Hacker News Reader

It’s an observation, not a prescription. Is it “discriminatory” to suggest that gymnastics is a young person’s game?

Yes

edit:

just to clarify, it would be an observation to say "Most Mathematicians produce their best work when they're young" or "Most gymnasts who make it to the olympics are young"

But to say that X is a young mans game is inherently discriminatory.

Isn't that a bit strict? It seems that "x is a young man's game" can be read either in an empirical ("historically, only young men do x") or normative ("only young men should do x") sense, the former of which might be slightly inaccurate because there are exceptions, but otherwise seems fine.

A view held by some seems to be that since even the empirical observation may "perpetuate" the situation, stating it is "problematic" in itself, but I don't suppose this is what you mean here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com