Gender divisions ‘irrelevant’
It’s overtime in the 2019 Rugby World Cup final and Springbok prop Steven Kitshoff is bullocking towards the All Blacks try line in search of the match-winner. Just as it looks as if there’s no stopping him, opposing prop former Black Fern Toka Natua smashes him over the sideline and saves the game for New Zealand.
To most this will sound farfetched, but Canterbury doctor of sociology of sport Roslyn Kerr maintains separate male and female categories in sport are not the best way to divide athletes and could be discriminatory.
Kerr, head of department of Tourism Sport and Society at Lincoln University, says more research needs to be done around gender-based sports, as current divisions may be a form of discrimination, reinforcing male superiority.
In an article about her latest research paper, Kerr says she believes there are alternatives to male/female sports categories, based on physical attributes that result in superior performance in that particular sport. For example, those playing basketball would be categorised on height advantage and not necessarily gender.
She stands by her conclusion women who are big or strong enough, can be included in contact sports such as rugby union, rugby league and NFL.
‘‘What started me realising that the current female/male divisions are flawed, is looking at what actual traits make a difference in sport. Why are we looking at gender alone rather than traits that make a difference to that sport?’’
Kerr believes society has made men and women fit categories unsuitable to their physical makeups, based purely on gender - which was ‘‘unfair’’.
She suggests fitting athletes into categories that suit their genetic make-up, but admits this could be highly problematic. Ethically it was important to at least look into shifting the way we think about sports divisions and categories, she says.
‘‘In the perspective of fairness. We need to redesign this to what traits we actually have, what can your body do. Is this feasible given society is structured along the lines of gender? I am really aware of that, but we haven’t given a lot of thought ... is there a halfway ground, I don’t know.’’
Her research, published in the International Journal of Sports Policy and Politics, was undertaken before the controversy around transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard’s inclusion in the New Zealand Commonwealth Games team for 2018 arose, but she says the same values stand in transgender sport.
While many sport lovers would see it as wrong and perhaps unsafe to have men and women competing in contact sports, Kerr stands by the notion it could work through using her method of different division techniques.
‘‘We’ve never seen this, so we don’t know what it looks like,’’ she says.
‘‘Women are going to get hurt, but so are men, men get concussion too. This can be seen as discriminative.
‘‘If I was going to say let’s all just go for it, of course men are going to win, so this is why we need to bring in those other aspects and traits.
‘‘I fully acknowledge that given how strongly our society is structured by gender, this is a confronting idea.’’
Kerr concedes that in contact sports, the top female athletes would perhaps not make top tier teams, such as the All Blacks.
She says she is not making a personal stand as a feminist, but a carefully researched resolution to sports divisions that exclude many individuals who lie outside of what it is to be male/female physically.
‘‘There are feminists who argue against this position, saying that girls and women need to have their own events so that we have female role models.
‘‘I think the reason people will question this is because it is so difficult for anyone in our society to think outside of gendered positions.’’
Her research suggests there is no clear connection between a person’s gender and their sporting ability. Instead, the argument that men are superior to women in sport is based only on statistical averages.
‘‘The way things are split at the moment is based on the assumption that all men are superior to women, when that is not the case.’’
Kerr cites 1995 research from American sports professor Mary J Kane, which shows results of mixed gender marathons, in which women often finish within the top 10. Women do outperform men regularly, says Kerr.
Her claim is that athletes possess a range of other traits that will influence their sporting performances, arguably more strongly than their gender.
Current controversies, such as transgender athletes and where they fit in sport, have highlighted how the gender policy does not encompass all bodies, she said.