Gender Segregation in Olympic Sports

For some Olympic sports, it makes perfect sense to have separate competitions for men and women. Female competitors would have a hard time placing in, say, discus if it were to be desegregated.

In other sports, however, this separation makes little sense. Shooting stands out as a good example of this. In 1992, Zhang Shan of China won the gold medal for mixed-gender Olympic Skeet. But before she could defend her title at the next Games, the sport was split into Men's and Women's competitions.

Why are Olympic events still gender segregated for sports where gender makes little to no difference? True, it increases the number of available medals- but if that's really a concern, the Committee could just re-instate jai alai, or keep making up more *athlons.

Should this tradition be perpetuated?

i think it's fine as is. It wouldn't hurt to add a mixed gender section too though.

Honestly it depends on the sport. In some sports desegregation could lead to women almost never competing because many of the just can't measure up. There are ones that aren't like this such as the one mentioned in the OP but I'm sure there are some that are.

The idea is that any attempt to set handicapped standards would be difficult, so just avoid the conflict by separating the genders. It kind of works, IMO; I prefer it to standards where men have to do better than women for same points.

I can see mashing together the competitors in some of the less active events, but we do it for a very good reason in most of them. Egalitarianism is awesome in everyday life when nothing demands the bleeding edge of the human body's capacity, but most Olympic sports are kind of past that point.

Not to mention even besides the physical body thing, the women's competition for most of these sports was introduced 30-40 years after the men's competition was, so the men's sports are mostly 30-40 years ahead of the women's sports.

The physical bodies of men and women work differently. Science has proven that. Let them compete in different contests. On balance, such is fair.

As long as we do not ascribe value judgement to those differences of course.

Does it make so much difference for shooting, for example? Because it is that the OP was arguing about. They have already agreed that the segregation make sense for most sports. What the were questioning if it makes for some of them where the gender difference, if exist, is much less obvious.

Anyway, yeah, I agree with Maramasan. If the gender makes no difference in an specific sport, than said sport shouldn't be segregated.

More events means more ticket sales.

/thread.

Heatth, shooting primarily involves upper body strength, where women are, when compared to men, at a disadvantage no matter how much they work out. More upper body strength means, in general, a better ability to hold the weapon steady for getting a good bead on the target, and better ability to absorb the recoil (an issue even with the rinky-dink rounds used in Olympic competitions ) that will negatively effect the shooters aim and will need to be compensated for before the next shot, unless you like wasting bullets and hurting your score.

In short, all other things being equal (they never are, but let's keep this simple ), female shooters competing directly against male shooters have to work harder at getting the same results.

Women won the combined shooting challenge and while that statistic about upper body strength is true on an overall thought, it's not true individually. Also, there's evidence that a woman's lower centre of gravity makes her a steadier shot than even that upper body boost accounts for. So it might actually be unfairly skewed to women.

After all, the female Olympic shooters do better than the male ones comparing their events.

Maybe we should have a women's competition, a men's competition and a mixed competition for every event.

This would be interesting from a scientific perspective, as it would be an opportunity to judge whether there is any real difference between the sexes in a specific discipline. It would also allow particularly exemplary athletes to gain recognition for coming on top in an event that their sex usually has a disadvantage in.

I can get behind that.

I'd like to see blokes in synchronised swimming, I have to admit.

And, scrapping rhythmic gymnastics in preference to acrobatic? Makes a lot more sense.

@Elfive: I could get behind that as well.

It might raise a bit of a fuss if they tried to introduce mixed boxing though.

Might need to tweak the weight categories or something, but I think it could still be doable.

I was thinking more about public reaction to the idea.

For the record, I could get behind having more mixed events at the olympics too.

I do not support tweaking in mixed sports unless it works both ways.

Here's a website that helps in illustrating current upper-body strength between men and women of different categories from the untrained level to the elite level. I recommend clicking on the bench press and the squat to get a pretty clear idea. It's something to consider with discussing certain integrated Olympic events, especially those requiring muscular strength.

http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/StrengthStandards.html

What about women with androgen insensitivity syndrome who have been barred from competing, and other intersex women?

Three catagories would be fine. Why not?

And I am all for mixed boxing or what not. Most martial arts competitions are mixed.

Allowing for mixed events, especially any fighting styles, could also do wonders on having different cultures reevaluate their gender roles and individal sensitivities.

To me, we have nothing to loose by it. And we'd have more events so commercially we'd profit as well.

"Most martial arts competitions are mixed."

Well, not really, no. By "competition", I'm assuming you mean "fighting". Open tournaments and regional tournaments sometimes have mixed events, but those are usually forms and weapon forms. Anything involving sparring will almost always be gender-segregated. In many cases, a woman will take first place in her division and event simply because she was the only woman who showed up for the event, making her the default winner.

There are certain co-ed fighting events in, say, sport Tae Kwon Do and cage fighting, but at the Olympic level, martial arts are gender-segregated. You can also find some individual schools and chains throughout the country and abroad that encourage gender-integrated fighting, but getting those organizations the official recognition of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) is an uphill battle.

edited 27th Jan '13 10:38:14 AM by Aprilla

I knew Olympics were segregated, but I figured not every instance was.

I understand most people look at female fighters or female stunt actors/drivers, whatever and point out that these women are the exception since in general, even if pound for pound, women aren't built to preform the same way as men just as men aren't built to preform the same way as women.

But to me, isn't that what the Olympics is all about? Finding the exceptional and the superhuman from the norm regardless of gender? So if that is the goal, then I think mixed events will only help add another level of exceptionalism for our athletes to strive to.

And this could work for men as well, such as Euo's suggestion of scyronized swimming or other "female" sports.

Could the average female fighter take a olympic quality male boxer? Probably not. But could a female olympic boxer? Why not see?

I can see adding a third mixed option only enriching our culture and our athletic circles. I can't see it hurting anything.

The problem isn't that people don't want mixed sports period, it's that whenever this gets brought up, it's usually done with the mentality of "get rid of gender segregated sports and make the whole thing coed".