From: hillyard@msc.cornell.edu
Subject: Re: Sexist and 50/50 (Was: Elle MacPherson causes rape?)
Originator: hillyard@tiger.msc.cornell.edu
Reply-To: hillyard@msc.cornell.edu
Organization: Cornell-Materials-Science-Center
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 02:19:46 GMT

From article <1992Nov21.173824.17310@midway.uchicago.edu>, by mec6@quads.uchicago.edu (rini):
> hillyard@lynx.msc.cornell.edu.UUCP (Sean Edward Hillyard) writes:
>>mec6@quads.uchicago.edu (rini):
> 
>>> To the point, are there situations you can think of that exist today
>>> where men and women participate in something equalthat exisly and where the very 
>>> fact of 50/50 participation is evidence of sexism?  (For clarity, let's set
>>> aside the whole idea of "forced quotas" etc.)  I must admit that I'm
>>> having a hard time coming up with examples to prove your point.
>  
>>How about professional tennis, golf and the olympics.  
> 
> Interesting.  How do you consider 50/50 participation in these things 
> sexist?  

Take tennis.  Without segregation by sex there might be a handful of women 
competing on the circuit--it would be no where near the 50-50 it is today.
I don't know what the final alt.feminism definition of sexism ended up
being :), but since Lendl is banned from trying to earn prize money in half 
the tournaments because he's male, it probably qualifies.

[...]
>>Or even
>>college athletics where the courts have begun requiring (a Univ. of 
>>Washington ruling comes to mind) that a certain percentage of participants
>>have to be women.  Here we have a clear case of a big advantage for a certain
>>sex and the solution is not to have open tryouts with the best, regardless
>>of sex, making the team, but instead a fixed percentage required to be women.
> 
> I believe it could be argued that this called "forced quotas".  (See my text 
> above.)  You could argue otherwise, though, since the men and women are
> not trying out for the same team.  (That is, a good female athlete cannot
> "bump" a male from his team, right?)

Not true.  If there wasn't a womens team, and even then probably,
a women could get onto the men's team in most cases.  For example, a women
is trying out for one of the new NHL teams, they just had a (high school) 
women on ESPN last night who made the mens, rather than the womens team, I
believe there is a women who plays on one of the CBA (professional basketball
league a step below the NBA) teams, etc.  They do have a women's professional 
basketball league (not much exposure, but there is one), do you think I could 
try out for the team?  Its doubtful.  Even in chess its the open division for 
both men and women, and then separate womens divisions.

[...]
> 
> Do you think it a non-sex-prejudiced society that differentiated men's and 
> women's sports would cease to exist?  Do you think that different 
> percentages of participants would be men and women?
> 

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by differentiated (segregated?).  But
there is no doubt that any sport requiring speed or strength would
be dominated by men.  For example, I was a mediocre Div III 400 meter 
runner, yet I probably would have medaled in the Olympics competing against 
the women.  (As another example of the segregation only working one way.
Sex testing is done in the Olympics and other major track events, but only 
for the women.  The men aren't tested, a women could compete if she wanted).

[I think I delete one of your questions, something about whether I agree
with separating men and woman]

At the high school level I generally don't have a problem with it.  At the
college level I have more of a problem, and I don't agree with it at all on
the professional level.  The fact that it is so accepted I think is reflected
in the tendency to make physical requirements for jobs lower for women.
For example, apparently in the armed forces to get a high fitness mark a man 
needs to run 2 miles in 12:30, a women for the same mark gets three minutes 
more.

> rini  

SEH

Newsgroups: alt.feminism