The summer Olympics in Rio are coming up soon, which means it is almost time for another widely supported sexist sporting event to commence. Females in sports are consistently treated like second class citizens, from getting paid less than their male counterparts, to dealing with sexist remarks from reporters after competitions. In addition, people who are transgender are sometimes questioned as to whether they can keep their Olympic medals. I think it is time for the world to make all sports co-ed, period. This means all sporting events - professional, college, Olympic, amateur, Little League, Pop Warner, high school, etc., should allow all people to compete in the same event, regardless of sex or other labels society deems necessary to place upon us as individual human beings.
Let me put it this way: separating sporting events by sex is sexist, just like separating sporting events by skin color is racist.
Sexism in sports has led to unequal pay between male and female athletes. One prominent example is that the U.S. women’s soccer team players overall received less money than the U.S. men’s soccer team players, even though the women performed better amongst women than the men’s soccer team performed amongst men in 2015.
Keeping the sexes separate in sports also leads to sexist comments, like the one a reporter said to Serena Williams about being “one of the greatest female athletes of all time.” Serena held her own and requested that she be referred to as “one of the greatest athletes of all time, period.” Demeaning comments like this only thicken the societal line that divides men and women.
In addition, at least 15,000 people signed a Change.org petition so that Caitlyn Jenner, who competed in the men’s decathlon in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, would have to return her gold medal to the International Olympic Committee. Luckily, the Committee declined to even consider doing such a thing. If men and women competed in the same events together, transgender people would not have to deal with society scrutinizing them for being in the “wrong” event.
Men and women are already integrated at school, in the workplace, and every other public space and activity (except for bathrooms, which I have written about before in a previous article), so why not integrate men and women in sports?
Yes, it is true that statistically men as a group perform better quantitatively by time, distance, etc. in sports than women as a group, but that does not mean that individual women cannot perform as well as men. Giving individuals a chance to succeed, instead of limiting them by their societal expectations, is a prominent part of feminism. Give women and girls a chance to compete with all people, including men and boys. Separating by age group, however, is still appropriate so that we can account for the differences in athletes’ aging bodies.
As a former participant in AYSO soccer leagues, YMCA basketball teams, club teams for track and field, swimming, and rowing, as well as high school swimming (for all of which, by the way, I was separated from boys and men into my own apparently daintier, female division), I think it is about time the world wakes up and simply puts us all together in the same competitive pool.
Of course, there would need to be an adjustment period once females and males are placed on the same basketball court, swimming pool, etc., as I am certain there would be complaints that men are still performing much better than women and that women are becoming discouraged. It is also inevitable that the salary disparities and sexist comments will still be rampant in the beginning of the adjustment period. However, the long-term benefits of co-ed, equal sports competition are worth the initial growing pains.
Little League baseball star Mo’ne Davis gave us a look at what co-ed sports could look like on a national level in 2014. This year, a minor league baseball team has made a step towards becoming co-ed by signing two females. Universal co-ed sporting events will allow all athletes to do what they trained so hard to do- be the best athletes they can be, without societal expectations based on their genders.
