ARE WOMEN BAD LOSERS

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 272, 16 November 1929, Page 13 (Supplement)

ARE WOMEN BAD LOSERS

INCIDENTS FROM THE SPORTS , ,FIELD. TEMPERAMENTAL EXCEPTIONS MOST WOMEN TAKE BEATING DECENTLY. (By H.H. the RANEE OF SARAWAK.) The bad loser is abhorred by every type of good sportsman. That is why the occasional sneer that women cannot stand losing demands such strong and emphatic refutation. To take a beating gamely, to be a modest, unassuming and gracious winj. ner —these are the ideals of every man who plays or watches games. The good sportsman cannot tolerate for one moment the winner who allows himself to become conceited over his victory, or the loser who cannot find it in him to go over, shake his conqueror's hand, congratulate him heartily, and, further, bear him no grudge. It says much for the healthy influence of sport that this ideal has to a great extent become an accomplished fact, for it is often forgotten that to be a modest winner and a game loser is altogether contrary to the more uncivilised instincts within us. We do not naturally lose to another man with a good grace. On the contrary the natural instinct is to turn and rend the man who beat us! But so widespread and far-reaching is the influence of the unwritten code of good manners which every good sportsman obeys, that he easily conquers his undesirable natural instincts — that legacy of the wild. In fact, so strong is this influence, that we have an almost greater affection for a game loser than for the .winner, * '" ' i "What About It?" This is the British-born attitude of inind which has spread to every corner of the world where a cricket bat is wielded or the thud of a football is heard. When women entered the sporting realm there were conservative-minded men who doubted her temperamental fitness. Until recent years no one thought of using the term "a good sporty other than in speaking of a man. But what about it now. that woman has invaded almost every masculine sport; now that she plays golf, football, cricket, tennis; now that she has invaded almost every athletic stronghold once sacred to men? Is there any vestige of truth in the suggestion that women are constitutionally incapable of developing the sporting outlook? Are they ever the bad losers that we were assured they always would be? Curiously enough it will be found that' the accusation that women are bad losers never comes from a man who actually plays games with women on the tennis court or elsewhere; It always pmanates from a man who does not associate with; sportswomen. In fact, his remarks rarely have any foundation other than hearsay. Ask him to prove his. assertions. What is his reply? More than probably he will refer you to an account of how some temperamental lady tennis star indulged in a fit of petulance on the centre court at Wimbledon after losing a match. Or he will have some other incident to relate concerning the misdemeanours of one solitary woman player in some branch of sport. .... I ■ V Like a Film Star. ■, •' ' Which reminds one of the Rev. H. R. L. Sheppard, who used to speak of how, as an undergraduate, he lost for a time what little religious faith he had, because he saw a bishop who was unable to take a beating at tennis like a gentleman. It is.so patently .'unfair to argue from the particular to the general. Because one bishop is no sportsman, it is illogical to condemn all bishops or. all religions. And just because one lady tennis player happens to act like a temperamental film star .who has mislaid her mascot, it is foolish to argue that all women cannot take, a beating m a decent spirit. Most women can—just as well as men. Ask the thousands of young men . who throng the tennis clubs of the country eve ry "week-end wbat "they think of the sporting instinct of theiz fair compan-. ions. It would be safe ; to wager on . their verdict —providing they all spoke" the truth,* I. • ■ The whole trouble is that woman today gets more than her fair share/ of the limelight of publicity. A few years ago eho got less than her due. To-day. she sometimes gets more than= is good tor her. She is news to-day as she never was before. < ■ , If a lady tennis player does behave badly on the centre court at Wimbledon, the whole worldhears about it in the headlines next morning, and probably jumps to a false conclusion about women in- general. Then a few old men write from their clubs saying that women shouldn't play games — and that's how these impressions are started. Not a Race Apart. People, a few only, I hope, who have, not had the opportunity of meeting the eportswoman at first hand', are taken in and believe the worst about her through the bad behaviour of one unrepresentative player. And the chances are. that if a man behaved in a similai way i e would be said. • Of course, some women are bad losers. It cannot be expected that out of the many thousands of women who in recent years have grown to love sport, everyone of them will submit absolutely to its discipline and its fine ethical code. There are women with peculiar temperamental kinks, and here and ere are women who play only to win—and not for the fun of the thing, which is the real sportsman's main motive. Exactly the same is true of men. There are both men and women—rare exceptions, happily—who disgrace the fair name of sport. But what we get rid of is the fantastic notion that in a spoi ing ■sense women arc a race apart, uname to comprehend or adopt for their own 'uses'the sporting code which man has evolved. . Nothing could be farther from the truth. Anv man will confirm this who has met and played with women on t ie tennis court, on the golf couise, m v 1 is familiar with sportswomen in any other sporting environment. It can be proudly claimed bj mos British njen and women that Jiev deserve that title which money cannot buy, but which can only be earned "good sport."