Danny ChaiI don’t think the reason why men like sports is competition. I grew up with a sister, I have a wife, and I believe fairly strongly that women are as competitive as men. But their competitiveness is different. Like with many things, women do things more indirectly.
So like with conversation, men are fairly direct about things. We say what we mean. We’re blunt. Women are about indirect conversation. Like Jieun constantly wants me to understand what she’s saying beyond her words. Stuff like body language, or other cues that quite frankly, I can’t pick up on at all. I’m body language illiterate. She literally wants me to understand things without her having to verbalize them precisely. And that’s how many women are, I think. A large part of their communication is indirect.
I think the same applies to their sense of competition. Men like direct competition. So we like it when there are clear rules and a clear winner and loser, like in sports. Women are just as competitive, but they’re more subversive about it. Maybe they don’t want to directly hurt feelings by actually declaring a loser or something, I dunno. They definitely do compete. But yeah, I just find that the way women compete is more subtle, indirect. I think that’s how they prefer it.
That also explains (at least to me) why sports that involve more subjectivity and judging, like gymnastics, figure skating, and diving, are more popular among women than men. It might still be direct competition, but there’s subjectivity to it. Whereas men like it less because it doesn’t have clear, precise rules. But maybe I’m wrong about this.
These are, of course, complete (over)generalizations. But I do believe that men like sports more not because they like competition more, but because they like direct competition more. That’s my theory.