Considerations of Gender and Sex in Figure Skating

[Interspectator]

Ok, can I just say one more thing, and then I'll shut up. (Promises, promises.)

This is not exactly on topic here -- it's more relevant to the topic of why men's figure skating has regressed in the quad era. Look at this 1978 program by Charles Tickner! (Great music choice for openers. ) The jumps are woven seamlessly into the choreography; he did one innovative move after another that today's skaters don't even know once existed. He does a flying sit position single Axel (?), then a delayed Axel, and a camel spin with brief Yuna position. He did a 3S + back Arabian heal click combination (?) The program was packed throughout with what we would now call "non-listed" leaps and bounds. Every moment of the program was interesting and every moment a triumph and a delight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVNImLRliFU

That was delightful.
Although I prefer COP to 6.0 I do miss the creative jumps that they put in before. Hearing the commentator say "He's adding extra double axels" at the end, No one would ever just 'add in' an extra double axel these days or if they did they'd get an earful from their coach about it.

 

[karne]

I think it might be due to training? For example I don't know if Jason Brown is a natural good spinner or because of his traning to max out all the elements in his programs without quad?

Jason has said before that they worked harder on footwork and spins since he was young because he was always a step behind jumps-wise. (the year he and Joshua were on the Novice podium together, Jason was barely eeking out 3S and 3T. Joshua was already doing 3Lz-3T.)

He also said he worked hard to become flexible because he saw Joshua doing a Charlotte spiral into 2A and wanted to be able to do that too. (Now Jason is the flexible one, and Joshua is less.)

He does a flying sit position single Axel (?), then a delayed Axel, and a camel spin with brief Yuna position.

Then should it not be called a Tickner position, since clearly he was doing it long before Yuna?

 

[Meoima]

Jason has said before that they worked harder on footwork and spins since he was young because he was always a step behind jumps-wise. (the year he and Joshua were on the Novice podium together, Jason was barely eeking out 3S and 3T. Joshua was already doing 3Lz-3T.)
He also said he worked hard to become flexible because he saw Joshua doing a Charlotte spiral into 2A and wanted to be able to do that too. (Now Jason is the flexible one, and Joshua is less.)

Thank you for the information. Personally I think Jason's spins are very good even if we compare him to ladies. Of course ladies are more flexible (biology) so maybe they have more advantage over various spin positions. But I think the thing that set men and women apart when it comes to "spins" is mostly the training philosophy. Men focus more on difficult jumps while ladies' programs are more balanced.
Not everyone can be natural spinners like Lucinda Ruh or Lambiel.

 

[phaeljones]

Amazing posts all.

Trying to think this on a more abstract level, even having an awareness of binaries is an awakening (to ourselves) of the boundaries that we create by our values (1 - who belongs to a group, 2 - who doesn't belong to a group and then 3 - who is better (ie best) in that group) and the motivation for creating them. Just looking for our binaries (why we classify and score or value as we do) in ourselves is important.

As individuals for ourselves, we can subjectively identify ourselves as male, female or anything, regardless of our physiology or surroundings. We each can know who we are whatever society might want to tell us. However, societies tend to take the subjective values, group them together as taken from the community or those in power, and make them into rules that are objectively applied so that outside of ourselves, we are identified by categories determined by others. For instance, no matter what sex I might think I myself am, society is going to identify me as being male based on established binaries. People will identify me according to how they feel, not how I feel.

(I am trying to lay this out in small steps: )

So applied, a biological male competes with the men no matter how he identifies himself and a biological female competes with the women no matter how she identifies herself. And then as a society we fortify those binaries by how we choose our winners in each category. (I am generalizing for the purposes of making a point: ) For instance, males have to do the big jumps or they are toast for getting the podium. Females better have flexibility and grace or they are really not going to be competitive either. (Query whether there is a lot of objectification used in both men and women for fortification of those binaries. I would argue that there is.)

Nevertheless, I do notice that many of the best male skaters (or the ones I like) can do a lot of the "female moves" as well as the "male moves", and many of the best female skaters are pretty up there in the "male moves" as well as the "female moves". (There are skaters who do not fall within this category such as Stojko, who identified his own style as masculine and articulated the view that male skaters should be masculine in their skating, but he comes from within a group, and not the prevalent one in figure skating I would argue . . . but that is another debate.) The best skaters do both, maybe not as good as the "other" sex, but, as the skaters at the highest of the elite level, they are pretty good across the board with their skills, skills that sometimes binaries rigidly applied by some portions of society might consider "inappropriate". Okay, so where I am going with this?

I think that Figure Skating does have a prevalent binary. As long as the skater meets and conquers the objective requirements of their biological binary (men doing the men things, and women doing the women things), they can do the other stuff and be acclaimed and rewarded for it.

And then . . . the binary starts to shift over time. That is the process of evolution of the sport over time. The societal binary remains intact, but there is still an artistic and expressive evolution of the sport. ( <<<<< very opinionated opinion)

 

[Mathman]

And then . . . the binary starts to shift over time. That is the process of evolution of the sport over time. The societal binary remains intact, but there is still an artistic and expressive evolution of the sport. ( <<<<< very opinionated opinion)

It is really quite bizarre what we put into the male box and the female. Figure skating’s problem is that in the western cultural tradition any sort of graceful movement or artistic sensibility is pushed into the feminine box. A male dancer had better be spouting testosterone and dating J-Lo, like Maksim Chmerkovsky (Meryl Davis’ partner on Dancing with the Stars) if he doesn’t want to be thought of as sissy. (Sorry, Derek Hough – you’re too handsome.)

Conversely, doing a triple Lutz is already verging on “unladylike,” especially if it’s a high one. Better follow up with an Ina Bauer.

http://data.whicdn.com/images/1600213/2mre2v4_large.jpg

Curiously, there is such a thing as a “masculine” Ina Bauer.

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/c2/43/94/c2439479ecf62692bf3706221b2384d6.jpg

As well as a girlish Ina Bauer.

http://fskating.com/wp-content/uplo...-free-skating-program-at-Grand-Prix-event.jpg

 

[Interspectator]

It is really quite bizarre what we put into the male box and the female. Figure skating’s problem is that in the western cultural tradition any sort of graceful movement or artistic sensibility is pushed into the feminine box. A male dancer had better be spouting testosterone and dating J-Lo, like Maksim Chmerkovsky (Meryl Davis’ partner on Dancing with the Stars) if he doesn’t want to be thought of as sissy. (Sorry, Derek Hough – you’re too handsome.)

Conversely, doing a triple Lutz is already verging on “unladylike,” especially if it’s a high one. Better follow up with an Ina Bauer.

http://data.whicdn.com/images/1600213/2mre2v4_large.jpg


Curiously, there is such a thing as a “masculine” Ina Bauer.

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/c2/43/94/c2439479ecf62692bf3706221b2384d6.jpg

As well as a girlish Ina Bauer.

http://fskating.com/wp-content/uplo...-free-skating-program-at-Grand-Prix-event.jpg

It's the same. And they are soo beautiful. Such a beautiful move should not be restricted to one gender.
The thing that makes me most uncomfortable is watching someone perform dance moves without confidence. Masculine, feminine, simple or complex, you have to own it!

 

[gkelly]

A whole thread about Ina Bauers: http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/showthread.php?51363-Ina-Bauer-move

 

[skatedreamer]

It is really quite bizarre what we put into the male box and the female. Figure skating’s problem is that in the western cultural tradition any sort of graceful movement or artistic sensibility is pushed into the feminine box. A male dancer had better be spouting testosterone and dating J-Lo, like Maksim Chmerkovsky (Meryl Davis’ partner on Dancing with the Stars) if he doesn’t want to be thought of as sissy. (Sorry, Derek Hough – you’re too handsome.)

Conversely, doing a triple Lutz is already verging on “unladylike,” especially if it’s a high one. Better follow up with an Ina Bauer.

http://data.whicdn.com/images/1600213/2mre2v4_large.jpg

Curiously, there is such a thing as a “masculine” Ina Bauer.

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/c2/43/94/c2439479ecf62692bf3706221b2384d6.jpg

As well as a girlish Ina Bauer.

http://fskating.com/wp-content/uplo...-free-skating-program-at-Grand-Prix-event.jpg

Thanks, Mathman! All of those IB's are gorgeous but for me, Yuna's is simply in a class by itself.

JMO, though; they're all beautiful. More to the point of this thread, I think the beauty comes from the individual abilities of the skaters and has nothing to do with gender. On some subtle level, though, Yuzu's pose does look more traditionally "masculine" to me, no doubt at least partly b/c of the stereotypes I grew up with. Which makes me wonder: would someone perceive a Yuzu-style IB more "feminine" if it were done by Yuna or Yulia?

But yikes, since when did a 3Lutz become "unladylike?" That sure was news to me.

 

[Meoima]

Thanks, Mathman! All of those IB's are gorgeous but for me, Yuna's is simply in a class by itself.
JMO, though; they're all beautiful. More to the point of this thread, I think the beauty comes from the individual abilities of the skaters and has nothing to do with gender. Which makes me wonder, though: would someone perceive a Yuzu-style IB more "feminine" if it were done by Yuna or Yulia?
But yikes, since when did a 3Lutz become "unladylike?" That sure was news to me.

IB looks beautiful on photos but in real life most skaters don't held it for long. Yuna doesn't held that position for long either.

 

[skatedreamer]

IB looks beautiful on photos but in real life most skaters don't held it for long. Yuna doesn't held that position for long either.

Understood and agreed. The nice thing about still photos is that they help us to appreciate the quality of the position. All skating moves go by so fast; it's great when they're captured in stills.

 

[Meoima]

Understood and agreed. The nice thing about still photos is that they help us to appreciate the quality of the position. All skating moves go by so fast; it's great when they're captured in stills.

That is a pity. As I love layback Ina Bauer. With Yuna maybe of her back problems. I hope they hold it longer. I see Yuzuru holds this move for quite long. Maybe because he has more muscle than ladies he can hold it longer?

 

[Mathman]

But yikes, since when did a 3Lutz become "unladylike?" That sure was news to me.

It's the binary-ness of it all. Triple Lutz = masculine. Triple loop = feminine. Double Axel = unisex. Triple Axel (aka, the triple Asada, denoted 3A in the protocols) = ???

 

[blue dog]

Well, it looks like the IOC has heard all the criticisms:

In light of this, the IOC has added an anti-discrimination clause to the contract host cities of future Games must sign. The move comes after almost 80,000 All Out members called for such an ordinance to be added and advocacy groups All Out, Athlete Ally, and Human Rights Watch sent an open letter to the IOC president.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/...act_n_5882078.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000050

 

[Mathman]

Then should it not be called a Tickner position, since clearly he was doing it long before Yuna?

No cause for alarm, I'm not trying to give Yuna credit for anything. I suspect that many skaters have experimented with various positions and I doubt if Tickner was the first to try twisting his body upside down in a camel spin. But if I had said, Tickner did a position in his camel spin that was sort of like a Tickner camel position, no one would know what I was talking about.

Trivia question: who is the first skater to do a Bielmann spin? Who did the first Mapes jump (aka "cherry flip")? Who was the first person to do Alexei Yagudin's Winter step sequence? (Answer: Sonia Henie).

Sadly, people are always getting credit for other people's inventions. There is a famous equation in mathematics called "Pell's Equation." Seventeenth century Brittish mathematician John Pell had nothing to do with it but was mistakenly credited, 100 years later, with inventing it when Pell was confused with a other guy who is long forgotten -- and never mind the fact that the equation had been studied in Greece and India in antiquity.

The relevance of this to figure skating? A great, great, many times great grandson of Professor Pell, Herbert Claiborne Pell IV (of the Rhode Island Pells) married a five-time world figure skating champion.

Here is Michelle Kwan's great, great, great, … grandfather-in-law.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/John_Pell.jpg/300px-John_Pell.jpg

 

[Sandpiper]

But yikes, since when did a 3Lutz become "unladylike?" That sure was news to me.

Here's a video of Denise Biellmann's 1980 Olympcis performance. At around the 1:50 mark, she does a triple lutz (two-footed, but unique for her time). The male announcer remarks that "Women aren't supposed to do that!" (though the female announcer responds, "Who says?") Of course, this was decades ago, and he seemed to be joking, but I think it does show that the 3Lz was considered unladylike at one point.

Nowadays, I actually associate 3Lz with the ladies, since it's their hardest jump unless you're Mao Asada. Whereas it's just routine for the men and I barely notice it there.

 

[leoncorazon]

Figures counted for a large portion of the score back then, so the difference in jumping ability or flexibility wouldn't have been a huge factor.

FYI - Syers was 3rd in the free skate in 1902...

 

[Icey]

Here's a video of Denise Biellmann's 1980 Olympcis performance. At around the 1:50 mark, she does a triple lutz (two-footed, but unique for her time). The male announcer remarks that "Women aren't supposed to do that!" (though the female announcer responds, "Who says?") Of course, this was decades ago, and he seemed to be joking, but I think it does show that the 3Lz was considered unladylike at one point.

Nowadays, I actually associate 3Lz with the ladies, since it's their hardest jump unless you're Mao Asada. Whereas it's just routine for the men and I barely notice it there.

That was because so few were able to do it. It was not a matter of being unladylike imo.

 

[skatedreamer]

That was because so few were able to do it. It was not a matter of being unladylike imo.

I'm with Icey on this one. It sounded to me like the male announcer was only amazed that a woman was doing a jump that most women didn't have in their repertoire at the time. Not a criticism, at least not to my ears, and I didn't hear anything in his voice that implied he thought she was "unladylike." It was more like surprise and admiration -- the same kind of response that Midori got in the 90's when she rolled out her 3A. Some people might have been shocked that a woman was physically capable of a 3A, but I have to believe that they were also delighted. Same for Bielmann's 3Lz.

More power to anyone -- male or female -- who pushes the envelope!

 

[Pepe Nero]

This is a terrific thread, so far as I have read. I'm not through it yet, but I find it heartening what a difference a couple of years makes.

Maybe it just means that the society where you grew up with had hegemonic structures that pushed forward gender differentiation more.

This is one of the best posts I've read on GS, ever.

Still, it raises the question of why there are separate competitions for men and women in the first place. The idea is that if everyone were in the same boat, then men would win everything and women wouldn't have a chance. (Men, after all, typically have bigger muscles, they can run faster, and more men than women can whistle.)

I agree that that is the question raised. I read somewhere (might have been Artistic Impressions) that, had Yuna Kim been permitted to compete in the men's competition at the Olympics in 2010, she would have earned the bronze medal. This is simply in virtue of (1) her PCS not being degraded by 20% in virtue of being a "lady", and (2) what she easily could have added to her program with the extra time, given also the additional number of elements "men" are permitted.

That brings the issue into clear focus. I think that a male skater like Yuzuru Hanyu would have a substantial advantage over the top ladies.

Hanyu: 3A+3T, 3Lz, 2A
Kim: 3Lz+3T, 3F, 2A
Asada: 3A+2T, 3F (or 3Lo), 2A

That's a nice cushion and Hanyu can do a passable layback and spiral. (Plushenko can do a Bielmann.)

But the real question, IMHO, is why do we think that ladies are genetically better spiralers and laybackers than gentlemen? I don't think that men inherently have less flexible backs or worse edge control. The reason (don't shoot the messenger ) that spirals and layback spins are traditionally regarded as "ladies" elements, is that ladies look so pretty doing them.

Sure, Mathman, but the same question can be asked about women and jumps. Might more women be doing triple axels and quads if jumps weren't so male-gendered, given the power of gender in virtually all societies?

Alternatively -- if one wishes to hold fast to biological gender essentialism -- one might note that most current/actual attempts by male figure skaters (including Hanyu) at flexibility moves are pretty weak even when the position is (nominally and briefly) achieved. If spins and spirals were (1) raised in point value such that doing them well earned points similar to well-performed higher-value jumps and (2) judged more rigorously so that it was harder to get level 4 and +3 GOE, men like Hanyu would not have any advantage at all. There is no male figure skater who has ever done a Biellmann or I spin as well as Alissa Czisny, for example (not even Hanyu).

I'm still reading through posts. Apologies if I'm repeating others' subsequent points.

ETA: I'd like to recommend "The Subjection of Women" by John Stuart Mill to defenders of the claim (in any form) that inherent, innate sex differences entail the inability of female figure skaters (on average) to accomplish what male figures more typically achieve. What you think is obvious is not obvious.

Also: We can't really generalize from the actual. How actual women skaters would have stacked up against actual male skaters (when used to show male dominance) is mostly irrelevant. This is because the opposing view was always counter-factual: had gender roles and expectations not been what they were, a wholly different set of female and male skaters would have emerged. (Indeed, we might not have even categorized them in terms of what might have been an arbitrary difference.)

 

[Meoima]

Sure, Mathman, but the same question can be asked about women and jumps. Might more women be doing triple axels and quads if jumps weren't so male-gendered, given the power of gender in virtually all societies?

I don't think jumps are more male-oriented. It's just who are stronger psyically or technically do more difficult jumps. Some men don't have a beautiful 3A as Mao when she lands it. I would give Mao's sucessfull 3A higher GOE than Lambiel's sucessfull 3A, for example.

Alternatively -- if one wishes to hold fast to biological gender essentialism -- one might note that most current/actual attempts by male figure skaters (including Hanyu) at flexibility moves are pretty weak even when the position is (nominally and briefly) achieved. If spins and spirals were (1) raised in point value such that doing them well earned points similar to well-performed higher-value jumps and (2) judged more rigorously so that it was harder to get level 4 and +3 GOE, men like Hanyu would not have any advantage at all. There is no male figure skater who has ever done a Biellman or I spin as well as Alissa Czisny, for example (not even Hanyu).

There are several male skater with excellent Biellman, like MCM of Philipine. The junior Russian boy doing Biellmann side by side with his partner in pair recently (I don't remember their names, let me check) and his Biellmann is even prettier than his partner. Or a Japanese junior champion years ago who was famous for coppying Johnny Weir (not Hanyu, Hanyu wears Weir's costumes but doesn't copy Weir's movements and skating style). Plushy also had a very good Biellman when young.
And we have seen some junior ladies with a bad Bielmann, too (Serafima).

I think Biellman has to do more with flexibility and most women have better flexibility than men. Hanyu has good flexibility among men, but not the best. That's why his Bielmann looks not good even it's done. (And I hope he will drop it next season, he has back injury anyways).
But layback Ina Bauer has to do more with strength and balance, so that's why I prefer Hanyu's Ina Bauer over MCM or many other ladies, even Yuna (Yuna's Bielmann is beautiful but she doesn't hold it long). Simply because Hanyu holds that Biellman position for very long.

In short, I don't think there are moves that more feminine or masculine. I think there are elements that requires strength, technique, the right timing and the right training method (for example the 3A for women and quad for men). it doesn't matter if you are man or a lady. Some ladies have landed quads and 3A in practice. That's doesn't make them more masculine.
And there are elements that requires something inborn like flexibility (like Biellmann herself), something like natural spinning ability like Lucinda Ruh and Lambiel.