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Sept. 10, 2018 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
40:01
4190 What Pisses Me Off About The Serena Williams Outburst

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Well, in sentences I was never sure I was going to actually say in my life, there's quite a lot philosophically going on in the tennis world as of yesterday.
Tennis, by the way, if you've never played, pick up a racket.
It's a wonderful game.
I started very young, played a little bit competitively, and I'm not really the worst tennis player in the world.
Also love squash and badminton, but tennis is king.
And it's a game that you can play gracefully into your dotage, and it's a wonderfully sophisticated and...
Complex and challenging game, so just pick up a racket and get playing.
But, well, yesterday there was quite a lot going on, which we're going to dig into.
So the US Open has fined Serena Williams $17,000 for three code violations during yesterday's women's singles final, where she lost.
So it was a match between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka.
And in the second set, Portuguese umpire Carlos Ramos penalized William.
Well, gave her a warning, then penalized her a point, and then an entire game after a truly ferocious escalation on the behalf of Williams.
And then Osaka ended up beating her in straight sets to win her first Grand Slam title.
And it's kind of heartbreaking to watch Osaka not being able to enjoy it as much because...
Of the raging and the controversy and the huge problems which we'll get into.
So here's what happened. So Serena Williams lost the first set 6-2.
Games of six, you've got to win by two.
And then she was warned for receiving coaching from her coach after the first game of the second set.
So she's got a coach named Patrick...
And he later admitted to ESPN that he was, quote, 100% coaching.
But Serena Williams was very upset.
And she told the umpire that her coach had only given her a thumbs up.
And it was not some secret code.
And that's important.
So Serena Williams said to the umpire, I know you don't know that.
And I understand why you thought that was coaching.
But I'm telling you it's not.
Not an argument.
I'm telling you, Your Honor, I'm innocent.
So the International Tennis Federation rules state, players shall not receive coaching during a match.
This ain't no baseball.
This ain't no disco. The rules are communications of any kind, audible or visible, between a player and a coach may be construed as coaching.
So what happened was the umpire spotted him.
Her coach holding his hands apart, indicating that Serena Williams should probably be playing a little bit closer to the baseline.
And the moment that the umpire saw that, he handed Serena Williams a code violation.
Now, you may say, well, why is she responsible for what her coach does?
Well, that's what the rules state.
You know, love them or hate them, that's what the rules state.
So it was her coach who was communicating with Williams, but the rules say that the players are responsible for For the conduct of their parties, and therefore it was Williams who got the warning.
And as to why this is the case, there's kind of a philosophy in tennis, I mean, particularly singles, that it is a gladiatorial combat.
Like, it's you and the other person, and you're on your own, and you've got to use your wits and your skills and your talent and so on, so...
You're currently not.
Now, there are some places which do allow coaching, but not here.
So, the umpire sees Serena Williams' coach giving her hand signals, and he's like, boom, warning, coaching.
So, what happened next?
Well, she was leading 3-2 in the second set, and then Serena Williams was surprised to hear That she was starting the game down, right?
So it's like 1530, you know, so it's odd scoring, but basically she was a point down.
Why? Because she got frustrated at having her serve broken, right?
So when you serve, you have the big advantage, and if you lose against someone that you're serving to, it's tough.
So when you have your serve broken, she got really frustrated, and she smashed her racket.
on the ground now that is the second violation right the first was coaching the second is smashing her racket first was a warning second cost her a point so these are that this is the penalty schedule right first code violation is a warning second is a point penalty oh don't worry my friends we get to the third now This happened before in the 2009 U.S. Open to Serena Williams when she had been warned for smashing a racket and then she was penalized a point,
which actually happened to be a match point, for threatening a lineswoman who foot faulted her, right?
So in a serve you got to keep your feet in a particular position and so on and Serena Williams You know, athletes, a lot of aggression, and that's not bad, but there can be problems.
Serena Williams reportedly said to the rather small female, the lineswoman, she said, reportedly, if I could, I would take this effing ball and shove it down your effing throat!
Not poster child sports ladiness.
But anyway, so it's not just racket abuse that you can get a point penalty, right?
So you can kick a bottle, you can throw a bag, you can swear, often lead to a warning.
Now, if you swear in general, like F this as opposed to F you, that's kind of different.
So... Why?
Well, okay, you want to have some professionalism, some integrity, some sports personship, I suppose, and it's kind of like a technical foul, so to speak.
Like in basketball, if you yell at a referee or you throw the ball or whatever, it's kind of like a technical foul.
It's the same thing with smashing stuff up.
Of course, you smash a racket, fragments fly everywhere, it could be dangerous, it could damage the cords, and also it could be a psychological technique, like you smash the racket to delay the game, to get a new racket, to get a breather, to rest a little bit, and so on.
So, anyway, she knows all about this has happened before, and these rules can't be any surprise to a woman in her mid-30s who's been playing the game for, well, given her skill set, apparently 40 years started before in the womb.
So when she was docked the point, Serena Williams seemed to be, I don't know, confused.
Well, so the umpire explained the situation and she said, this is unbelievable.
Every time I play here, I have problems.
Hmm, I wonder why.
And regarding the...
So, what? That's a warning.
I didn't get coaching. I didn't get coaching.
I didn't get coaching. You need to make an announcement that I didn't get coaching.
I didn't cheat. I don't...
I didn't get coaching. How can you say that?
You need to... You need...
You owe me an apology.
You owe me an apology. I have never cheated in my life.
Right? So, the idea that he sees the coach giving her hand signals...
But then he's supposed to announce that she wasn't cheating.
Well, that's kind of not how rules work.
And it's not how umpiring work.
And it's not how fairness works.
Because those are the rules.
And then she brought up the daughter argument.
She said, I have a daughter. And I stand for what's right for her.
And I never cheated. You owe me an apology.
You will never do another one of my matches.
I mean, technically, it's kind of his match because he's the umpire.
But anyway. So then what happened was...
Osaka was preparing to surf, and she had a 4-3 lead.
And then Serena Williams started to verbally abuse Ramos.
She was sitting in her chair.
So she says, I explained that.
And the notes for all of this are below.
Sources are all of this below. She said, I explained that I wasn't getting coaching to you.
And for you to attack my character, it's wrong.
You're attacking my character.
Yes, you are. You owe me everything.
An apology. You will never, ever, ever be on another court of mine as long as you live.
You are the liar. When are you going to give me my apology?
You owe me an apology.
Say it. Say you're sorry.
Well, of course, Ramos, being in the right, did not apologize.
And, you know, given the... I mean, the crowd was turning kind of Roman centurion ugly on behalf, like they like Serena Williams and so on, and he stood firm.
He stood firm. And then she said, well, then don't talk to me.
Don't talk to me. You stole a point from me.
You're a thief, too.
And then, of course, it's one thing to say, this is terrible.
I hate this. This is awful.
This is, you know, that sort of, but if you actually verbally abuse someone and call them names and insult them and so on, well, then what happened was Ramos, the umpire, announced code violation, verbal abuse, game penalty, and Mrs.
Williams. So, first warning, second, point, third, it's the game that you lose.
And then she kind of, she was really angry.
She was almost in tears.
She's like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me because I said you're a thief?
Because you stole a point from me.
Anyway, so you can read more.
But basically it was, because I'm a woman, you're going to take this away from me.
This has happened to me before.
This is not fair. So she plays the gender card, right?
Because she's a woman.
And then she says, there's a lot of men out here who have said a lot of things and do not get that punishment.
Because I am a woman, you are going to take this away from me.
That is not right.
She says, do you know how many other men do things that are much worse than that?
This is not fair.
Anyway, so she replays all of this.
And then more muckety-mucks come out and say, you know, you already had two violations.
If you start abusing the empire, you know very well the risk.
This isn't your first rodeo, and so on.
And she said, no, I didn't know the risk.
If I say a simple thing, a thief because he stole a point from me, that does not make...
There are men out here that do a lot worse.
But because I'm a woman, because I'm a woman, you're going to take this away from me.
That is not right. You know it.
And I know you can't admit it, but I know you know it's not right.
I know you can't change it, but I'm just saying that's not right.
I get the rules, she said.
I get the rules. But I'm just saying it's not right.
And it happened to me at this tournament every single year that I play.
It's just not fair. That's all I have to say.
That's not fair. You can see the ego dissociation here, right?
It happened to me.
At this tournament every single year that I play.
Hmm. Things happen to you.
You don't take actions.
Just things...
Mistakes were made.
Things happened around me that are oddly coalescing upon me that I'm not responsible for at all.
So she then powered through her next service game and she won.
But then Osaka...
She's 20. Amazing player.
She served out...
The match. And won.
So yeah, her coach said, yeah, if I'm honest, I was coaching.
But I don't think she looked at me.
Okay, that's not particularly believable, right?
So if you have a coach that's been windy for a long time and the coach knows that giving hand signals is against the rules, then he's not going to give you hand signals unless there's some kind of agreement there.
Now, I assume it was kind of subtle, but this is something that the umpires look for.
They look for hand signals to make sure that people aren't breaking the rules in that way.
Do they always catch them?
Of course not.
There's a lot going on.
They've got to watch for a lot of things.
But that's one thing that they're kind of trained to look for.
So the idea that he was giving hand signals, but he didn't think she was looking at him.
I mean, that's a pretty lame defense.
It's as lame a defense as people saying, well, other people use hand signals all the time.
And it's like, you know, the fact that other people do it doesn't really justify, you know.
It's like saying, well, what do you mean, officer?
Other people were speeding too.
Yeah, well, but you were the one who was pulled over.
And of course, the defense would be, if you're caught giving these hand signals as a coach, the defense would always be Always would be.
Well, I wasn't looking at him. I didn't know what he was doing.
I wasn't doing that. And that's why they just have the rule.
If you are seen giving hand signals, the player gets the punishment.
So if he's such a bad coach, he shouldn't be coaching a top-tier athlete like Serena Williams.
So afterwards, of course, she's asked the basic self-knowledge question, would you change anything?
And she kind of went on another rant.
You know, men would not be treated the same as she was.
She said, I don't know. You definitely can't go back in time.
I can't sit here and say...
I wouldn't say he's a thief because I thought he took a game from me.
But I've seen other men call other umpires several things.
I'm here fighting for women's rights and for women's equality and for all kinds of stuff.
Well, this, of course, is the bat signal, right?
The dog whistle, so to speak, that she's a social justice warrior and she's out there fighting for women's rights by wanting women to not be subject to the rules that they've agreed to.
Play the game that made her, I don't know, about $1.4 million.
I guess mine is $17,000.
But not too bad a setup.
So, yeah. Women's rights.
The right to not be subject to the rules you've agreed to.
Women's equality. The right to not be subject to the rules.
That you've agreed to. Now, is Serena big on women's rights?
Well, when she threatens to stuff an effing ball down someone's effing throat, a female line judge in 2009 does not seem to be particularly pro-woman.
She abused a female umpire during the 2011 US Open.
She also threatened to sue a female umpire at Wimbledon in 2016.
So... I'm not seeing a purely unbroken wall of sisterhood here, but, you know, that just could be patriarchal myopia.
So, yeah.
And the real thief here, I think, was Serena, who, through these tantrums, took the pleasure of a young woman who worked very hard, who worshipped her, and who was really looking forward to the match, and who couldn't really enjoy her victory.
Now, Post-match, it was confirmed that all three umpire decisions were, in fact, correct, which is why she got fined, right?
So, 3K for breaking her racket, 4K for being warned for coaching, and 10K for verbal abuse.
Now, the verbal abuse is important.
You have to push back against this verbal abuse of judges, because if it works, then it will simply escalate.
You have to. People start verbally abusing judges.
It's not academia, folks.
It's not the media. This is actually where they want to keep the rules going, and they don't want to reward this kind of bullying, so of course they have to push back against verbal abuse.
And she knows racket abuse.
She knows that she's not allowed to get any coaching, and she also knows that if the coach makes these symbols, right?
So if she says, well, I wasn't receiving any coaching, it's completely irrelevant.
So to the audience out there, it may seem relevant.
Well, maybe the coach was making gestures, but what's that got to do with her?
But the moment... That the coach admits that he was coaching her, she is liable for the punishment, right?
I mean, that's just the way the rules are.
So she has actually no defense.
Once the coach...
Admits that he was coaching her, then she has no defense whatsoever.
And so that he stole things for her, that he was, you know, I mean, there's no defense.
And again, the audience in general doesn't know this.
And people said, well, people who also know better said something similar, but that is just the way that it is.
I mean, Naomi Osaka played a really great game.
And I just wanted to point out that it is...
A great tweet that came out that I just wanted to sort of mention.
I think it was Walter E. Williams who said, Obama had a Kenyan father and a white American mom, but he's the first black president.
Naomi Osaka, she's a dual Japanese and American citizen.
She has a Haitian father and a Japanese mom, so why don't commentators call the U.S. Open final between Osaka and Serena Williams a match between two black Americans?
Because... Osaka is as black as Obama.
Just an interesting point.
Now, Serena Williams, a little bit of a history of a temper here and there.
You kind of squint, but if you squint and cover your eyes, you can kind of see it.
So... She lost a tirade against a penalty she received in the final against the Australian player Sam Stoser.
And this is some years ago.
And what happened was Serena Williams shouted, come on!
Right after her.
She did a forehand, and the argument was that you're not supposed to do that because it distracts the other guy.
And the Australian strambled to get a racket on the ball, and so on.
And so you're not supposed to shout out, to call out, to use verbal language to distract.
You know, no trash talking in tennis.
And so, as Duraki, who's the official, said, it's her point.
William said, I don't understand.
The official said, because when you called out, she...
Got distracted. Williams said, then maybe you should replay the point.
I'm not giving her the game.
The official said, this is the woman, right?
The official said, this is not a replay.
It's her point.
Because when you shouted, she went to the ball and touched the ball.
And then Serena Williams said, are you the one that screwed me over the last time here?
You're nobody. You're ugly on the inside.
And this abuse kind of continued for a while.
And at the next changeover, continued again.
And Serena said, we were in America last time I checked.
And this is barking at the official.
You're totally out of control. You're a hater.
And you're unattractive inside.
What a loser. So, not tennis skill, also not an argument.
Now, Billie Jean King, she was a very famous female tennis player, of course.
She won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, and she also commented on Twitter about this.
And she said, several things went very wrong during the U.S. Open Women's Finals today.
Coaching on every point should be allowed in tennis.
It isn't. And as a result, a player was penalized for the actions of her coach.
This should not happen.
Oh, I don't know what to say.
Those are the rules!
That's what you, when you go onto the court and you say, gosh, I hope I make millions of dollars playing tennis.
Those are the rules.
Those are the rules.
Saying that those shouldn't be the rules doesn't change the rules.
And as a result, the player was penalized for the actions of her coach.
Oh, that sounds totally unfair, except those are the rules that you agree on when you're going to play tennis and get paid millions of dollars to do so, right?
Come on. That's the rules.
Those are the rules. So this should not happen.
I don't know what that means.
Women should not be subject to the rules that they agree to.
Because, you know, if you say, like, if you go to the US Open, you go to a tennis organization, and you say, all right, I will play for you, and I will accept millions of dollars in prize money, but, but, I demand that I be allowed to be coached.
And, or, if my coach is caught coaching me, I demand to not be responsible for that.
And they will say, sorry, those out of the room, I will play chess with you, But my king has to have the ability to teleport to the upside down, summon a demogorgon, which will then chew your head off.
So I win. Right?
Oh, was that Hillary Clinton's campaign strategy?
Probably a topic for another time.
So if you go and you say, I want to be part of this game, I want to be paid millions of dollars, but I don't want to abide by the rules of the game, do you know what they're going to say?
I'm sorry, you can't play.
So when you go there, it's more than a EULA. It's actually a specific agreement to abide by the rules.
So then saying, female empowerment means not having to abide by the rules.
Oh, back to Hillary Clinton.
You lost the election. No!
Russian collusion.
Things happened. I lost the election.
It had nothing to do with what I did.
Nothing to do with the popularity of Donald Trump.
It was the Russians. His name was Seth Rich.
So Billie Jean King also said, and this is kind of a cliche, right?
You hear this all the time. So she said, when a woman is emotional, she's hysterical and she's penalized for it.
When a man does the same, he's outspoken and there are no repercussions.
Thank you, Serena Williams, for calling out this double standard.
More voices are needed to do the same.
Again, willful misunderstanding is very much the order of the day.
So, Billy, what can I tell you?
Serena Williams was not penalized for being emotional.
Nothing wrong with being emotions.
Emotions are everyone's friend.
She was not penalized for being hysterical.
Now, was she a little emotionally out of control?
Yeah. Yeah, she was.
Because she had, I mean, there's premeditated, right?
There's like somebody scares you and you punch them or somebody scares you and you yell, you jerk!
Well, that's kind of action-reaction, right?
That's like base of the brain.
That's lizard brain. That's a hypothalamus punching to keep you safe, right?
But she had a gap between the first altercation.
Serena Williams had a gap between the first altercation and the second altercation.
With Ramos, the umpire, right?
And then she decided to plunge in.
So was she a little bit emotionally out of control?
Of course she was. I mean, yeah. I mean, the fact that she was really angry, the fact that she was almost in tears, okay, when we all feel strongly, it was a high-stress emotional situation and so on, but she's not penalized for being emotional.
I mean, can you imagine?
She's about to serve, and she curls her lip in an angry way.
Penalized! She's about to serve.
A tiny tear runs down her sweaty face.
Penalized! That's not how it works.
She was penalized for, and I quote, being coached, smashing her racket, and verbally abusing the judge.
And men get penalized for the same thing, right?
Because, look, I... Love to play tennis.
I love to watch tennis. And like even when I was a kid in England, we had this, I don't know, like this 10-inch black and white TV that had barely enough pixels to run Pong.
And we used to watch tennis.
We were all curled up in the family. We'd watch tennis in our little flat.
And you couldn't tell where the ball was half the time.
You know, it's like that old Bill Cosby routine where they wave the cameras at the sky when there's some golf ball flying around.
Nobody has any idea. Oh, it's on the green!
Go point the camera that way. So when I was a kid, there were some pretty high-octane tennis players around.
John McEnroe, of course, was pretty important in that regard.
He had some pretty famous meltdowns and tantrums and so on.
And yeah, they didn't just say he was outspoken.
And so I did a little look-up for men who have been penalized.
Because, you know, it doesn't happen to men, you see.
It only happens to women, and only because they're emotional.
That's such a cliche.
So... Nick Kiyos.
So 2015, three code violations received within a week.
October 10th, violation issued against this.
Okay, he's Australian, but still a male tennis player.
Violation issued for hitting a ball into a roof during Japan Open quarter.
Final loss to Benoit Paire.
October 12th, violation for audible obscenity during win over Guy at Shanghai Masters.
He was fined Just over $2,000.
October 14th, violation for smashing a loose ball that nearly hit a line judge during loss to other guy at Shanghai.
And they were going to review that particular incident.
And if his fines ended up exceeding $5,000, he would receive a 28-day ban.
And so this kind of went on.
This is all in one week. Now, let's look at McEnroe, John McEnroe.
Let's race through these real quick.
So, July 1981, John McEnroe was fined a total of $6,000, and this is back when $6,000 meant something, at Wimbledon, when he called...
Chair umpire pits of the world and told him, you cannot be serious!
Referee Fred Hoyle said he had come within two tantrums of disqualification during early match against Tom Gillickson.
Ah, so...
He ended up defeating, I guess now, MGTOW Bjorn Borg in a four-set final, but he boycotted, McEnroe boycotted the champions' dinner, and then he got another fine.
See? He didn't go to Dindids, and therefore he got fined.
Ah, but it's all about the emotions, ladies.
May 1983, McEnroe was fined $1,000 for calling Czech opponent Thomas Smid a communist bastard.
At Forrest Hill's event.
Probably wasn't. June 1983, fined $3,500 for clashing with photographer at courtside during French Open.
July 1983, fined $325 for swearing at a spectator.
In Wimbledon. And that year, his fines totaled $7,500.
May 1984, McEnroe was fined $7,500 for misconduct during the Stockholm Open.
June 1984, he accrued fines above about $3,500 for swearing at linesmen and other verbal abuse during a match against Jimmy Connors at the French Open.
January 1985, he was dropped from the U.S. Davis Cup team after outrageous behavior during...
A 1984 final defeat by Sweden.
You know how, like, Sweden is currently in the process of attempting to defeat their entire history and set of freedoms?
Well, before that, there was John McEnroe.
June 1985, he loses his honorary membership of London's Queen's Club for abusing the chairman's wife while practicing.
He was later reinstated.
December 1985, he was fined $3,500 for three separate offenses at Australian Open...
Which culminated in the verbal abuse of opponent from Central Europe, whose name I'm not going to attempt.
January 1986, he was beaten by Brad Gilbert at Masters Finals in New York, and then he was fined $1,000 for arguing with and berating the spectators.
September 1986, John McEnroe received fines totaling $3,500 at the US Open.
Seems familiar. He and his partner, Peter Fleming, that's tennis, not gay, were disqualified for arriving late for men's doubles match.
And it was $750 for arriving late, and then a slightly higher sum of $2,750 for saying what he thought about the disqualification, which was not excessively polite.
April 1987, McEnroe was fined $2,000 for time-wasting during...
A match, an event in Dallas.
May 1987, fined $4,000 for walking off court during the World Cup in Düsseldorf.
September 87, McEnroe was suspended for two months and fined $10,000 for a variety of offenses at the US Open.
July 1988, he was warned for racket abuse during the defeat against Australian Wally Masser at Wimbledon.
July, you're getting a pattern here, July 1989, Australian John Fitzgerald, the fourth round loser to McEnroe, accuses him of using tantrums to put off opponents.
January 1990, he was thrown out of the Australian Open and fined $6,500 for misbehavior against an opponent.
April 1991. He admits his own behavior on court sickens me after receiving a code violation and point penalty during defeat by some other guy.
July 1991, McEnroe was fined $10,000 for swearing at linesmen, and so on and so on.
So yeah, the guy accrued almost $70,000 in fines, was suspended, and so it doesn't seem that men get away with a whole bunch, but I guess it serves the feminist paranoia narrative to believe so.
So, equality.
Women's rights. Equal pay for work of equal value.
Well, for those who don't know, men's tennis can be really grueling.
They have to play five sets, and that is a lot.
That is a lot.
30 games plus. Women only have to play three sets.
But they want the same pay and got the same pay for, what is it, 60% of the work?
Yeah, that seems important.
And also, there was a rule for a long time in the U.S. Tennis Association.
They had a rule that women could get a 10-minute break when the heat and humidity were too high, too harsh.
And then eventually they finally made a rule recently that men could also get the 10-minute break to recover.
So yeah, in most tennis tournaments, men and women play the best of three sets.
But in the Grand Slams, the Australian Open, the French Open, and the US Open, the men have to play the best of five.
Sorry, I don't have to play five sets.
Best of five. And women, only three.
Now, equality.
Equality between men and women.
Very, very interesting. So there's something called the Universal Tennis Rating.
Ooh, I find this fascinating.
I hope you do, too. So the Universal Tennis Rating, and it rates the top men at level 16.
Serena Williams is rated at 13.
Now, 13 corresponds to kind of a mid-level male college player.
So Serena Williams has about the same skill set as a mid-level male college player, or the same capacity to win.
And this is just one of these things you don't hear a lot about when it comes to equality between the sexes.
Male and female equality.
Because, let's be honest, when it comes to sports, there's not one woman in the entire world that is competitive with any top-rated male athlete in any sport except one.
Except one.
Shooting. Shooting is the only NCAA sport where men and women compete against each other.
It's the only sport in the NCAA. In every other sport, the all-time world records for women are kind of about the same as the records for male high school athletes.
It's not being down on women.
I'm just an empiricist.
Me liking the facts. So let me just repeat this because, you know, it's important, right?
Every other sport. The world records for the top-tier, top, massive, best women athletes in the world are about the same as the records for male high school athletes.
So, you understand, right?
About half the time, the high school boys have a better record than the top-tier women, and half the time, the best female athletes in the world will be better than the high school.
Boys. Here's just a little anecdote.
I just think it's illustrative.
True or not? Guy says, I met a male lifeguard at the pool at University of Florida.
He told me he had come to Florida to be on the swim team and had hoped to earn a scholarship.
He told me that unfortunately he wasn't good enough to get a scholarship or even make the team.
But, he said, his personal best times would have won six gold medals in the prior Olympics.
In the women's division.
He couldn't even make a college team, but he would have got six gold medals if he'd been competing with women in the Olympics.
I mean, if we just look at tennis, right?
Occasionally there are these males versus female tennis players, tennis games, right?
1973. We're going back, but this is very illustrative.
So there was a woman, I know the name, Margaret Court.
You play on a tennis court. There's a woman named Margaret Court.
She was the top female tennis player in the world at the time, and she played a guy named Bobby Riggs, who was also a top-rated tennis player.
Now, Bobby Riggs won 6-2, 6-1 against Margaret Court.
Now, Riggs was a top male tennis player in the world in 1941.
And he kept his title until 1947.
So, 1973, the top female plays a guy who had retired from competitive tennis 22 years earlier and still lost enormously.
So... Now, Billie Jean King, she was the number two woman in the world.
This was a little bit later. She did beat Riggs.
And... Yeah.
Yeah. So if you've been retired for over 20 years, you're probably going to beat women on a regular basis.
Now, this is actually, this is going back a ways, 1998 Australian Open.
So Serena and Venus Williams, the two sisters, right?
They said, well, we can beat any man ranked outside the world's top 200.
Well, all right. They say we can beat any man ranked outside the world's top 200.
So, there's a guy named Karsten Brach.
He's a German player. And he was ranked to number 203.
He did actually get up to 38 at one point.
But at that time, he was ranked 203.
So, it falls well within the parameters that Venus and Serena talk about.
And we can kick his ass all over the court, right?
Now, this guy, I mean, this is crap posting extraordinaire.
So, before the match, right, they say, we can beat any man outside the top 200.
He's 203. So before the match, this German guy played a round of golf in the morning, then he had a couple of beers, and then he smoked a couple cigarettes, and then he played the Williams sisters for one set each, one after the other.
He defeated Serena 6-1 and Venus 6-2.
Serena said afterwards, I didn't know it would be that hard.
I hit shots that would have been winners on the women's tour, and he got to them easily.
I mean, so beyond high school, In sports, there's just no comparison between men and women.
Like, this is why you have to hive off the women and create a special protected class for women so that women can play with each other and not have any contact with male athletes.
Because if it was gender neutral, if there was true equality between the sexes in sport, in other words, if the best athlete won or made the team in every case, there would actually be no females in sports at all.
No females in sports at all.
That's just a fact.
Again, just looking at tennis, Jimmy Connors versus Martina Navratilova.
When she was 36, she played a match against Jimmy Connors, who was 40 and had retired.
This is in 1992 at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.
So she lost 7-5, 6-2, even though she was allowed two serves.
To Jimmy Connors 1, and she played to the doubles court, which is extra wide.
So, he had retired.
She got massive bonuses.
And she's still lost.
And that's just the reality.
There's a great female player named Chris Everett Lloyd.
And when she was, according to her autobiography, when she was at her peak, she said her brother would play against her.
Her brother played low-level college tennis and beat her decisively, like 6-0, 6-0, just about every single time.
So... I'm just sort of pointing this out because if you're going to start bringing up equality and gender and sports and so on, I just want to point out that there is no gender equality when it comes to sports.
That the only reason that female sports exist is because they never have to compete against men.
And it's kind of nice that they've got their own little area where they can play and the level of skill is great and they could probably kick my ass six ways through Sunday on the tennis court.
But I'm just sort of pointing out that it is a very hothouse artificial environment that only allows for female sports because men aren't And this is why you don't see feminist pointing for the breakdown of gender barriers in sports, because if the gender barriers were broken down, there'd be no female sports.
Except for shooting. So I just really want to point that out.
But it's sort of... The reason why I talk about this as well is because coming on the heels of Colin Kaepernick and the Nike ad and so on...
Stand for something!
Believe in something! It's like, how about you know something?
No, no, no, that's not allowed, apparently.
But... This kind of stuff, right?
So with Colin Kaepernick, it's like cop baiting, it's race baiting and so on.
And now with this, you know, it's only because I'm a woman, right?
There's gender baiting. So all of this gender baiting and race baiting, it's taking fun stuff away.
You know, want to sit down and enjoy your sports?
No! Identity politics come in.
Want to sit down and enjoy a football game?
Nope! Identity politics is coming in.
It's like this giant, grim, Puritan wave of dust bunny soul-degrading funlessness.
That everyone gets to snort dust ground out from under a couch of apathy and depression and all the fun is going away.
The unicorns of fun are being hunted down and slaughtered, sold for parts by people who just want to set us against each other.
So yeah, all this identity politics, all of this leftist stuff is just taking everything that is fun away.
Including things like personal responsibility, self-ownership, and so on, right?
Things happen to me. It's only because I'm a woman.
It's only because I'm a woman. But, you know, the fact that the fun is being taken away, that's all right.
That's all right. It's actually kind of necessary.
Because we got a monster in the room, my friends.
We got a monster in the room. A lot of lies, a lot of race baiting, a lot of gender baiting, a lot of class baiting.
This collectivism, this tribalism, everything is becoming less fun.
Making an argument, having a speech, using evidence, reasoning, it's all becoming less fun.
Because reason, meritocracy, there's all considered to be white privilege.
Everything is becoming less fun.
Which is a good thing.
And it's a necessary thing.
Because we in the West, well, we've had some fun for a while.
But we have a monster to deal with.
This monster of collectivism.
This monster of divisiveness.
So yeah, things are becoming a lot less fun.
Do you know why? Because playtime's over.
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