"Like a girl": Discrimination against women and minorities in sports
Discussion about sexism in sport went to a new stage after the recent scandal with the participation of the captain of the Russian national tennis team Shamil Tarpishchev - he called the Williams sisters dominating in women's tennis the last 12 years “brothers” hinting at their less feminine appearance compared to Russian tennis players. The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) disqualified Tarpishchev for a year, and the tennis community, including the favorite of the Russian public, Maria Sharapova, unanimously condemned his statement. However, Russian tennis fans are not too impressed, “they got completely with their tolerance” - one of the softest formulations that could be heard as a reaction to what happened.
And the event itself, and the reaction to it, was hardly surprised by the fact that sexism and other forms of discrimination in sport are ubiquitous, inevitable and are the “norm”, there is little doubt, and the measures taken by federations and associations in this regard seem to be showy and ineffective. Even constant jokes beyond the limits in the near-sports journalistic environment signal this (“click on the link if you are not Tim Cook” on the day when Apple’s heading out is just one example). The big question is where does “ordinary” sexism and homophobia end, about which they write and speak a lot, and who slowly but surely retreat, and where does the phenomenon characteristic of sports, the sphere of rather conservative, begin?
For example, the scandal with the head of the English Premier League, Richard Skudamour, whose emails with rude sexist jokes and disparaging remarks about women were at the disposal of journalists, is not an example of sexism in sports - this is the usual men's chauvinism, in which the replacement of the Premier League as an organization to any bank, factory or charity fund absolutely nothing will change. Therefore, despite the importance of such incidents and the need to investigate them, I would like to understand what the underlying features of the sport ultimately lead to the prosperity of gender discrimination.
One of the basic problems is that the world of sport is considered to be the world of men's values. Unlike "physical education", sport, even amateur, means competition, fighting with oneself and with a rival, overcoming, courage, to some degree aggression, the cult of reaching the limit of physical abilities. In the mass consciousness, all these things are tightly associated with "male" qualities. Their non-manifestation: weakness, pliability, unwillingness to go into conflict, the desire to enjoy the process, and not squeeze all the juice for the sake of the result - all this is associated with female behavior.
None of these characteristics is actually masculine or feminine — these are all questions solely of the type of person, upbringing, dedication and environment. Nevertheless, a vicious circle is formed: an insufficiently aggressive young hockey player, as the coach tells him, plays “like a girl,” and a well-serving tennis player will hear that he beats like a man. On the basis of such stereotypes, an excellent commercial made the brand Always. Thus, from women in sports require mythical masculinity, although the focus on the result is nothing unlady.
A separate question: is it good that such a large place in the life of mankind is occupied by an activity where the success of one side is always a defeat of the other, and that we associate useful physical activity for the body primarily with people who are often detrimental to their health in trying to overcome themselves and become better than others? But if society is unlikely to be able to give up competition and self-test as a motivation for physical activity, then you can do something with the rest.
First of all, it is necessary to eradicate ideas about the #likeagirl behavior as weak and unsportsmanlike. This contributes to the popularization of images of strong and successful athletes, and training coaches, commentators and journalists in neutral vocabulary, and the integration of the sexes in the sports process as such. In particular, sociologist Eric Anderson published a study in 2008 entitled "Were Weak", in which a scientist studied the views of young men who played American football at school and switched to sports cheerleading in college (a rare gender integrated a sport where women and men play in the same team). It turned out that after the guys started to train and compete with the girls on the same team, their views, which had been shaped so much by the “barrack” setting of the football locker room, began to change dramatically: they became much less inclined to perceive girls as a sex object, to make sexist jokes and in general, their respect for women (especially peers) increased.
There is a movement in this direction, and there are a lot of experiments to create mixed teams, especially in youth sports. Mixed team competitions or relays from relatively recently have existed in badminton, tennis, biathlon, luge and figure skating. In various types of shooting, bobsleigh, curling and other types, mixed disciplines are gaining popularity and are likely to soon get to the Olympiad, where the only completely open view for both sexes where men can compete with women remains equestrian sport (there are still certain mixed disciplines in sailing).
Without addressing this issue, sexism in sports will remain ineradicable, as disrespect for women and the association of sports success with men's values repel girls and their parents from the very idea of going to the sport or watching it. Just imagine a boy and a girl who demonstrate energy, a desire to conquer others and grow stronger than their peers. Most likely, parents with about equal chances will give them to the sport - regardless of gender. However, the chances of an “ordinary” or “unsportsmanlike” child are completely unequal: the boy will still be taken to the sport, “so that he becomes a man,” but they will give up on the girls, because “this is not a princess case”. As a result, far fewer girls come to the sports sections than the world of sports could accommodate - after all, early development or energy in fact does not always correlate with further success. Less competition leads to less spectacular wrestling and less impressive results, and many potential stars will get involved in sports at a much later age - simply because of the imposed thought that they did not need it.
The same thing happens with spectator preferences. Without going into Freudianism, one should not underestimate the role of personal example and pop culture: a child often sees that sport is the patrimony of his father, brother, uncle, but not his mother or grandmother, and this image is reinforced by cinema, advertising, games, how the TV shows are made, which is shown during the break. It is time for openness to everything new, when children and adolescents form many of their emotional attachments for many years to come, most likely it will take place in girls far from matches. And in adulthood to love something new becomes much more difficult.
Exactly from here grows another large-scale problem: one of the most important ideas of sports is to determine the championship, the constant pursuit of a record, rating, and the absolute championship. And in this struggle women are always considered to be behind men. For example, whatever Tarpishchev says and Serena and Venus Williams look "powerful" on the court, none of them will be able to beat a world-class tennis player. The famous match then still, however, very young sisters with Karsten Brasch, the 203rd World No. (later only getting to the fourth dozen), ended with a confident victory for the German. In 1992, Jimmy Connors (an outstanding tennis player, winner of hundreds of titles) in his 40 years beat the 36-year-old champion Martin Navratilova, despite the fact that the rules of the match, for example, allowed Martin to hit the “corridors” that were considered to be outs for Jimmy. Yes, in 1973, during the match, significant for the struggle for women's equality in sports, Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs - but she was 26 years younger than him.
Another vivid example is the lack of success of women in Formula 1, where no restrictions are imposed by the rules and you need to be no stronger or faster, but a more technical and enduring opponent. There are many explanations for this, which boil down to the fact that anyone, even technical sports, by definition, is more suitable for men. But not everything is so simple. In equestrian sports, where both men and women compete in the same competitions (at olympiads: since 1952 in dressage, since 1964 - in all forms), and which is traditionally considered to be quite “suitable” for women, all these arguments do not work - despite the obvious presence of a physical component in the art of the rider, among the five most titled Olympic equestrians today are three men and two women: Isabelle Vert and Anki van Grunsven.
In another, not too athletic sport - chess - the situation is also ambiguous. Despite the fact that no woman became a world champion, Hungarian chess player Judit Polgar beat ten different world champions, including Garry Kasparov and current champion Magnus Carlsen, and won the grandmaster title at such a young age (15 years and 5 months) that The month improved the previous record of the great Bobby Fisher. Moreover, according to a study conducted by Professor Merim Belalic and his colleagues, the almost complete absence of women in high places in chess ratings (Polgar is a unique exception) is due, at least in part, to their smaller number and participation in significantly less representative women's tournaments, which Polgar, by the way, always avoided.
This suggests the conclusion that at least in those sports where acquired skills are more important than pure physical data, gender equality is determined primarily by the number of women going to this sport. It is also important how long ago women have been admitted to this sport, and one should not deny the influence of super-talented superstars - which in addition contribute to a surge of interest in a particular sport.
And in the "power" types the insurmountable inequality is not so obvious: the men's records in the dash of the bar, set at the 1972 Olympiad, are approximately equal to the results of women in comparable weight categories of the 2012 model. However, we must admit that in running, say, this trend is not observed: the women's record for the hundred meters has not improved for more than 20 years and is at the level of men's results more than a century ago, and in the marathon the current strongest runners would have won the men of the mid-fifties. Nevertheless, if we consider that the huge progress in sports records for decades is not evolution and the natural selection of more powerful people, but medicine, biomechanics, training equipment, equipment, computer analysis and the like and all, of course, primarily working on men's sports, it is clear that theoretically there are few species where women with proper focus of scientific efforts and the number of applicants could not reach the "male level".
17-year-old Judit Polgar beats up the 56-year-old world champion Boris Spassky, 1993
But this is only half the battle. The first women who begin to cross this frontier in popular sports are doomed to become victims of sexism. Only one woman in the history of college football scored goals in the top division, and for this Katie Nida had to go through humiliation from teammates and rape. She put forward these accusations after the release of the first of her two teams (she scored a record first goal after moving from the University of Colorado to the University of New Mexico). The head coach of Colorado accused her of lying and spoke rudely of her abilities, for which he was eventually suspended from work and soon left the coaching post. Eight years after Katie, another girl, Mo Ays, was close to becoming a batter in a strong team in the top division, but despite the support of other players and the generally positive atmosphere around her training (Ays had successfully played the female European "football), she did not pass the final selection on a sporting basis.
Almost all the stories about when women were approaching success in "male" sports return us to Mr. Tarpishchev and his joke. If a girl does not show "male" results, then this, in the eyes of chauvinists, is normal, since female sport can exist, but it should always be "below" male. If a woman begins to approach men in terms of their results, then the easiest way is to brand her with a "man in a skirt" and begin to demand complete disqualification.
The difficulty lies in the fact that the modern concept of gender and the truth does not fit into the binary approach of sports division. Without plunging into extremely complex and ethical and biological points of view, one may recall numerous scandals in athletics, where some champions, having completed performances, did (or were forced to do as a result of many years of hormonal injections) sex change operations. Not so long ago, the career of the South African runner Caster Semen was suspended after she was sent to a sex test and the international athletics federation could not say for a while whether Caster had the right to compete with women. As a result, Semenya was allowed to all competitions. At the same time, the tests themselves, used by the International Olympic Committee, are often criticized, since no single chemical indicator can give an unequivocal answer about the sex of a person.
At the same time, international organizations allow transsexuals to compete, but the flow of hatred that hits transgender women who have undergone biological sex change operations, completed the mandatory two years of hormone therapy and beginnings to compete at women's competitions after that is beyond description. Born with different gender characteristics and having undergone an adjustment operation, judo fighter Edinansi Fernandez da Silva, or acting in mixed martial arts and having a sex change operation, Fallon Fox was constantly accused of trying to deceive the system and win at the expense of his “originally male” organism. Obviously, the public is not ready for this, and the passive position of the IOC and other organizations on this issue does not help to move public opinion.
A separate article can be written about the life of gays and lesbians in sports - and those and others are under even greater pressure than in "ordinary" society: in an aggressive, competitive environment, sophisticated insults fly from their competitors, fans, and sometimes colleagues. The main thing, of course, is in the "barracks" culture of gyms and changing rooms, which is extremely homophobic in any country, in part because stereotypically-minded people consider gays not courageous enough to perform in male forms, and lesbians are not feminine to perform in women.
American football player Michael Sam before the game Louis Rams vs Miami Dolphins, August 2014
At the same time, a very small number of openly gay among athletes in the United States, for example, leads to unhealthy "positive" media attention to anyone who, for example, American football player Michael Sam, admits his orientation not after the end of his career, but its very beginning. As a result, this gives an additional reason for criticism, since the attention of the press to the same Sam really was disproportionate to his football talents, and his courage and honesty have not yet made him a successful player.
It is clear that there is no simple answer to questions about gender in sports. If, with a decrease in the level of homophobia in society, any athletes will be able to calmly perform and not attract the close attention of the media by merely acknowledging their sexual orientation, then with the definition of gender for the binary division into female and male forms of complexity will remain. Argument for the abolition of this principle can serve the fact that although its goal is to enable "weaker" women to compete at the highest level, people are not born equal in principle, and people can be divided by the same success in height and weight (what they do in many species) or the biochemical composition of muscles and blood, to unite in groups only the most equal from the nature of athletes.
It is unlikely that all these changes - the rejection of naming sports behavior “male”, the more massive involvement of girls in sports, the integration of male and female types and the rejection of binary separation of gender — will happen quickly, but some processes have already been launched. И чем дальше они продвигаются, тем меньше неравенства, неуважения и унижения будет в спорте и тем реже мы сможем услышать сексистские шутки от спортсменов, тренеров и спортивных болельщиков.
Photo: Shutterstock (1, 2), Getti Images/Fotobank (4)
