2
Section One: The Fundamentals
A) History and Context
Exercise 1: Notebook Prompt
| Make a note of anything that surprised you in this episode or something new that you learned.
One major thing that stood out to me that I learned was that it wasn’t until 2012 that women competed in every Olympic sport. I feel like 2012 is very recent and is terrible that the Olympics took that long to have every sport occupied by female athletes. Another idea that was very strange to me was the implementation of verification tests that ensure gender. This was a complete act of discrimination against women, as men were exempt from these inappropriate tests. My question is, why wouldn’t women attempt to compete in men’s competitions, just as they assume men would try and compete in the women’s competitions. Last point, my emphasis on the question stated, “what would things be like today in sport if integration was implemented instead of gendered separation in sport?”. I question the impact of this thought, as well as my biases that I have inherently thought about gendered sport.
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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.
| 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.
In 2021, the IOC released a statement and framework based on inclusion and non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations. This change in guidelines allowed athletes to compete according to their gendered identity without needing surgery or hormone treatment. The idea of this was to include more athletes, and to reflect the growing acceptance of non-binary and gender-diverse identities in athletes and in the world. This framework is based on these 10 principles:
https://www.olympics.com/ioc/human-rights/fairness-inclusion-nondiscrimination
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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?
| Has the gendering of sport ever been a constraint on your involvement? How?
Or, if not, why do you think this is? As a male, I have not had any constraints playing sports involving the gendering of sport. Why I believe this is an issue for many others would be due to made up social constructs that have been embedded into all of us since we were children, “that boys are more athletic or play certain sports that the girls shouldn’t, i.e. tackle football”, this is a major issue restricting involvement for many women who are very athletic, strong and skilled, being shunned based on terrible old fashioned misconceptions. One personal experience that I have had which is related to this topic would be my experience playing elementary volleyball. In this case, many spots on the men’s team were taken by women due to their very skilled ability. Deservingly so, the women were amazing volleyball players and surpassed the skill of so many of the men’s players. Many of the skilled players or “starters” including myself were very thrilled to have them on the team as it simply made us better as a team and were able to compete at a higher level due to having better players, whereas many of the less skilled men who were either on the team or had been cut, made a big fuss about the situation, often sharing that it “wasn’t fair” or that there were a men’s and women’s team for a reason. I just thought I would share this scenario as it is just a opposite from a lot of cases in gendered sport, with a lot to depict or question. This topic has made me reflect more on this constraint of involvement revolving around gendered sport.
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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 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?
The polling figures in general confirmed my own assumptions about gender-coding and sports. I would say about 90% of responses confirmed many of the same thoughts or assumptions I had about how the general population views these sports. One thing that surprised me the most was hockey, and how it was over 75% determined “male”. This shocked me as hockey is such a huge sport in Canada, and from my personal experiences I see so many women playing hockey, from young to older women, high level vs recreational, and now even a professional league being televised, I consider it to be a very neutral sport.
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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.
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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. I would say I do agree with this statement. In my personal view as someone who keeps up to date with all sorts of sports news, I have not heard of many trans-women dominating any sport in particular. They share that the number of transgender athletes competing is very low, and that the impact of dominance is low as well. My questions revolve around why, why are the number of known transgender athletes low, and why is the dominance assumed to be low impact, is this due to the number of transgender athletes competing, or is it due to their ability as athletes, is the gap of transgender-women and cis-gender women less. I feel I have no knowledge on this specific topic to really have a strong opinion on whether I agree with this statement or if I just have biases, I’m not aware of.
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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?
| 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? Note these in your Notebook.
The first example that comes to mind is the huge build that Shaquille O’Neil had compared to many other very tall and large players in the NBA. He easily had a huge biological advantage that benefited his career enormously. Shaq could not score a free-throw if the world depended on it, but could he physically dominate anyone who came in his way? yes! Another example that was used as an example was Leo Messi. In the example his lack of height and athletic frame was pointed out as a disadvantage, where I would disagree in a way. Due to Messi’s very small build, it allowed him to have such a low center of gravity, and ability of quickness, stability, and tight control over his body and the movements that he desired. You can see this in many other cases in football, where smaller sized players are incredible dribblers, and much more effective dribblers due to their low center of gravity and tight controlled movements. A similar example would be Eden Hazard
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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.
| 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 below and provide an example if you’re willing. Make sure you include a screenshot of your response in your Notebook. I 100% agree that sports are not fair, and I feel as fans and even as athletes we love that sports are unfair. As a fan I personally love how sports are unfair in so many aspects, including the different sizes and shapes of athletes, the different skill sets athletes are naturally gifted with, it makes sports unique, and it makes athletes unique. I love comparing professional athletes to one another, and I feel most sports fans can agree that the fun comes from that you can rarely come to a consensus on anything with another fan, due to opinions in differences and uniqueness (unfair advantages) that all athletes have. Then moving towards as an athlete, I personally love that sports are unfair due to their being a multiple of various positions in many sports and all having unique qualities that are valued by coaches or in general by the sport. For myself, I am a high-level soccer player, and am not very tall nor very strong or fast, but I’m valued in other aspects. Many coaches respect me as a player due to my brain and knowledge of the sport, this translates to my ability of quick decisions or correct decision making in high pressure situations. I love that I am not goliath, I love that I am not allowed to dominate on physical power alone (as much as I would love to), I love that I have unfair disadvantages. This pushes us athletes to be better at the things we can control and the things we can improve on.
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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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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.”
My interpretation of this article and quote is that the focus is solely on transness and how it’s not about creating a fair and level playfield for all athletes, and that they are more focused on making it more difficult and challenging for trans athletes by scrutinizing and invalidating them as athletes. This is also a focus on the society as a whole, it’s not only in sport, we see this is in the world and in many other industries.
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