I'm not usually into issues of access and opportunity in elite sports for women, but with the Winter Olympics on at the moment I heard about a campaign to get women's ski jumping into the 2014 games, as it is not yet allowed. There's a little video about it here: http://www.wikio.com/video/2833165

Not sure if it's one of those IOC things where they say a sport is too dangerous for women to do, but if so, that's getting tiring in this age. Time magazine's article on the matter says "In 1991, the IOC announced that all future Olympic sports must be open to both genders, but the rule didn't apply to sports that already existed — and as one of the 16 original events in the inaugural 1924 Winter Games, ski jumping was definitely one of them."

Hmm. The article goes on to say that the IOC wants all sports in the Olympics to meet some requirements like having it's own world championships and so on, and assessed women's ski jumping in 2006 when it might not have met the requirements, and the games can only accomodate so many athletes, and the Vancouver schedule was sorted ages ago, and blah blah blah. Sounds like a cop-out to me. But there's more: someone at the IOC says:

The sport "seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view."

WTF?! I need no response to this surely.

While there are clearly lots of women who ski jump (good for them), to continue to explicitly or implicitly discrimate against the sport will be a hindrance to more women becoming interested, the sport will remain constructed as for men only and will not be taken seriously, and it goes round and round. But what do we expect from the IOC, or any institutionalised corporate sport machine.

Trans Women in Sports

Edit: this was written mere hours before I heard about the controversy surrounding Caster Semenya. Here is an excellent post about some of the science implications in that case. I congratulate Semenya on her win in the 800m and wish her all the best.

At Shakesville today this was posted about the problems faced by trans women who wish to compete in women's sports. The issue that some media commentators seem to have (when do they not have issues?!) with trans sportswomen is their so-called advantage over cis women. Those poor little cis women have no chance against someone who used to be a man!

For a long time in women's sports, right through the 20th century, "mannish" women were treated with suspicion, mainly for potentially being lesbian (where masculine appearance = desire for women, wonderful logic), which we certainly can't have in ladies' sports, heavens no. Additionally, accusing a sportswoman of being lesbian could be fatal for her career. Cue spreading on the femininity thick to avoid accusations, whether lesbian or not.

This all was/is part of strategies to keep sport as a male domain. If women are seen to be able to compete in sports at a comparable standard to men - or even, forget about the men, women competing at all - they threaten the status of sports as places where boys learn to become men, where they can display their masculinity, or something.

But they didn't say that of course. On the outside, the reasons for attacking lesbians in sport were apparently because since lesbian clearly = more masculine (hmm), they would have an advantage over "normal" heterosexual women. So nows this spreads to trans women who are seen to have an advantage, despite no longer being under the influence of male hormones and losing any associated muscle mass. Because as we know, ALL men have superior muscle mass.

I also find it tedious that cis/straight women are considered to be weak, small, slow. This has been disproven, we know there is a significant overlap between the sizes of women and the sizes of men.

Two comment on the Shakesville thread I linked above have made me think.

1) What do these conservative commentators actually care about whether there are trans women, mannish lesbians, etc., in women's sports? Women's sports are a joke to many sports consumers, so why care? If a trans woman is "really" a man, as conservatives hatefully remind us, then she does not threaten the sports = male domain thing, does she, because she's not a "real woman", she's a man and so can't help with the "OMG women are growing as strong as men!" argument.

2) Where's the fear and hatred of trans men? Isn't that a more scary thing for the conservatives? Because trans men are really women, right, so that looks like women actually gaining a foothold in men's sports. But I guess one reason is that trans men are also a joke, they could never compete on the level of "real" men, will never get to the top levels, won't ever truly threaten those beefy macho men.

Its just one more thing that makes me see that heteronormativity, the link between sex, gender and desire, and maculinity/femininity being given tangible, natural and unchanging bodily and emotional qualities (when they seem more and more like a construction of a relationship) are three of the main barriers to equity in sports and elsewhere. Just end all this gender difference crap!

Welcome to Bodies Out Of Place

Welcome to my new blog, Bodies Out Of Place.

The reason for this blog is mainly for exploring my thoughts around bodies and identities, leaning towards examining issues in physical activity and sport. But I'm also interested in the problems and joys of bodies and their experiences in a contradictory gendered and racialised society. I've called this blog Bodies Out Of Place because often spaces/geographies/environments are off-limits to certain bodies. Bodies that don't fit the norm are supposed to be hidden, or disciplined, pummelled into a different shape. Bodies that are fat, unsexy, queer, ugly, disabled, not white, not heterosexual, not middle class are "bad", hidden, and must be improved. Where are the places that all bodies can be safe, strong, celebrated?

This will also be a place for me to thrash out ideas for my research, talk about life as a Ph.D student, and tell stories about my memories of school sport and PE and my current experiences as an (inactive) adult. I believe that telling our own stories/narratives is crucial to a research process that seeks to find personal, lived, experiences and understand the multiple ways in which we all make sense of the discourses and practices structuring our worlds. It might become a research diary for the remaining two years of my Ph.D.

h/t to my friend at the Corporealities blog who posted the Huffington Post article on why academics should blog - it led to this!