Sports and Gender Politics

I had an interesting conversation with my father the other day, and I never got around to discussing it as I felt I ought. We were discussing male athletes versus female athletes. Specifically, a girl can wrestle all year except in the playoffs. This rule exists because an all boys team won the state championship in girl’s bowling (I think it was bowling anyway--you’ll have to fact check me on that one). Upon hearing this news I said “Well that’s dumb. Why even have boys and girls teams in bowling?”

My dad said whether we should or shouldn’t, the fact remained that the best boy bowlers still bowl better than the best girl bowlers. There are any number of factors that could (and do to some degree) go into this: the boys are stronger, the boys use heavier balls; all together that means the best male bowler and throw with greater speed and force down the lane than the best female bowler. I don’t accept this as a reason to separate the genders, however.

I’m not going to figure out the math, but I have a theory that there is a finite amount of force needed to knock down all ten pins and that force can be reached easily by either a male or female. Assuming all other things are equal--ability to throw straight, etc--strength and speed should cancel out. But then I had this thought: what if the best male bowler is still better than the best female bowler because the best female bowler never competes against the best male bowler?

I believe that while you can achieve a particular level of skill and success based on your own practice, drills, etc, in the end you are only going to be the best if you regularly compete against everyone. Otherwise you are never driven mentally (and probably not physically) to be the best. If girl bowlers played co-ed from high school onward, those that wanted to be competitive with the boys would have to develop the strength, skill, and speed to do so. This might mean training their bodies to use a heavier ball. This might mean engaging in any number of physical activities to propel their body to the level it needs to be. But I think, in bowling at least, this is a completely feasible idea. Obviously with some sports, football, basketball, and probably baseball, a woman just isn’t going to be as competitive as a man--maybe (MAYBE) the right woman with the right training, but they would almost always be a very slight minority.

But could it be that our gender bifurcating has done as much as it can? Could it be in some sports, like bowling and maybe golf, women would become competitive with men if that was their competition all along? I know the arguments; we want to give women an equal opportunity to participate etc. But this wouldn’t be limiting women’s ability to participate. To some degree I think it might limit their ability to continuously keep women competing only with women. Sure, that means that some women won’t be able to succeed as easily as they did when competing only against other women. Sure that means size, speed, and strength would be a problem for many. But it would be no more of a problem for the women than it is for any number of underdeveloped boy freshman.

And what might be achieved by creating co-ed sports where feasible? It would eliminate, possibly, many of the boy vs. girl mentality that seems to dominate since the 70s. It would teach girls honestly and truthfully what it means to compete and succeed, not just amongst other girls, but amongst other human beings. It would teach boys that girls aren’t fragile and breakable any more than boys are, and, quite possibly, help make girls more tough as well.

This little experiment would be a mess in the beginning; for awhile, perhaps for a long time, boys’ teams would dominate. But I think if sports were turned co-ed where possible eventually the integration would present a possibility of healing the gender wars in much the same way racial integration dealt with racism. Things wouldn’t be perfect and they certainly wouldn’t be fixed quickly or easily, but just what might happen if sports could be used to better males and females together instead of separately?