Thursday, March 3, 2011

Equality in sports? Women arent there yet.

I was scrolling through google news when i found this article called "Equality in Sports? Women arent there yet".
Basically it goes through all the instances that women have been denied entry into sports. They used the winter olympics saying that even then in 2010, women were denied to enter for ski jumping because of medical concerns. Who ever said it was up to the government or the ioc or others in general to tell us as women what we should and shouldnt do?! What if we wanted to do a dangerous sport and accept the risks that come with it? I mean im sure those ski jumpers know that, and still want to do it just the same.
The article showed another example about fighting, how the 2012 olympics will be the first time women will be entered to fight. The argument for this 15 years ago was that our menstrual cycle makes us "unstable". What a crock!! That is a general ideology, or stereotype, not everyone acts crazy and pissed off like everyone thinks. Even if that is the case, then why not just let them box but not when they are on their menstrual cycle?? It makes no sense, there are ways around these excuses people make for not allowing women into these types of sports, and instead of denying them completely they should make some exceptions.
They talked about how Carleton University in Ottawa was trying to make a balance and to do that they cut out a bunch of boys sports, even completely took out football. Does that really show equality? That in order to make women equal they have to deny men the sports they also crave and love?? Equality should be letting women play the same sports at the same time right along men.
I am not a feminist, and do not solely represent women, but when people deny women because of popular beliefs, its ridiculous, why not let them prove themselves, and THEN make a decision on whether or not it should be allowed. Just like back in the day when everyone thought running would cause women's ovaries to fall out, it was proven that it wouldnt happen, and now? Now we have women running as far as they can whenever they can. I know for the case of the ski jumping, it is dangerous, but every other ski event is dangerous, people get hurt both men and women every olympics, why not include it? Or before making the decision to not include it, try it out??

This article is a good article detailing all the history and present issues with equality in sports today. If anyone wants to read it here is the link: http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Equality+sports+Women+aren+there/4368587/story.html


Lyndsay Eden
Kin 338-i section 4779/5681
tuthurs 930

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