Are amateur athletic reality shows like American Ninja Warrior and The Titan Games fair to women?

But are these shows good for women? Do they exalt their athletic prowess, redefining popular notions of women’s capabilities, or do they perpetuate condescending stereotypes, giving women a demeaning pat on the head and plastic participation trophy?

I would say they do redefine popular notions of womens athletic capabilities. The athletic disparity between men and women it's not a stereotype, it's very real. But how wide is that gap really? The perception of WNBA is that they would lose to elite boys high school teams. We've seen the US olympic soccer team, as the world champion lose to a 15 year old boys team, we've also the goat of womens tennis lose to the 204th ranked man convincingly. There are countless other speed and strength examples where world record women wouldn't even qualify in a mens competition.

But this sport, maybe because it's based on failure, and its you versus a course, has shown that some women can legitimately beat out some men, and qualify based on merit.

As far as it being a demeaning pat head, it can be that too. There is clearly an agenda to push the female competitors on this show, and I think it's ok as long the show is still merit based, and they aren't getting special treatment. One year for example, they gave all 10 wildcards to women to failed to qualify, and all 10 of them failed on stage 1. That does more to hurt the perception of female athletes than to help them. 1 female reaching stage 3 legitimately, like Jessie Graff did doesnt a lot more than forcing a bunching a women there that don't belong

they want to see swollen muscles and bulging neck veins. That’s why the obstacle courses on most of these shows are about power and speed, which favor men."

That's definitely not true. This is a sport where you are moving your own body weight through space, and the more mass you have, the harder those muscles have to work, and it's only going to make you slower. The sport, much like gymnastics, or calisthenics favors small bodies. Here is a list of the men who have finished a ninja warrior course, they are all quite a bit small than the average man in society. Which is another reason women, who are small on average can compete in this sport.

Kazuhiko Akiyama 123lbs
Makoto Nagano 141lbs
Yuuji Urushihara 121lbs
Yusuke Morimoto 130lbs

Geoff Britton 150lbs
Isaac Caldiero 155lbs
Drew Dreschel 161lbs
Daniel Gil 165 lbs
Vance Walker 150lbs

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