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by nautilius
1489 days ago
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For me that's the only interesting discussion to be had here. Separation into female and male leagues were installed partially because of sex (so that it's fairer), but initially mainly because of gender (women must not do the same fun things we do). Then again, it is 'unfair' that Simone Biles has the physique she has that fits to her chosen sport better than mine; Michael Phelps likewise; Alex Honnold processes fear differently from most of us, etc. |
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I don't know all the history of it so I won't make claims about how it started. But what you're saying does not describe the reality of highschool sports as I experienced it.
I was a competitive swimmer in highschool; the team was split 50/50 between boys and girls. We all swam in the same lanes of the same pools, swimming the same practice given by the same coaches. Virtually all of us were taught how to swim by the same woman. The only separation was the locker rooms, and the competitive events during meets. The events were the same, 100m, 500m, etc, but segregated by sex. The performance gap post-puberty was immense. The fastest girl on my team, an incredible outlier with Olympic ambitions, was slower than about 5 of the guys. If the sport were blind to sex, the team probably would have had a 90/10 ratio, rather than 50/50. This would be grossly unfair to women.