[kyanne]

No one has made the claim that it would be fine if only men with small hands were negatively affected. The focus is on women in this instance for one reason: the data gathered and referred to in the comment you so disingenuously took offense to shows that women are disproportionately affected by this issue. Are men with small hands also affected? Yes, but that is not an identity half of the people on this planet identify with. I'd hazard to guess there are not a great deal of people who feel defined by the size of their hands (or discriminated against systematically).

Fortunately breaking down this barrier benefits everyone, regardless of sex. Feminism benefits all.

[h0l0cube]

I have sympathy for the feminist movement, and the GPs post was needlessly hostile, but in their defense I'd like to phrase the argument a different way:

If we imagine a world where men and women hand-sizes were statistically equal, ought we be interested that some people have smaller hands and are under-represented in Piano competitions? If so, shouldn't a study that looks purely at hand-span as the variable, without regarding gender or ethnicity, ought to be equally useful as as impetus for change in both contexts?

[spekcular]

If you scroll down on this page, you can find some data showing the correlation between hand size and national/international acclaim: http://smallpianokeyboards.org/hand-span-data-recent-austral....

[h0l0cube]

Thanks, I missed this. This image is particularly salient on both the hand span and gender arguments: http://smallpianokeyboards.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ri...

Edit: Though interesting to note that there's been some effort at balance in terms of national acclaim, but if smaller handed competitors had access to scaled keyboards, it's possible that their would be better international recognition of female players.... or it could expose a gender bias.