While this reads and sounds reasonable, in reality it is anything but. Because what it boils down to is that women are not allowed to be successful on the same terms as men.
If a male athlete stands out over his peers through unusual body features and physical advantages, that’s fine. But if a woman does, then you immediately get people questioning if she’s really a woman.
The gender policing of successful female athletes is not new - it has a long and dreadful history. Athletes like Martina Navratilova, Venus and Serena Williams, even Simone Biles were subjected to this at some point in their careers. For some women it has led to significant disadvantages and loss of opportunities purely based on conjecture.
Also, this kind of policing is often done by women under the pretence of wanting to protect women - but hurting women in the process. Some women don’t care that they’re hurting other women. The key problem is that womanhood gets redefined all the time and narrowed at will depending on who currently rouses someone’s ire.
So for what you’re proposing to work, the criteria must be simple, wide-reaching, and unassailable. They must not discriminate against women with unusual physiques or body features so long as they are clearly women. Gender determination cannot be intrusive or demeaning. Anything else hurts all women and entrenches their systemic disadvantages.
For boxing, since they already have weight classes, could they just mesh those together to have a narrower range between classes and have people compete along those lines? Generally the cited advantages of men are their height and muscle mass, couldn’t this ensure even fights?
women are not allowed to be successful on the same terms as men.
Right, because current Olympic sports are almost exclusively ones where having a male body gives you an advantage.
Imagine someone invented a new sport where women had a natural advantage. Say, some kind of obstacle course where a small body size and flexibility was the most important thing. I can guarantee that if a group of men competed in that and one of the competitors won because he had a very feminine body, people would question whether he was really a man.
So for what you’re proposing to work, the criteria must be simple, wide-reaching, and unassailable
And, I don’t think that’s possible. Sex and gender are simply too complicated. There will always be some arbitrary line that a lot of people think is unfair, and that disadvantages people who happen to fall on the wrong side of it.
While this reads and sounds reasonable, in reality it is anything but. Because what it boils down to is that women are not allowed to be successful on the same terms as men.
If a male athlete stands out over his peers through unusual body features and physical advantages, that’s fine. But if a woman does, then you immediately get people questioning if she’s really a woman.
The gender policing of successful female athletes is not new - it has a long and dreadful history. Athletes like Martina Navratilova, Venus and Serena Williams, even Simone Biles were subjected to this at some point in their careers. For some women it has led to significant disadvantages and loss of opportunities purely based on conjecture.
Also, this kind of policing is often done by women under the pretence of wanting to protect women - but hurting women in the process. Some women don’t care that they’re hurting other women. The key problem is that womanhood gets redefined all the time and narrowed at will depending on who currently rouses someone’s ire.
So for what you’re proposing to work, the criteria must be simple, wide-reaching, and unassailable. They must not discriminate against women with unusual physiques or body features so long as they are clearly women. Gender determination cannot be intrusive or demeaning. Anything else hurts all women and entrenches their systemic disadvantages.
For boxing, since they already have weight classes, could they just mesh those together to have a narrower range between classes and have people compete along those lines? Generally the cited advantages of men are their height and muscle mass, couldn’t this ensure even fights?
Right, because current Olympic sports are almost exclusively ones where having a male body gives you an advantage.
Imagine someone invented a new sport where women had a natural advantage. Say, some kind of obstacle course where a small body size and flexibility was the most important thing. I can guarantee that if a group of men competed in that and one of the competitors won because he had a very feminine body, people would question whether he was really a man.
And, I don’t think that’s possible. Sex and gender are simply too complicated. There will always be some arbitrary line that a lot of people think is unfair, and that disadvantages people who happen to fall on the wrong side of it.
And yet the IOC seems to think that these two particular women qualify for the women’s class in boxing. Why is the IOC wrong?
Why do you think they’re wrong?
I don’t. You’re the one complaining about Khelif competing in the Olympics but also saying we should listen to the governing body.
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