Should Men And Women Compete Against The Same In Sports Essay

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Should men and women compete against each other in sport? I would like to look at this subject because I am passionate about gender equality in sports and how women should not be discriminated against just because of their size or strength. Feminist movements in 1970 were just the beginning for breaking down gender stereotypes and women being excluded from sporting events. However, organisations are still discriminating against women in many sports due to a clause in the equal opportunities legislation, which was passed in 1975. This clause is related to sports that rely on size, strength, speed and stamina for dominating and winning. Sporting governing bodies use this clause for justification to gender segregate in multiple sports. With…show more content…
Many people argue that physiological reasons are enough to say no to women and men competing against each other, but they don’t take into account that many sports do not rely solely on these factor to determine outcome. For example equestrian, motor racing and Nacro 17 sailing, men and women already compete against each other as the physical differences are thought not to have any effect on outcome in competition. So if these sports do not gender discriminate then why aren’t others, where outcome is not dependant on physical strength alone? This argument could be made with sports where skill plays an equally important role to physicality. In tennis, lacrosse, hockey and football the importance of the ability to be skilful far outweighs the differences between genders physically. For example Roger Federer is an outstanding tennis player but has not got the same level of physicality as many other tennis players have but nevertheless he is very successful using his skill to out play his opponents. Another example is Katie Hnida, who was the first women to score points in College American Football’s highest division by kicking extra points. You could name many very successful sports athletes that have succeeded purely because of their outstanding skill

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