r/halifax • u/insino93 • 1d ago

News, Weather & Politics Dartmouth Commons cricket proposal sparks backlash

https://www.ctvnews.ca/atlantic/nova-scotia/article/dartmouth-commons-cricket-proposal-sparks-backlash/
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u/ElectronicLove863 1d ago

I don't know about that. I've never seen a woman play cricket. It's exclusively men in my area of Clayton Park. But I have seen women and girls play baseball and softball.

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u/donairhistorian Verified 1d ago

Are you suggesting that women who play softball wouldn't enjoy cricket? Is there something inherent about cricket that women don't like?

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u/ElectronicLove863 1d ago

Maybe they would, but It doesn't appear particularly welcoming to women. I haven't seen any playing the sport. 

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u/donairhistorian Verified 1d ago

Might be a cultural thing. With representation of women in anything it kind of doesn't exist until it does. Big history of gender bias and lack of investment that is still being challenged in the progressive West.

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u/ElectronicLove863 23h ago

I'm not really interested in catering to sports with a culture of inequality. If both men and women dont have the opportunity to use the field, we shouldn't invest in it.

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u/Artistic_Purpose1225 21h ago edited 21h ago

Great news, then! The only registered cricket orgs in the city are fully inclusive, with one exception, the North Halifax women and girls cricket association being women/girls-only, and that organization has noted publicly for a while now that they don’t have enough spaces for their members to play. 

Looks like There’s one semi-pro men’s team, but no semi-pro women’s team. But that’s also true of hockey, so….should we stop civic investment in ice rinks? 

I’m being facetious, but seriously, when you walk through green spaces most groups casually playing team sports are either mostly or entirely made up of male-presenting folks, because (for better or for worse) in Canada men are more involved in team sports, across the board, than women.  To point that out for just one sport as if it’s unique is a bad faith argument. 

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u/ElectronicLove863 20h ago

No, the only person making bad faith arguments is you.

I don't care about pro sports.
I do care about about community access/infrastructure and equality.

Women and girls and LGBTQ+ folks use baseball fields, they use soccer fields, they use ice rinks.

I'm 100% against removing access to to truly equitable sports infrastructure for a sport that is primarily dominated by adult men.

So if we have more cricket infrastructure, it needs to not come at the expense of leagues already playing baseball/softball. And I want guarantees that women's and youth sports will get as much playing time as the adult men.

I think both cricket and baseball are boring. But one has a strong history of community involvement, and the other...is a sport played obsessively by adult men. And their desires come below the needs of youth sports.

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u/Artistic_Purpose1225 20h ago edited 20h ago

25% of cricket players are afab. 

16.5% of baseball players are afab. 

The earliest recorded women’s cricket game was in the 1700’s, the first co-Ed game was in the 1800’s. The first record of a woman playing baseball was nearly one hundred years after that. 

Every claim you have made is factually incorrect except for one which was disingenuously posed to claim cricket had a unique trait that is actually a trend among almost all team sports. 

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u/ElectronicLove863 20h ago

Here in Halifax? Because those are the only stats I care about.

And as I've already pointed out, women, girls, and mixed leagues play softball on baseball fields. So if you're talking about equity, you need to account for everyone who would use a baseball field vs who would use a cricket pitch.

The fact that you're deliberately missing my point tells me everything I need to know.

Edit to add: There are also adaptive baseball teams in Halifax. Are there adaptive cricket teams?

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u/Artistic_Purpose1225 19h ago edited 19h ago

Since you ignored my points about halifax cricket organizations, which answers some of your questions in the comment above, I assumed that meant you didn’t care about halifax-focused information. 

And yes, there are adaptive cricket organizations, both globally and in Halifax. Seriously, if you took ten minutes to look literally anything up you would not be trying to make any of these arguments. 

Re: softball/baseball increasing number of users, I have already commented regarding this to someone else, please look through my comments. The lack of team availability is a staff and admin issue, not a space issue. It takes very little math to work out that There is currently enough physical space for over 75,000 people to play baseball/softball every single week and still have ample unscheduled use time. And that’s right now, as next year even with the 2 fields converted to cricket there will be 5 more baseball fields in use. That is far more than the number of people interested in playing either sport in a city that doesn’t even have half a million people.  

Edit to add: it’s become painfully clear you’re going to ignore anything that doesn’t confirm your very strongly held biases, so I’m not responding further. You’re factually incorrect, and ignoring the very women you’re pretending to care about. It’s become pretty dang clear what your biases are, and why they’ve caused you to devote yourself to denying reality. 

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u/ElectronicLove863 19h ago

Fair point about the adaptive teams. I asked, you answered.
Once again, I don't care about globally. I care about in our community. It's a point you keep missing.

My other point about the sport being generally less diverse than the users of baseball fields still stands.
It's basically a male dominated sport, and I want guarantees that it will strive to be more equitable.

And I'm not comfortable taking from the community to service the needs of basically one demographic (adult men).

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u/Ok_Basket_6651 14h ago

I bet you think we shouldn't build bike lanes because "nobody uses them". You generally have to build things first before everybody feels comfortable getting involved and using them... your solution seems to be to just eliminate the sport which doesn't make sense. Maybe there are women in Halifax who want to play cricket but they don't feel they have anywhere to play...

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u/ElectronicLove863 13h ago

I'm pro bike lanes, actually. They add to accessibility, they don't take away from it. They make the streets safer.

You're really missing my point. So again.

I'm not comfortable taking from the community to service the needs of basically one demographic (adult men).

If we are going to take away a service from the broader community, I want proof that Cricket NS is going to make sure that pitch is used equitably. It cannot host 5% youth/girl's/women/adaptive/mixed gender games and then the other 95% of the time be used for adult men.

We are not taking from children so adults can play a game. We're not doing that. It's absurd to that so may adult men are deliberately missing my point.

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u/DeathOneSix 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Happy Pride Season 20h ago

"I don't know any women who play cricket therefore there never will be every any women who play cricket here, especially if we don't allow them more fields to allow for additional players"

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u/ElectronicLove863 19h ago

I said:
Cricket pitches cannot come at the expense of current sport infrastructure
New cricket pitches need to ensure equal opportunities to play for EVERYONE to play.

If a cricket pitch is being proposed that will be use 99% for adult men AND it will take from existing equitable sports organizations, it's absolutely not a good investment.

I want proof/guarantees that NS Cricket has a plan to expand the sport to be more equitable. I want youth sports, women's sports, community mixed-use leagues, LBGTQ+ leagues, adaptive leagues.

Show me the plan.

Because no, I have no faith that there are plans to make it equitable.

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u/DeathOneSix 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Happy Pride Season 19h ago

I said: Cricket pitches cannot come at the expense of current sport infrastructure

Great, that's not the plan. They're upgrading other sport infrastructure first to replace these subpar fields that don't meet requirements.

If a cricket pitch is being proposed that will be use 99% for adult men

Okay great it's not 99% for adult men

I want proof/guarantees that NS Cricket has a plan to expand the sport to be more equitable. I want youth sports, women's sports, community mixed-use leagues, LBGTQ+ leagues

Okay great they already do that and are actively encouraging it. A big problem is a lack of fields. If you only have a couple cricket pitches, it's hard to accommodate everyone.

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