2 Chapter Two: Playing with Gender
Section One: The Fundamentals
A) History and Context
Exercise 1: Notebook Prompt
| To begin Module #2, the episode surprised me with several things. The first is that women only made up 2% of the athletes who participated in 1896. This was astonishing, as I always assumed that male and female athletes equally represented their country. I am aware that back then women did not have the same rights within society that they do today, but I still thought that the population of female athletes participating in the Olympics would be significantly higher than only 2%. The second thing that surprised me from the episode, is that it was not until 2012 that women finally competed in every Olympic sport. This blew my mind because I had also always thought that both men and women participated in each sport. After learning this, I researched the sports that women were unable to participate in, and I found that the sports were boxing, ski jumping, and decathlon. I am curious to take a deeper dive into the research and find out why women were not able to participate in these sports before 2012. Overall, I think it is long overdue, but yet encouraging that women are finally being fairly represented and recognized in sports on the largest stage in the world.
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B) Timeline of History
Exercise 2: Notebook Prompt
What other significant case/milestone would you add to this timeline? Note it in your notebook along with a brief (one or two sentences) explanation of why you feel it is important.
| Another significant case that I believe should be added to this timeline occurred this year at the 2024 Paris Olympics when Imane Khelif won the female gold medal in Judo. Imane Khelif is a female boxer from Algeria who defeated Angela Carini to earn Algeria’s only gold medal at the Olympic games. Imane’s victory drew transphobia and misinformation about the competition and her eligibility to compete in the event. Many people around the world believed that Imane was not a female and should not have been allowed to participate in the event. All the speculation was false, as Imane is a cisgender woman and is not transgender. I believe that a lot of people around the globe owe Imane a strong apology and should learn the valuable lesson of never making assumptions about a person’s gender or identity. This is one of the many cases of the public making false perceptions of an individual’s identity or gender. These false assumptions can have negative impacts on an individual.
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C) Gender coding in Sports
Exercise 3: Notebook Prompt
Has the gendering of sport ever been a constraint on your involvement? How?
Or, if not, why do you think this is?
| Personally, the gendering of sport has never been a constraint in terms of my involvement. As a male, I have always felt included in playing sports growing up such as hockey, soccer, and baseball. I played in leagues that primarily consisted of other boys my age, but on some occasions, girls were playing in the leagues as well. I remember that one girl experienced gendering of sport being a constraint in her involvement because she was unable to play in the all-girls rep league. The girl was a very talented hockey player and the league stated that it would be unfair for her to play against other girls because of the large skill gap. In my opinion, this is completely unfair because girls should be able to play in a girls’ league regardless of their skill level. This made me think as to why I have never experienced gendering of sport as a constraint in my involvement and realized that it is because society has held the standard that males have stronger physical attributes as opposed to females. This means that males are granted more sporting opportunities as opposed to females regarding sports. There are more teams and leagues, and it appears that organizations take men’s leagues more seriously. In my opinion, this is completely unfair and changes need to be made soon and safely. |
D) How is sport gendered in the popular imagination?
Exercise 4: Padlet/Notebook Prompt
While most sports are in fact unisex, gender coding remains pervasive, particularly at the professional level, although with a foundation established in youth competition. Participate in the poll below to share your views on how popular sports are gendered in the popular imagination. Also feel welcome to add or suggest sports that you feel strongly conform to the gender binary!
After you contribute to the padlet prompt, record your response in your notebook AND briefly discuss in two or three sentences how these responses and the polling figures in general confirm or contradict your assumptions about gender-coding and sports. Did anything surprise you?
| Here is a list of my poll answers;
Male Sports = baseball, powerlifting, & football Female Sports = figure skating, cheerleading, gymnastics, & softball Neutral = rugby, tennis, swimming, hockey, basketball, volleyball, & soccer Overall, I was not surprised by the general responses to the poll. Each answer that I gave matched up with the general population of the students in the course and it was reassuring to know that I was on the same page with a lot of my colleagues. One thing that did surprise me was that every student voted that gymnastics is a female sport. I do agree that it is most frequently played and acknowledged by females, but I still thought that some people would believe that it is gender-neutral. Overall, I do believe that all sports should be gender-neutral and that anyone is open and encouraged to participate in any sport that they feel. |
Section Two: Breaking it down
A) Title IX
Exercise 5: Notebook Prompt
In a longer version of the interview excerpted in the video above, Leah Thomas states “Trans women competing in women’s sports does not threaten women’s sports as a whole because trans women are a very small minority of all athletes and the NCAA rules around trans women competing in women’s sports have been around for 10+ years and we haven’t seen any massive wave of trans women dominating”?
Do you agree with this statement? See also the image above suggesting that the issue may be overblown by politicians and influencers who don’t actually care that much about women’s sports.
Please share any thoughts you have in your Notebook by clicking on the audio button above or writing a few sentences.
| Respectfully, I disagree with Leah Thomas’s statement. I believe that individuals should only be able to compete in sporting events with other individuals who were biologically born as the same sex as them (etc., biological females compete in female sports). My beliefs are not meant to be transphobic, as I do support the LGBTQ community, but solely for safety and fairness reasons. It is proven that biological males have a major advantage over females in terms of competing in physical sports as they are genetically much stronger and faster at their peak. Although Thomas stated that trans women are a very small minority of athletes, in my opinion, that does not matter because there still are circumstances in which competition is either unsafe or unfair for female athletes. Overall, I understand where Thomas is coming from and the negative implications that can arise from banning trans women from competing in women’s sports but I believe that only biological women should be able to compete in women’s sports for fairness and safety factors. |
B) Unfair Advantage?
Exercise 6: Notebook Prompt
What does the host and writer, Rose Eveleth, have to say on the issue of unfair advantage?
Can you think of other examples of unique biological or circumstantial advantages from which athletes have benefitted enormously that have nothing to do with gender?
| Rose Eveleth states that those who are in favor of regulation make the strong point that sports are divided by sex, instead of blood, oxygen, or fast twitch muscles. I could not agree more with this statement because I agree that the advantages related to sex are fair game. It is not entirely the female’s fault that her body is the way that it is, and genetics and other factors play a major role in those circumstances. If committees and organizations are going to label womens sports as ‘womens sports’ then I believe that they must stick to that. If women athletes are going to be forced to be tested on how high their masculinity is then they should call it ‘women’s sports but only women’s who pass the sex test’ instead of women’s sports. I believe that this is cruel and degrades women.
Another example of another unique biological advantage from which athletes have benefited enormously is height. Taller individuals tend to have a higher likelihood of being a professional athlete as opposed to shorter people. For example, 1.18% of men who are above 7 feet tall play in the NBA, and less than 0.00001% of men who are shorter than 7 feet tall in the NBA. This demonstrates the clear advantage that taller individuals have at being pro basketball players. In many cases, athletes who are short and have unlimited talent are unable to go pro, but tall athletes who display average talent can. People are born the way that they are and that is the way it is. I do not believe that sports committees and leagues should be testing or banning players based on biological factors. |
Again, let’s turn to Katie Barnes who points out that we tend to forget amidst all the debate that “sports, by design, are not fair” (235), that “the reality of sports is that we accept unfairness all the time” (235).
Do you agree? Why? In your experience, how fair are sports? Feel welcome to add a video response in the padlet and provide an example if you’re willing. Make sure you include a screenshot of your response in your notebook.
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In favor – I agree with Kate Barnes’s statement, that “sports, by design, are not fair” and that “the reality of sports is that we accept unfairness all the time”. Although I believe that committees, leagues, and organizations put their best effort into making sports appear as fair as possible, many factors prevent this from happening. Some athletes might have better genetics and higher quality resources that provide them with significant advantages in competing. For example, in sports such as basketball, swimming, and football, individuals who are genetically taller and stronger tend to perform better. As for resources, individuals who are not born in first-world countries are unable to have access to the same training facilities, food nutrition choices, and equipment that could enhance their athletic performance. Luck also prevents sports from being perfectly fair. For example, in hockey, there are 2 refs and 2 linesmen on the ice monitoring the game. Each of the refs and linesmen may miss a play that should have been called a penalty. Officiating in sports is done by human beings, who make mistakes that also prevent them from being completely fair. I also agree that we, as fans accept fairness in sports all the time. Similar to sports being unfair, the majority of everything in life is unfair and we must deal with it. It is impossible to make anything in life completely fair as anyone can have a better advantage over another in anything whether that is based on resources, genetics, or opportunity. |
B) The Paris Olympics
Optional Response:
What does Robins mean when she argues that:
“The aims of transvestigating an Olympic athlete are not, in any meaningful sense, anything to do with sports, or fairness, or even with women (cis women, at least) as a social category. Rather, they have everything to do with transness, and the public expression of transfemininity.
For my money this has never been about sport.
What it has always been is an excuse to publicly relitigate the existence of trans women.”
Make a note in your Notebook.
| It appears that Robins means that the transvestigating of Imane Khelif had absolutely nothing to do with any fairness or safety of sport in the Olympics and is more about transphobia within society. It was clear that Khelif was not transgender, as she participated in several other competitions against females before the 2024 Olympics. People around the world automatically assumed that because of her appearance and dominance in boxing, she was transgender, rather than being respectful and praising her performance. The media and people around society made negative remarks such as that transgender women did not belong in sporting competitions and made many transphobic comments, which have no part in sports.
I actually remember when this happened this past summer and I thought that due to the significant media coverage, Khelif was transgender because everyone was depicting her to be. After doing limited research, I quickly found out that this was false and the comments that were being made were disgusting. The lesson to be learned here is to not assume an individual’s gender or social identity. |
