Why it is not necessary to divide the sport into male and female
Masha Vorslav
If it seems to someone that gender issues do not concern his lifestyle, he is wrong: such attitudes influence the development of life scenarios in much the same way as laws affect the behavior of the parties to the transaction. About how hard it is for women in sports, we have already said: in order to participate in competitions, we have to act in advertising, earn money as a waitress and borrow clothes. These questions also apply to those who do not play sports and their bodies professionally: athletes are obvious models to follow, and a Formula 1 woman pilot appears on the cover of a topical magazine, a certain percentage of female readers will think about a sports career for the first time. Ideological blocks prevent people from doing things that are interesting to them, but in a conversation about sports, it is sexual dimorphism that is often rolled out as an argument. It is impossible to shut one's eyes on him, but it is necessary to figure out whether the physiological differences are so significant that they prevent men from doing rhythmic gymnastics, and women - boxing.
Anatomical features can really complicate or facilitate the performance of a labor (sport and physical activity can be called a special case) - our government relies on this consideration when it establishes a list of jobs inaccessible to women. Of the 2198 positions, most are closed because of working conditions (why in 204 cases women cannot work as machinists is a separate issue): the stem, the cook and rags and the acidity are really hard, and the conditional male (“strong”) organism suits them better. Such an attitude to the physical power of different genders is a particular case of a single and not always fair state; internationally, sports organizations seek to ensure maximum - quantitative and qualitative - women's participation in sports, this can be traced through the activities of Olympic organizations.
For the first time, women took part in the Olympics a little more than a hundred years ago - only in tennis and golf competitions. Since then, through the efforts of committees and other caring organizations, women's representation in sports has only grown, albeit slowly. By the way, they are fighting for the rights of not only women-athletes, but also leaders: in the last report of the American Committee, two of the four sections openly state that women's sports require special support in all its aspects. There are successes in this area, and they are important, but the finish is not yet close: in 2012, athletes do not even take part in half of the Olympic competitions, and the percentage of women in leadership positions does not exceed 18%. However, to completely shift the fight against gender asymmetry to higher organizations means to unreasonably slow it down.
Most adults acquire the physical qualities and skills associated with their gender.
The attitude to sport, including its division into exclusively male and female, is laid in the early years - remember your physical education lessons when the teacher sent the boys to play basketball, and the girls assigned something light and, yes, “female”: jump on a skipping rope, poprisedat and poragyagivatsya. At school standards, the logic is also entertaining: in squats and flexibility exercises, girls need to succeed more, but in more energy-intensive running and push-ups, you can relax; in boys, as you might guess, the opposite is true. At the university, the position of teachers of physical education is rarely different, except that in sports universities, for obvious reasons, the requirements for all students are higher. As a result, most children, adolescents, and then adults acquire the physical skills and qualities associated with their sex: men become stronger, women become thinner and more feminine. This cliché is reminiscent of the Huxley Incubator — with the difference, however, that with us it is produced not by malicious intent, but by inertia and because everyone rarely includes the head. In fact, if the average time of women in a swim for 10 kilometers is only seven minutes longer than that of men, then the difference between their endurance, strength and purposefulness (qualities that are more often characterized by men than women) is significant.
If we imagine that each person will have the opportunity to develop any of their abilities, regardless of gender, a large number of doubts about suitable or not suitable sports activities will disappear by itself. For example, if a young man demonstrates plasticity from an early age, nothing will prevent him from enrolling in the rhythmic gymnastics section (in the majority view, this is a very female activity), and an interested girl can do boxing or ski jumping (both sports, by the way, were added in the women's Olympic program only in 2012 and 2014). Such freedom also concerns the non-professional sphere - if there are no suspicions about the obstacles to the occupation of Muay Thai or Crossfit (except for medical indications, of course), everyone will be able to do what he wants, and not what he is supposed to.
Photo: cover photo, 1 via Shutterstock