call me ignorant but i genuinely don’t understand why sports have to be split up by gender.
@ everyone in the notes talking about physical performance: if that were the case, then sports would be divided by physical performance. that’s a thing you can measure. that’s a thing that varies by individual. a weak man and a strong man would be an unfair fight in boxing/wrestling/MMA, which is why they divide those sports up into weight groups based on physical performance. but they also further segregate them based on gender. chess is segregated by gender for no reason but sexism. if it’s actually about skill and physical ability, then measure those and separate people by those metrics. don’t do some bullshit gender segregation and pretend like men and women are inherently on different levels no matter their individual abilities.
This isn’t a new idea; it’s a second- and early third-wave feminist one.
I mean, yeah, it’s true there are unnecessarily gender-segregated sports and competitions of all varieties.
The problem is sports where physical strength and speed are unconditional determinants of success. Humans do in fact develop dimorphic secondary sexual characteristics, including stark differences in muscle mass, among various more aspects applicable to sporting prowess (for example, lung capacity).
In elite training, even minuscule differences in physiology produce a sizable impact. Men and women are different enough, physiologically speaking, that individual ability hardly matters when paired in competition. While the difference isn’t quite what I’d call “inherent,” it’s undeniable. The hormones behind such effects and compounds that promote said hormones’ production are banned as performance enhancers for a reason.
For boxing etc. where weight classes already exist, it’s vital to note women and men of similar size aren’t comparable in terms of muscle mass or strength. Training doesn’t do much to bridge that gap. (Unless you’re looking at an elite female boxer versus some untrained dude, I guess.)
Top competitors in most realms of sport, as per what the above posters are suggesting, would end up exclusively or almost exclusively men. Women wouldn’t be able to qualify as Olympians.
For a quick and easy example, these tables below (via Wikipedia) show men’s and women’s mile records:
You’ll see women’s record holder Svetlana Masterkova is significantly slower than Asbel Kiprop, man #25. In fact, Masterkova’s world record is bested on a regular basis by high school boys who’ve had fairly limited training.
Even figure skating’s jump-derived scoring would need to be overhauled, or again women wouldn’t survive as top competitors.
Let’s say a handful of professional soccer teams reach out to include one or two women. Where strategy and teamwork are concerned, each individual player isn’t required to be as fast as possible, kick at maximum force, et cetera. However, most women who play at present on top women’s teams are going to be SOL. The odds that those who remain on “non-gendered” teams are derided, harassed and end up relegated to an almost mascot-type role are 1/1.
Eliminating women’s athletics means eliminating women from athletics.
For most sports, your Divisions 1–3 will end up primarily if not entirely men’s domain. Divs 4–10, assuming such exist, will begin to include a greater proportion of women. Divs 18–20, finally, may be all women. Who’s funding Division 20? Who’s funding Division 4, even? Who’s its audience? Where is women’s prestige? Is that supposed to be irrelevant?
The overall effect is a raised, if not insurmountable, barrier to entry. Fewer women will be involved in competitive sports to start. You’re looking, from there, at a knock-on effect on young girls, their interests, their world-views.
It needs to be clarified, too, that competitive chess isn’t gender-segregated in the sense implied above. The WCC is open to women and men; women can participate in it and in WWCC games. Various levels of women-only tournaments exist to serve as outreach programs to get more girls and women interested in what is considered by society to be a male pursuit, and as voluntary reprieves from sexism in competitive chess. Calling women’s tournaments themselves sexist is grossly disingenuous.
The World Chess Championship’s open model would be acceptable, I think, even wise, to apply more broadly to sports. Women who want to compete against men should get that opportunity. Trans competitors whose hormonal states and/or genders don’t conform to traditional dimorphic standards should be able to participate in sports and
not be misgendered or required to abstain from events early on in HRT. And in situations where no girls or women’s teams exist, for example in (American) football, those who want to play shouldn’t be barred.
Eliminating women’s sports, though, is backwards and phony egalitarianism.
you can tell that op and 9/10 commenters on this post have never played sports beyond elementary school gym class and have never spoken to a female athlete in their lives, also not surprising that all those in favor are males who have no actual care invested in any of this, but are just looking for SJ brownie points, hence calling women’s leagues sexist, rather than like, hard fought rights that female athletes have poured blood sweat and tears for and still to this day are fighting to keep alive.
Desegregating sports is the very last thing any female athlete would ever want because it would completely destroy women’s rights to play sports. Instead of destroying women’s leagues for some laughable and extremely misguided attempt at “inclusion” and “equality”, just support women’s sports the same as mens and let women play the way we want to play, and let us play in men’s leagues if we want. It’s not that hard.
Death By Catchphrase 