, the women are entered into the same grand championship sparring pool as the men. If they can win, they get the money. (It is point sparring so strength differential shouldn't be as big a factor.)

[Dagney Taggert]

I live in Southern California. The issue at tournaments seems to be the small number of women competing at any given time. It's perfectly normal for me to fight a woman who is not in my weight bracket, simply because she is the ONLY other female in my belt class.