2
Section One: The Fundamentals
A) History and Context
Exercise 1: Notebook Prompt
| I found it surprising that women weren’t seen as an athletic threat to men. They were worried about men infiltrating women’s sports but not the other way around which lead to verification tests and gender passports.
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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.
| Testosterone regulations: female athletes must have testosterone levels below a certain number to compete in women’s events. This leads to athletes fighting back and being ineligible to compete in their respective events.
I think that this is an important topic because it starts discussions about how we define gender and can be seen as creating barriers and equality in sport. Sports are trying to create a level playing field for all but while creating these policies they are creating an uninclusive environment.
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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?
| The gendering of sport has been a constraint on my involvement. As a kid there always seemed to be a line of what sports were appropriate for girls to play and what were considered “boys sports” like football, hockey, and baseball. If I did want to join a league for girls they would be few and far between, meaning that I would most likely have to play on a boys team. When girls do play on an all boys team they are seen as fragile, use separate locker rooms and often seen as less-than skill wise and less competitive. Growing up I watch NHL games looking up to male figures and never had a goal to work towards because there are no girls in the NHL.
The PWHL was a groundbreaking step forward for professional women’s sports and just recently started up 2 years ago. It create equal opportunities, respect and raises awareness for young girls in a male dominated sport. With the PWHL, little girls can have female role models to look up to and a league as a goal that they can aspire to join and work towards.
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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?
| After participating in the polls related to how sports are gendered I found that most sport that are physical or aggressive in nature are seen as male sports like football, hockey, racing, and martial arts while while gymnastics, figure skating, and dance are considered more feminine. This narrative would confirm the assumption that women are more fragile and the way that media represents them reinforces the perception that women’s sports are less serious and mens sports are more important.
Often in sport women are judged for the way they look physically and the way they dress. If we compare beach volleyball, men wear shorts and a tank but women are told to wear short tight fitting clothes or a bikini. In many sports male athlete are described as powerful, aggressive and dominant while women are portrayed as the opposite.
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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.
| I’m not too sure how I feel about this statement.
I can see both sides of the argument feel that there is a very fine line when… On one side of the debate people argue that there are clear biological differences like height, weight, testosterone levels and men are usually more muscular potentially resulting in an unfair playing field. On the other hand, I agree with Leah’s statement that trans women competing in women’s sports does not threaten women’s sports because trans women are a very small portion of all athletes. There hasn’t been a a significant number of trans women dominating in sport which I would take as an indication that there may not be as big if any advantage for trans women. I do not have an in depth knowledge about this topic but I’ve heard some people say that depending on the sport trans athletes could have an advantage over a cis gender women. With that being said, I haven’t heard of many athletes complaining which leads me to think that this issue is increased due to media and politics rather than the women competing in sport.
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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 discusses what she considers an unfair advantage and policies that affect certain athletes differently. She says that some athletes are born with an advantage that have nothing to do with gender like Michael Phelps who doesn’t have to face the same scrutiny as gender-related attributes. The term fairness in sport does not have a universal straight forward definition.
When I watch Olympic long distance runners at the front of the race are usually athletes from Kenya and Ethiopia. They train at altitudes that have low oxygen which increases their lung capacity and endurance levels giving them a step up on most of their competition yet this factor is not seen or portrayed as unfair.
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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.
| In favor. I agree with Katie Barnes’ statement. Athletes that compete at high level and elite sports leagues like the NHL, MLB and NBA have access to high-quality training facilities, coaching, and nutrition which can significantly impact the performance of an athlete. There are many factors that contribute to a sport being unfair such as biases, race, gender, genetics and socio-economic status/wealth. Take the Olympics as an example, countries like the United States have the best top of the line training while other countries with smaller budgets don’t have the same advantages. This can create an unfair playing field, making the outcome more reflective of privilege rather than athletic ability. Whether it’s by design or not, more often than not sports favor those who already have access to privilege, whether it’s financial, biological, or systemic.
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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.
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