Oh fer cryin out loud, it could damage your ovaries??? Is that the best excuse they could come up with? News flash to guys: no longer can you compete in professional biking, as it is damaging to your nethers.

The title says "inclusion," shouldn't it be exclusion?

The women's sport isn't advanced enough? Let us remember back to 1988 in Calgary when "Eddie the Eagle" was allowed to compete and pretty much make a mockery of ski jumping. (Although he was noted as doing it in a lovable and under-doggy kind of way. And, was also labelled as "comically inept.")
So, now you tell us that serious women who train and sacrifice can't even get their foot in the door? For shame, IOC! This is just blatant discrimination.

Former elite gymnast here. WTF are they talking about? "...damage to...ovaries and uterus"?! Try gymnastics! Lots of impact there, not to mention "beam bites", head injuries, my own knee injuries and such. And yet I know lots of former gymnasts with kids, including Mary Lou Retton! If ski jumping is "not appropriate for ladies" than no sport is. And I challenge anyone saying that sports aren't appropriate for women to one workout with the US Women's Gymnastics Team.

I'm glad for the lawsuit, and I've already signed their petition. However, I wonder at the legality of them basing their suit off of the Canadian bill of rights against a multinational organization not set in Canada. I know they're going after the Canadian committee, but the actions are that of the organization overall.

Ha, I actually meant to say "inclusion" meaning that they're suing so they can get inclusion, but it does make more sense to say they're suing them for the excluding them. Thanks for pointing that out

im not understanding the badminton reference. badminton is much more popular worldwide than ski jumping and when played at the olympic level its incredibly intense, 206mph shuttlecock anyone? What am i missing?

I'm more concerned that the 2010 Olympics are being held on stolen Indigenous land that was never conceded to Canada or anyone else. The preparation for these events is causing ecological devastation to land that many First Nations people still subsist on. It's leading to a gentrified police state that is evicting, harassing and incarcerating the most vulnerable denizens of Vancouver, many of whom are displaced First Nations people.

Hundreds of Indigenous women go missing from Vancouver, sometimes their bodies are found maimed, but overall no one cares.

While I clearly support the right of female athletes to participate fully in athletic events, I'm siding with the Indigenous people who don't fucking want this devastating circus on their land.

www.no2010.com

Ohhh I see what you were saying now. I guess either word works (inclusion or exclusion) lol. Well good story either way!

Unless you have never seen competitive badminton and are basing the related statement on the backyard version, the badminton comparison does not help the case for women's ski jumping. There are 14 countries with competitive women ski jumpers. When it was made an Olympic sport, 129 countries had registered competitors.

Maybe you can explain the significance of mentioning badminton, because I'm not getting it.

Also, is there any evidence that the International Ski Federation has said ski jumping might be dangerous for women or is that all based on the one competitor's statement that someone once told her that?

I am interested in women's athletics and will be researching this so that I can get a bit more information than a badminton red herring and a secondhand quote along the lines of "someone said."

Yeah, we should just make all the ladies wrap themselves in bubblewrap all the time so they don't hurt their uterus if they do something outrageous like, I dunno, fall down.

Actually, probably shouldn't write this. The anti-choicers might think it's a brilliant idea and make a law out of it.

After closer research, the real sticky point seems to be the requirement that a sport's governing body holds two world championships before the sport is considered for Olympic recognition. Women's ski jumping has not. The competitors petitioning for Olympic acknowledgement want the three Junior World Championships to count in lieu of the missing World Championship. They also state that because an exception was previously made for Women's marathoning, it should be made for ski jumping.

I still haven't turned up any correlation between badminton and ski jumping, though.

I wish I could say I was surprised that feministing/its commenters don't care about the self-determination of First Nations people :-(

Actually, Janet, if you'd click the link you'd see it's not a "secondhand quote," but something that the head of the Int'l Ski Federation is directly quoted as saying. Also, geez Dykonoclast. Just because no one responded to your comment in the first 2 1/2 hours after you posted it doesn't mean they don't care. No need to be all "I wish I could say I was surprised" and all.

Dykonoclast - It looks interesting, but unfortunately I do not have enough knowledge at this time about the claims nor the Supreme Court of Canada Delgamuukw decision in 1997 to comment intelligently on the subject. It is also way outside the scope of the original post.

Dykonoclast – Also, as I understand it so far, the contested land is the new Cayoosh Ski Resort on Mount Currie. No Olympic events are being held at this resort. Are there other contested areas where events are being held?

I can see their point in it not being very developed - they have not even held a world championship and it seems that they only have 9 people who want to compete!

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/05/22/skijumpers-reaction.html?ref=rss

It's hard to take feminist complaints seriously when they still ultimately support segregated competitions.

That's total BS. I'm from northern MN, and I remember kids my second grade class--boys and girls--both competing in ski jumping competitions. I remember parents being worried about broken legs for all of their children, not bogus fertility issues. You'd think Canada would have some sense about winter sports, but I guess not.

The counterargument sounds like the ridiculous claims people used to make about women going to college--that it would redirect necessary blood away from the womb and into the brain.

"In the meantime, badminton was approved in 1985 by the IOC to be given full-medal Olympic status."

Speaking as someone who has engaged in badminton competitions at a youth level, but has never put on a pair of skis, I'm mystified as to the exact link badminton has with ski-jumping and why it was even mentioned in this post in the first place...Is there something I'm missing??

"It's hard to take feminist complaints seriously when they still ultimately support segregated competitions."

I've always wondered what's feminists' stance on this particular issue. Seeing as how sports, like any endeavour, should be based on meritocracy, it would only be helpful to include women and men together in sports. I have seen a lot of findings saying that women are by far more flexible,better at teamwork, have more endurance and are more agile than men, so wouldn't that negate any supposedly advantage in strength for men? It would be an interesting experiment.

Alice: "It's hard to take feminist complaints seriously when they still ultimately support segregated competitions."

Admittedly I haven't taken biology since highschool, but are there not joint/bone structure, muscle mass, and centre of gravity differences between men and women? So long as popular sports cater to the physical advantages of men (as opposed to the physical advantages of women) I'm okay with a certain level of segregation if it means that women get to participate in sport in the public sphere.

timothynakayama: I've always wondered what's feminists' stance on this particular issue. Seeing as how sports, like any endeavour, should be based on meritocracy, it would only be helpful to include women and men together in sports. I have seen a lot of findings saying that women are by far more flexible,better at teamwork, have more endurance and are more agile than men, so wouldn't that negate any supposedly advantage in strength for men? It would be an interesting experiment.

All you need to do is compare the Olympic results of the Men's vs. Women's competitions since the events themselves are the same. The experiment has already been done for you. Also, your example would only be valid in sports where the "feminine" advantages of endurance, agility and teamwork were cumulatively as or more likely to determine the outcome than the "masculine" advantage of strength - they would have little effect in a weightlifting competition for instance.

rhowan:
"All you need to do is compare the Olympic results of the Men's vs. Women's competitions since the events themselves are the same. The experiment has already been done for you. Also, your example would only be valid in sports where the "feminine" advantages of endurance, agility and teamwork were cumulatively as or more likely to determine the outcome than the "masculine" advantage of strength - they would have little effect in a weightlifting competition for instance."

I must admit that I wasn't thinking of track and field or most Olympic sports where there is little teamwork involved. Apologies, I should have stated that.

I was thinking more along the lines of group sport, like Football (soccer to Americans), Badminton, Tennis, Basketball, Ping Pong, etc.....clearly, all these sports are not based purely on physical strength (unlike weightlifting)....and they involve teams going against each other to score more points, rather than the aforementioned track and field sports, where instead of competing with another team, they compete for the best time, weight lift, etc.

Hence, unlike track and field sports, where the outcomes can be compared in regards to men and women's events, we cannot justifiably say that when it comes to group sports, men are any better than women. Afterall, all of the "feminine" advantages that you have mentioned are required (if not KEY) to such group sports. Strength is not nearly as useful in these sports as the "Feminine" advantages.

I mean, take a look at tennis, how do we know that Venus Williams wouldn't trounce Federer's ass like so much putty...we can't, because there is nothing we can use to measure the probabilities of the theoretical match.

Re mens vs womens sports - the endurance, agility and teamwork - how much of these are stereotypes and/or misconceptions? The tests I've seen for endurance adjust for maximum weight lifted, rather than body weight - which would give a rather favourable score to someone who had a poorer power to weight ratio, who given that most sports involve moving their body weight would not be able to match up to that performance on the field.

Or else - look at records for men vs women in the 100m and 10,000m:

100m Men = 9.74 Seconds
100m Women = 10.49 seconds
(Women take 7.7% Longer)

10,000m Men = 26min 17sec
10,000m Women = 29min 31sec
(women take 12.3% Longer)

Which seems surprising if women do innately have better endurance. You'd expect the gap to close rather than widen significantly.

As for agility/dexterity we could compare Archery from the 2004 Olympics - in which 13 mans teams and 15 womens teams took part (which would indicate a healthy female participation level). The winning male scored 687, the winning female scored 682. So basically the same performance. The average of the top 5 males was 675. The average of the top 5 females was 672 - again - pretty much equal performances.

These results are all from Wiki, if anyone feels like comparing more skill/dexterity sports that have quantifiable measurements then they are free to look it up. I tried looking up tennis serve stats, but found it a pain in the ass - it might be a good area for anyone else who is interested to investigate though. I would be interested to find out accuracy vs speed for the top players of each gender.

So it seems the endurance and agility/dextrity are not so clear cut by any means, which leaves teamwork - and I wonder how much a stereotype that is that men can't work well as a team. Having played a lot of sports I would be surprised if a group that trains as a team does not work well as a team.

I tried looking up tennis stats to see if I could find any records of serve performances

Even if you do allow the compeition - unless the teamwork difference is huge then you have a group of proveably faster, stronger, more enduring athletes matched against a team that if the stereotype is correct may have slightly better teamwork..

And even then - where do you draw the line - rowing is a team sport that would be very unsuitable for mixed competition, rugby might also be one that is not such a good idea given how crucial weight is in scrums and rucks/mauls, basketball where height is a massive advantage and high speed passes are very important? Vollyball with a net height that will allow more men than women to smash more effectively and harder? You have a very blurry line in these sorts of sports about where typical physical differences between male and female athletes does or does not make a difference. You'd have to make some very debateable calls on which sports become mixed - like Archery looks pretty fair, but Rugby (although not an olympic sport)... not so much.

This is not to say women are not as good athletes, but in many sports they are competing against different barriers and under different constraints. When this happens we recognise this and allow for it - which is why in many sports we have weight classes - Boxing, Judo, Weight Lifting. Even Rowing and Rugby have weight classes (not in Olympic events that I know of) in some places. This is not to say a light weight rower is 'worse' than a heavyweight rower, or that a featherweight boxer is inferior to a middle weight, but to acknolege that they are competing in different sports due to their physical differences - and that's within each gender.

Damn... I just wrote a followup on serve comparisons between Sampras and Venus Williams, but it got eaten.

The summary (now without the sources):

Williams: 62.5% Accuracy, 115mph average, 128mph top

Sampras: 61.5% Accuracy serving between 115 and 133mph, about a 120mph Average.

Williams is AFAIK the fastest female server, Sampras is a long way from theing the fastest male server. It looks though that there is not a huge arguement (in this particular activity) for better agility in the female competitors.

If anyone else wants to look up the stats of their returning serves then that would be great, I'd be very interested to see the comparison, but am now running out of time to go hunting on the internet.

“I mean, take a look at tennis, how do we know that Venus Williams wouldn't trounce Federer's ass like so much putty...we can't, because there is nothing we can use to measure the probabilities of the theoretical match.� – timothynakayama

No one can say for sure since they have never played each other, but I would bet the house on Federer every time.

I thought I read that the women's results were comparable to the men's in ski jumping. If there are not enough women asking to jump, and their organization is not sufficient to meet Olympic standards, why not let them compete with the men (assuming they qualify) until they do grow their organization?

It's hard to take feminist complaints seriously when they still ultimately support segregated competitions.

As a female athlete, maybe I can explain sex segregated sports.

In youth sports, most leagues are not sex segregated. I'm a soccer player and played with boys until around age 11. Because puberty hasn't hit, there aren't really any differences between the male and female adolescent body.

After puberty, when our bodies take the shapes and compositions they were meant to, as was mentioned above, men and women have different inherent strengths that go along with their biological sexes.

Now, I'm sure your snarky comment was referencing that "feminists think men and women are the same." This is patently untrue. Feminists think that men and women are equal but not the same. And in terms of athletic ability, when comparing Olympic-level athletes, there are definite differences. Where there is overlap in the general population in terms of athletic ability, the best of the best men will be, on average, stronger and faster (two attributes that are components of most sports) than the best of the best women. This isn't always the case, even at the Olympic level, but most feminists have no problem accepting that there are biological differences between men and women.

Therefore, accurately measuring who is truly the best often means that the sexes will be split up. This is because while men and women may be different, they are equal and should be recognized as such.

As for mixed sex team sports, I'm going to have to advocate for splitting the sexes there, too. First of all, the sexes have been split in competitions for years. Women are used to they style of play of most women and vice versa. Also, sexism still occurs within teams. I currently play in a co-ed adult soccer league. I've thrown out my voice more than once screaming for the ball because I was open and still not had male teammates pass to me, preferring to pass to another male player who has an opponent on him. If the teams were mixed, women would have less opportunity to really play.

And, especially with soccer, the men's advantage of strength can outmatch women's skill. When I play co-ed, I can be ten times as skilled as a male opponent. But as soccer is a contact sport, a man can use his strength to simply knock me off the ball when I demonstrate that I have the skill to get by him.

To get back to the OP, I have to say I (shock!) agree with noname. If there are not enough women to justify segregating the sexes in ski jumping, let them compete with the men rather than ban them all together.

"Now, I'm sure your snarky comment was referencing that 'feminists think men and women are the same.'"

No, I was being completely serious. I don't think that being ill-suited for certain sports because you're female is any more of an excuse than being ill-suited for certain sports due to any other conceivable reason. Some men will just never be gold medalist sprinters, no matter how hard they work. Do we have separate competitions for them? No, we just put them against everyone else, then give gold to whoever finishes first.

I just think the same should be done for women.

I thought I read that the women's results were comparable to the men's in ski jumping."

They definitely are.

On Jan 5, at the Canadian National Championships, US jumper Lindsey Van (R) set the hill record of 105.5 meters on the NEW 90M OLYMPIC JUMP in Vancouver, and Jessica Jerome (L) flew 102. Canadian Greg Baxter set the men's record at 99 meters.

http://skijumpingcentral.com/

(though it looks the men were given a negative handicap)

http://feministing.com/archives/008642.html#comments

(post from last time we were hearing about women ski jumping)

Some men will just never be gold medalist sprinters, no matter how hard they work.

So, basically, we should just discourage all women from sports because after they physically mature, they're not going to be better than the physically best men, even if they are the physically best women?

Based on physical differences between men and women, Olympic-level men will pretty much always beat even Olympic-level women.

That's not really a competition. If track and field sports were integrated, participation by women would decrease in nearly all age levels of the sport because, why bother?

Just because women cannot compete at the exact same physical level as men, even when training rigorously for years, does not mean that the world should ignore their accomplishments when they are the best of the best of all females.

I have no problem with women integrating into men's side of sports if that's how they want to play (like Annika Sorenstam). But female athletes should have a place to compete and excel, too. We deserve to play.

I like the analysis of men vs. women in athletics and the progress being made by women as more women enter the sporting arena. It certainly is a tip of the hat to Title IX legislation. The US Army has certainly taken notice. For years, their physical fitness tests were based on two scales for male and female. There are three events: push-ups, sit-ups, and a two mile run. As women began kicking everyone's asses in the sit-ups, the scale was changed to just one standard--a higher one! Yeeeah! And the gap in the run and the push-up was narrowed...and I think will continue to be narrowed as more athletic women enter the ranks. It's only a matter of time. It's all about conditioning, training, and starting early. Ask most military women and they will tell you that they absolutely prefer one standard--it's motivational, cuts down on the "double standard" chatter, and just makes more sense.

ellestar,
I used to agree with your statement completely but now I have my doubts, especially as it relates to pro sports and high school sports. To take your sorenstam example, female golfers make less than male golfers due to a number of factors. I think that will change as the sport grows and we might see something like in tennis where, at least for Americans, the women draw (make money for the sponsors/owners) at the same level as or higher than the men. My problem is, either now where they make less or in the future when they make the same or more, why should sorenstam be integrated with the men when there is a female tour available to her but not to the man whose spot she has taken. i know golf is a poor example for this with their sponsors exceptions and all that but I hope you can see what I'm getting at. Why should there be a womens league and a coed league that men can be a part of? This is most troublesome for me in high schools as youg men lose spots to talented girls with no recourse. Its hard because overall I believe its a good thing that women are playing more sports but that doesnt help when I explain to a kid that he cant play softball now that he has been cut from the baseball team to make room for some great female player/s.
As far as women overall in sports that might play more to their natural advantages, well men still dominate in most of those though I think this will change as the pool of women playing them increases. The best male billiards, poker, darts, shuffleboard, and so on players still beat the best female ones but again, I think as more women play this will change.
Finally on venus williams, there was a famous female tennis player who played in the not too distant past, I cant remember which one but she said she knew exactly how well she'd do against a man, she was #1 in the world as one point and her male playing partner was #187 and they split their matches.

JackieKayOh:
"And the gap in the run and the push-up was narrowed...and I think will continue to be narrowed as more athletic women enter the ranks. It's only a matter of time. It's all about conditioning, training, and starting early. Ask most military women and they will tell you that they absolutely prefer one standard--it's motivational, cuts down on the "double standard" chatter, and just makes more sense."

Exactly. If women are beating men in physical endeavours such as this, doesn't that mean that the "advantage" that men have in strength as has been pointed out by everyone, can be negated with the early conditioning and training? Hasn't it be said somewhere before (I'm not too sure where!) that given the right conditioning and training, women can be just as strong as men? Isn't a lot of this based around the fact that society says men are stronger, and thus women get discouraged from engaging in strength training exercises and thus, inevitably, end up being not as strong as men, because they are not fulfilling their inherent potential?

I think this example, of women beating men in military training, would be a very strong argument to have women and men compete against each other, or with each other.

jamespi:
"My problem is, either now where they make less or in the future when they make the same or more, why should sorenstam be integrated with the men when there is a female tour available to her but not to the man whose spot she has taken."

I can see how this is problematic. Since women can take part in the men's tournament, but not vice versa, therefore, if more women wanted to take part in men's events, therefore, more males would be displaced from the men's tournament, and thus, leave men with less and less spots. I'm not sure how this can be fixed, except perhaps to have a women's event, men's event and a co-ed event, but that is not financially or time feasiblie. Or perhaps, instead of displacing/taking up men's spot, perhaps there could be several spots just for women to fill in the men's event. But then again, that would rankle some people, as they would claim that more than X number of women are just as good to play with the men.

ellestar:
"Women are used to they style of play of most women and vice versa."

Just on a tangent, do women play football (soccer to Americans) any differently than men? Seeing as how even when men play football, there are an incredibly enormous variety of playing styles, wouldn't it be more of an individual/group playing style, rather than a gender playing style? I mean, look at the Italians who until recently played a very defensive style, or the Brazilians who play a very fluid, dynamic style (ie. beautiful football) or the Germans who played defensive and used more aerial attacks than other teams, or the South Koreans, who shocked everyone in 2004 when they displayed incredible fitness to run rings around their opponents.

Alice:
In many sports where there is an easily identifiable factor that affects performance we implement seperate events. In martial arts and weightlifting there are a large number of weight classes, in rowing you have lightweight events where at that weight a person is too light to compete as a 1 or 8 in a heavy weight boat. Motorsport has very clearly defined lines on Engine size. Hell - even Fishing performance is judged against the weight and type of fish caught against differnt strengths of fishing line.

In many sports the differences in male to female performance is similar to the difference in weight classes - and that is why it is seperated out. Obviously in some sports there is no measurable difference - like Archery, but it is easier to seperate out all rather than look at integrating some, with a number of very grey choices.

Timothy: I read a study by the USAF (I think)that found that when adjusted for cross sectional area of muscle, trained women performed equally with trained men and ditto for untrained women and men. however they found that with upper body strength trained women performed at about the same level as the untrained men. However the men in almost all cases were lifting more, as they were physically bigger and had larger cross sectional area of muscle. So for sports were leg strength is most important women with training perform equally with men, when adjusted for muscle area.

Alice:
In many sports where there is an easily identifiable factor that affects performance we implement seperate events. In martial arts and weightlifting there are a large number of weight classes, in rowing you have lightweight events where at that weight a person is too light to compete as a 1 or 8 in a heavy weight boat. Motorsport has very clearly defined lines on Engine size. Hell - even Fishing performance is judged against the weight and type of fish caught against differnt strengths of fishing line.

In many sports the differences in male to female performance is similar to the difference in weight classes - and that is why it is seperated out. Obviously in some sports there is no measurable difference - like Archery, but it is easier to seperate out all rather than look at integrating some, with a number of very grey choices.

Timothy: I read a study by the USAF (I think)that found that when adjusted for cross sectional area of muscle, trained women performed equally with trained men and ditto for untrained women and men. however they found that with upper body strength trained women performed at about the same level as the untrained men. However the men in almost all cases were lifting more, as they were physically bigger and had larger cross sectional area of muscle. So for sports were leg strength is most important women with training perform equally with men, when adjusted for muscle area.