Andrei Markovits tackles a fascinating question over at The Huffington Post
— why have sports become the last accepted bastion of “separate, but equal”? Football, baseball, and basketball — prominent sports are a boys only club for the most part, and have been allowed to continue this way in spite of demands for equality in virtually ever other arena. Markovits writes:
Short of certain religions (an arena in which, too, the struggle for equality has had some remarkable successes), one would be hard put to point to any institution of such importance in our society in which such “sexual apartheid” (to use Paul Hoch’s apt terminology though I prefer “gender apartheid”) is not only tolerated but actively enforced, perhaps even feted as progress.
Why is this and are there solutions? Markovits continues:
If we continue to define “the best”, which is such an integral part of any sport, by our current criteria, then this separate but equal world will never change. But if we construct alternate logics to what constitutes “the best” – include metrics of cooperation and style, for example, in computing winners and losers, or create truly gender-integrated teams in which the women’s output would be weighted more heavily (e.g. assign five points to baskets scored by female players as opposed to the two by males) thereby creating real incentives to have the women be welcomed as positive additions to these teams, as has been the case in the aforementioned intramural contests — then we might actually arrive at a truly integrated sports world which would thus be congruent with virtually all important public institutions of our contemporary democratic world.
Markovits is is co-author with Lars Rensmann of the forthcoming book Gaming the World: How Sports Are Reshaping Global Politics and Culturein which the issue raised in this article — as well as others of the sports worlds in Europe and North America — are discussed in detail.
On April 21st, 2010 at 5:51 pm Dexter replied:
Nice point about ‘gender-integrated’ teams. I believe for now most men athletes and sportsmen ARE stronger and faster than women due to which they do have a distinct advantage in games that relies on speed and strength. Maybe we can first try this with sports that will give the atletes a level playing ground before we change the rules. Moreover with spectators sports raking in the kind of viewership(and brand endorsement revenue) I am not sure how the general public and the sponsors will react to this change.
Best
D.
On April 26th, 2010 at 9:00 pm Golf Rangefinder replied:
The thought about including “metrics of cooperation and style” in how we define the “best” competitors is an interesting one, but I’m not sure how it could be practically applied. The sports that are most successful commercially are those wherein there’s a cut-and-dry score rather than a subjective score (i.e., football and basketball versus judged events like skateboarding or figure skating contests). So I’m not sure how that idea could be carried out–but I do think it’d be worthwhile to try.
On April 30th, 2010 at 10:52 am Chuck Woodlathe replied:
Yes, this is certainly an interesting idea. When it comes to amateur sports I think athletes want to compete with people of equal skill as them. There’s certainly room for women in male amateur sports where there is a range of skills and physical ability.
In terms of professional sports one of the biggest appeals is watching the best athletes in the world excel and compete with each other. In certain sports such as golf and auto racing we’ve seen a few women compete at the highest levels, and I think that’s great. However I don’t think the idea of weighing sports in favor of women to allow them to compete alongside men has much appeal for anyone, athletes or spectators.
On June 14th, 2010 at 2:40 pm david replied:
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On June 14th, 2010 at 3:04 pm Shelby replied:
I think there is some potential for the idea of merging women and men’s sports. Perhaps a basketball league that could seamlessly merge the two by giving more points to women scores, with everything else being equal. You could have the real elite women athletes out there competing on the same level with a specific role on the team. It could bring a whole new level of strategy to the game, but I feel like it would have to be born out of a specific league with those specific rules. If they could find an audience for such ideas, it could be do-able. Although the logistics seem daunting.
On July 14th, 2010 at 11:41 pm Brad Hollister replied:
Man, I never thought about this like that. Interesting! Well done.