Equal Opportunity?

[doczinn]

http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Rodriguez_Jose/2006/09/29/1917259.html

    
Let boys be boys

By JOSE RODRIGUEZ

For the love of God, turn off the gender blender.

No man in his right mind would argue that women don't deserve equal pay, equal respect and equal status.

But mandating that girls have the right to play on boys' teams has nothing to do with advancing women's rights, and if anything, it will only end up hurting both sexes.

Back in 1992, Canadian goalie Manon Rheaume made history as the first woman to lace up for an NHL team.

She gave up two goals on nine shots during her pre-season game as part of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The world treated the event as little more than a mild curiosity, the kind that attracts rubberneckers at car accidents.

It was a feel-good spectacle that made for interesting headlines and locker room debate, but it was hardly a giant leap for womankind.

Not a single woman has played in the NHL since.

Today, her accomplishment is a footnote in sports history and a five-point answer on trivia night.

The league, and indeed the entire hockey world, has moved on.

In golf, Michelle Wie is creating a similar sideshow playing with the men and stinking up the course.

Sadly, the sport-meets-gender debate has reared its ugly head closer to home and this time it may carry troubling ramifications for an entire generation of young athletes in this country.

Under the guise of human rights, a rather disturbing blow to equality is playing out in Manitoba.

A pair of twin girls who didn't want to play for their high school girls' team won a human rights challenge that allowed them to try out for the boys' squad.

The Manitoba Human Rights Commission concluded that by denying the girls the right to try out, the province's high schools athletic association was guilty of gender discrimination.

In ruling in the twins' favour last week, an adjudicator awarded each of them $3,500 in damages and or-dered the athletic association to pay for a hockey camp and one-on-one coaching for the twins.

They were also ordered to let them try out for the boys' squad, where they failed to make the cut earlier this week.

If that were the end of this story, there would be no reason to sacrifice a single tree for this column. But it isn't.

Now, Manitoba boys want to try out for collegiate girls' teams. What's good for the gander is good for the goose.

And you don't have to be a lawyer to know that by using the same rationale the twins used to win their case, it'd be hard to argue that in an equal-opportunity world, the boys wouldn't be entitled to the same.

For its part, the Manitoba High School Athletic Association says it will hold off on allowing boys to play on girls' teams until it reviews the entire high school sports system at an Oct. 12 board meeting.

But if one boy chooses to challenge for the right to try out for a girls' squad, this whole non-sensical issue could snowball.

Simple biology would dictate many of the boys trying out for the girls teams, won't be cut. It's not sexist to say so, it's a fact.

Creating gender-blender leagues in high school athletics is unfair to both boys and girls.

This isn't a battle for equality. It's a capricious tantrum with horrible consequences.

Let boys be boys and girls be girls.

[zahc]

I was looking at a form for a graduate school the other day, and at the bottom, it said 'we are an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer'.

Well, which is it?

[griz]

What a delima.  If you follow the letter of the law you would end up with one uni-sex team for which males and females would have an "equal" opportunity to try out.  But at least in the sports that reward strength the outcome is fairly predictable, and that leaves most girls with out a team.

Could the courts actually recognize that there are physical differences between the sexes that should be allowed for?  Will we have a lawsuit when a 100 pound girl gets run over by a 250 pound boy and the lawyer contends that the school should have been able to predict the physics of the situation?  Stay tuned for this lesson in ignoring the obvious.

[roo_ster]

This sort of sorry egalitarianism is a symptom of the lawyer-ization of America: where all disputes are legaistic and courts trump common sense.

I really don't understand why they would want a gal to compete in a boy's league, anyway.  The boxing associations think that a 5-10 lb difference is reason enough for different weight classes to keep the competition fair.  Even the strongest & fastest girls I went to high school with just did not have hte strength & mass to compete.  It is no knock against them, that is how God made them and why man made girls' leagues.

[BrokenPaw]

Why not take sex out of the issue completely?

I think we can all agree that a 110-pound girl cannot compete equally (or even safely) on a football team made up of 200-pound guys.  But a 110-pound boy couldn't, either.  He wouldn't make the first cut, and even if he were placed on the team by legal fiat, he'd likely end up injured, just as the girl would.

On the other hand, a 200-pound girl who is in shape (and I've known a few) probably could compete on a reasonably level footing with the guys.

So why not take sex out of the equation completely, and have weight classes, like wrestling and boxing do?  Then, individual people could try out for teams in their weight class, and if they are the best within that class, they'd make the team.  It shouldn't matter whether a player has indoor or outdoor plumbing; if they're good, they can compete with others who are good and in their weight/size range.  If they're not good, they have no business trying to force their way onto the team, no matter what shape chromosomes they have.

-BP

[CatsDieNow]

This 110-lb girl placed-kicked on her high school football team for two games on an emergency basis.   While I was quite successful at punting and kicking field goals (6/6), I got real scared once when the ball was snapped over the holder and I had to go retrieve it.  

Having competed with the boys in soccer (no girls' team in HS), and fencing (before sabre was segregated), I'd say that if there is a girls' team they should probably try out for that.  When the option wasn't there, as with my case, then they should be allowed to do so.   I think some HS now have a boys' volleyball team because of this.

Most sports are not purely physical contests.  I could compensate for much of the speed and strength I gave up to the boys just by superior strategy and playing smart.  The biggest problem I'd run into while fencing was that the guys who didn't know me became uspet that they were losing to a girl and then tried to take their frustration out in the form of pain.  This made their actions sloppy and easier for me to win, but I went home with some lovely bruises.

The weight-class idea is interesting, but just not practical in many sports.

[cordex]

Having competed with the boys in soccer (no girls' team in HS), and fencing (before sabre was segregated), I'd say that if there is a girls' team they should probably try out for that.  When the option wasn't there, as with my case, then they should be allowed to do so.

As usual that was very well put, CatsDieNow.  A very practical and equitable solution.

[Guest]

So why not take sex out of the equation completely, and have weight classes, like wrestling and boxing do?

The problem is that even for sports that use weight classes the deck still istn evenly stacked. In Seattle wrestling is a co-ed sport. There isnt a women's alternative to wrestling so it would be wrong to prevent them from competing in the sport altogether. The problem is that collegiate wrestling is structured around male competitors and the sport itself strongly favors the strengths of a man, not a woman. Women can compete amongst themselves in wrestling just fine, but when it becomes co-ed the upper-body muscle mass and bone density of a man makes the sport unfair. The same could be said for football.

When I wrestled in highschool I had the good fortune of being in a weight class that didnt include any women. The poor kids in the lower weights were placed in an difficult position of having to physically injure girls on a nearly daily basis. Its hard enough to teach a 15 year old kid that its OK when they accidentaly break another kid's ribs, try telling them the same thing when its a girl thats being carted off by the medics. Unfortunatly this happened a lot because the girls were placed in the difficult position of competing against men in a sport that was specifically around the male body.

Think of it this way. Many of the full contact sports in our culture are based on the dominance fighting between males of the species. This is not to say that females cannot or do not fight for dominance, but they fight differently. Saying that women should be on the football field is like saying that does should be able to lock horns with bucks, its stupid, they dont have the right bodies for it. Its not a matter of being better or worse, its a matter of being different, and the differences between men and women extend far beyond their plumbing.

[brimic]

Just get rid of traditional school sports altogther and replace them with Pistol, Rifle, and Archery marksmanship teams, with Trap and Skeet thrown in for good measure.

[zahc]

Perhaps get rid of school sports altogether. I don't see the need. When I drive by the brand new school stadium, I see a frivolous expendidure of tax money, especially given the state of our school system (you know, the part that is supposed to educate).

[LadySmith]

Another idea, let the boys have their football, soccer and hockey.
Let the girls have the Pistol, Rifle and Archery teams.

Just get rid of traditional school sports altogther and replace them with Pistol, Rifle, and Archery marksmanship teams, with Trap and Skeet thrown in for good measure.

[CatsDieNow]

Women can compete amongst themselves in wrestling just fine, but when it becomes co-ed the upper-body muscle mass and bone density of a man makes the sport unfair. The same could be said for football.

Generally, this is probably true.  But, I have been the exception to the rule on too many occasions to accept blanket statments of the form "Women can't do ____, because of ____".