Quote:
Originally Posted by Cotton Hill
Somewhere along the line it was decided that if men could not be legally prohibited from entering women's events that mocking and abusing them was the best thing to do.
Every time a man is eliminated there are cheers and the men who do enter are constantly being berated, verbally abused, and belittled both at the event and in the media coverage.
It's in this spirit of "acceptable" abuse and ridicule that Klaneski got caught up in because of her unique situation.
There shouldn't be acceptable abuse of anyone because of whatever their gender happens to be, by birth or surgery.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pezbaby
Of course it's acceptable to abuse and ridicule people who choose to mock something, which is exactly what men playing in these events is. They are being blatantly rude, so guess what? I will return the favor. Using that as any kind of leverage in an argument that it's okay to discriminate against a trans woman is just really unfair. They are totally unrelated.
First I want to say that the following isnt leverage in an argument against transgendered people. I agree with the majority here on that.
But I think Cotton Hill has a point and I disagree with pezbaby about it being acceptable to abuse and ridicule people even though I do not support men playing in ladies tournaments and even though it is a non-issue now [because in future years men wont be playing anymore.] I came here because I think pezbaby probably has the majority opinion of women on this issue and I feel strongly about it.
At the WSOP every year everyone cheers for the men that bust out and it is basically disrespectful and unsportsmanlike. Do the men "deserve" to be disrespected? -- that's another issue. My feeling is that people who try to make the men uncomfortable are on a similar level to the men who make women feel uncomfortable by playing the ladies event. It just doesn't feel that way because it is socially acceptable if everyone else is doing it. But it doesn't make it right. At the very least women can "be the better man" and not have to bring themselves down to the lowest common denominator by booing people out when someone ruins the party.
Your argument for why its okay to abuse men playing the tournament is essentially "an eye for an eye." Although most feel this is justified/okay, it's not. The fact is people are being intentionally hurtful. Whether a guy "had it coming" or not is kind of irrelevant. Also note that at the time the men playing were in the letter of the law which is why some of this stuff makes me uneasy. Again I do not support these male players but what people did, especially to the guy who made the final table, is more or less trying to exact vigilante justice through bullying, and it can be very hurtful. For example, someone murders someone and does 25 years in prison. He gets out of prison and there are picket lines around his house every day and some even do minor things like breaking his windows, but this is "justified" because the neighborhood doesn't want a murderer in their community. Maybe I'm in the minority but its not right to put yourself above the law.
Some of that **** is very hard to shake off. If, just like a highschool senior with low self-esteem being picked on, if Jon Epstein killed himself after winning the ladies event would everyone feel better? Is that what he has to do in order to make it clear to everyone in poker that bullying is more than just a joke? Doesn't matter if he had it coming btw. And that proposition isn't actually that far off the mark: men who enter the ladies tournament are actually more likely than the average wsop entrant to be broke/degenerate/hate themselves, for obvious reasons.
Anyways, it kind of makes me sick that this behavior was tolerated and encouraged for so long. Thank God there was one woman at the final table who said to Jon amidst the circus.. something like: "dont worry about what they are saying honey, just play your game as best you can." In my mind that person is a beautiful person and a good role-model for how women should act during the tournament, and notice how much better she comes off. "Kill them with kindness" as they say. In summary, stop bullying losers.
Edit: I forgot to mention how this is correlated to the transgender issue. Basically there was a long and deeply ingrained culture in the history of the Ladies event involving abusing men. This spilled over into abusing this transgendered woman too. Obviously the latter is wrong, but my point is the former is wrong too, and so Cotton Hill's point stands that maybe without this tradition of abuse, Rosa would have never been ridiculed. No one likes to agree with that "former" point because no one really wanted men to play the Ladies tournament except for maybe the men playing, and they feel that if men aren't ridiculed then more would play. But the point is still true.
Last edited by Alex Wice; 07-25-2011 at 08:05 PM.