Gender in sports

[1DAD2KIDS]

Watching the tennis on a break at work the other day. I struck up a conversation with one of my female colleagues over how genrally profetional women sports players earn far less and there is also far less coverage of female sports and advertising revenue. So I got me thinking why don't we make all sports genderless?

One because in the normal working world it's illegal to discriminate against someone based on their gender. Why should profetional sports be any different. Why is it allowed that say a profetional sports teams, say a rugby team can actively prevent people from playing in a particular team based on gender? Is this not a double standard that we seem to think is acceptable in sport. Should people of all genders not have the oppertunity to reach all levels and be paid based on their performance and ability rather than be potentially restricted by gender?

Also wouldn t genderless sport open up a bigger talent pool in sport and teams?

And wouldn't genderless sport also make life better/fairer for people who are transgender or other? I have a friend who is no binary and the idea that they have to pick a gendered sports team is poblimatic. Also there had been issued raised before about the fairness of transgender people taking part in sports in a gender class different from their biological sex (especially biological born males who identify as female and want to play in female category).

Also would this help breakdown the self constructed barriers between men and women if we play and compete based on the same oppertunities.

We say we want equality of oppertunity for all genders. In sport we often don't have this. We can often only play for a male team of a female team. Surely all people should have the opputunity compete, achieve, be classified/grouped and paid in line with their pyshiacl performance, ability and skill against all their peers rather than be restricted by gender?

Really? I mean, really? You can't see the obvious, massive flaw with this idea?

I've had enough men get arsey with me just for being in the same lane at a swimming pool... does that give you a clue as to what guiness is hinting at?

Do you think we should scrap weight classes in boxing as well?
Maybe scrap age brackets too - get the 11 year olds playing rugby with 18 year olds.
Physical differences make a difference to the way a sport is played.

I would hazard that actually it would be detrimental to women's sport.

Taking the rugby team for example. Most women would get smashed to bits in rugby played at anything other than the lowest levels. Therefore, they wouldn't be selected to play and and whilst you might say women can play, the actual make up of the teams would look similar to now.

Cricket. There is nothing expressly stopping women playing in men's teams. Sarah Taylor has done in Australian grade matches. However, a fast bowler in the women's came tends to come in at a pace more on a par with a mans medium pace. The boundaries in women's cricket are smaller and the ball lighter. If you're looking at selection based on merit alone women wouldn't get a look in.

I imagine in tennis the physical differences would make for unequal matches. Same with athletics. I don't know how the fastest sprinters or field sports across the sexes compare but that's an easy way to see the differences.

If you made sports mixed sex, women would just disappear from high level competition.

I think there's an argument to have two categories: female and open.

If you really are too daft to realise why this is a bad idea I will spell it out simply, Serena Williams would struggle to be in the top 50. There would be no women in professional sport at all

Or we could have a handicap system like in golf, where everyone is compared to a prepubescent girl? Seems complicated tho. Hmm, I dunno

And yet, players like Serena Williams are amazing to watch. Women's sport is different, but it is not necessarily less entertaining

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

We already do in equestrian events, because sex doesn't convey an advantage or disadvantage. But when sex does convey an advantage it is unfair on biological women to have genderless sport. How can anyone be so dim as to think otherwise?

Plus it would offend the poor hard done to trans women. Trans women's delicate, female, sensitivities would be offended if they couldn't continue to ruin women's sport by entering as females, and instead had to compete against members of their own sex. And of course their gender feelings are the most important, screw everyone else.