The legal issue here is interesting, and I'm surprised that it (apparently) hasn't come up before. To what extent is an international organization like the IOC bound by national anti-discrimination laws? The plaintiffs don't seem very confident about any case they might have against the IOC itself, but the legal relationship between it and VANOC seems a bit murky as it relates to this sort of question.
It also seems just a little odd that the IOC considers men's and women's versions of the exact same sport to be completely different sports. I suppose average physical differences make separate competitions reasonable, but I don't see why that separation has to extend to administrative decisions like this one.
That video's narration starts off by noting that social injustice occurs "when equals are treated unequally, and unequals are treated equally", but then claims that "discrimination based on gender is a form of social injustice".
We're deep in White Queen territory here.
I suppose average physical differences make separate competitions reasonable, but I don't see why that separation has to extend to administrative decisions like this one.
I think it does make sense. Some Olympic sports require different administrative decisions for men and women -- football especially, but suppose netball was to be Olympicised?
Social inequalities in those can be easily remedied with some creative surgery.
This came up briefly in one of our earlier discussions of women in sports.
8: As I was re-reading that thread, I started to think I must have been high while commenting because none of my references to other comments made any damn sense, but then I remembered that I don't do drugs and so it must have been from the period when renumbering accompanied comment deletion.
I think one of the issues is ensuring that the sports at the Games have lots of international representation and are sufficiently advanced that giving them an international stage makes sense. The first is so there can be some illusion of competition between nations (new sports are almost always dominated by one or two rich countries), and the second is so that it's a good competition.
I think the alleged problem with women's ski jumping is that there aren't all that many competitors yet, and they're all from a handful of countries.
they're all from a handful of countries
Isn't that a general criticism of the Winter Olympics, all references to the Jamaican bobsled team aside?
What about Titball or Dickball?
Those aren't Van Halen songs, ben.
11: A quick look around the Internet suggests that it's worse in the case of women's ski jumping; it hasn't even had its own World Championship yet. Which means it's essentially a regional sport. Which means it probably needs another few years and then it will be admitted. Hockey and soccer and sabre fencing and the martial arts went through the same thing.
It doesn't have much to do with the quality of the competitors, or gender except to the extent that sexism means that certain events haven't been competed by women, and it's not a problem with dominance by one country, but more that it's not a (Western) world-wide sport. If they do an exhibition in 2010 they'll probably be a medal sport in 2014.
If there is no women's event in a sport, can women compete in the men's version? To me, ski jumping seems like one where women might be on equal footing with men (not much upper body strength needed, less density might help them fly further,) but I don't know much about the skills required.
If they exclude women from an event where there is no women's version, that seems like discrimination.
I'm thinking we should go back to the old style Olympics, with competitors buck nekkid and none of this newfangled gimcrackery like winter sports. Discus, Javelin, foot races, rasslin'. The only innovation should be letting women compete.
I call dibs on the TV rights.
15 i already thought that thought once here
It would be good for Minnesota again, which already does well in co ed curling and women's hockey.
Curling, marksmanship, archery, and equestrian are coed right now. They say that women are competitive at running events longer than 50 miles, and they used to be competitive at long distance swimming but that seems to have changed. Billiards is not Olympic but it seems to me that women could easily be competitive. I believe that women are also competitive in poker, which should be an Olympic sport.
We're deep in White Queen territory here.
Are you trolling, Ben?
16 pwned, then. I'll split the TV rights with you. We'll be rich.
Not Olympic curling, apparently.
14: ski jumping seems like one where women might be on equal footing with men
It does appear that the very top women are up with the men. From some "side-by-side" results I found, it looked like typically one or two women would have been near the top of the men and then a steep drop off. The following are top jumps at the Whistler Olympic Park per a recent NPR story (Lindsey Van is female).
Normal Hill
* 105.5 meters, Lindsey Van/USA, 2/28/2008
* 105.0 meters, Guido Landert/Switzerland 2/28/2008
* 104.0 meters, Stefan Kaiser/ Austria, 2/28/2008
* 102.5 meters, Nicolas Fettner/Austria, 2/27/2008
* 101.5 meters, Stefan Read/Canada, 1/05/2008
Large Hill
* 140.5 meters, Guido Landert/Switzerland , 2/29/2008
* 139.0 meters, Robert Johansson/Norway , 2/29/2008
* 133.0 meters, Stefan Read/Canada , 1/04/2008
* 128.5 meters, Lindsey Van/USA, 1/04/2008
How can you be sure, with a name like "Lindsey"? I think that a panty check is in order.
19 great, that's fair
i'll become a space tourist maybe and can die after that
To the extent it's accepted that the same sport is always treated as separate for women and men, I don't see their case - the IOC has requirements for inclusion (though I've had a devil of a time figuring out what they are in full), and this hasn't met them. In particular, the article says:
The women hoped getting approval to compete in Liberec, Czech Republic, in February would convince the IOC to make an exception to its requirement that a sport must have contested at least two world championships before it can become an Olympic event. The IOC's ruling came down in November 2006 -- no exception would be granted.
--so unless the IOC issues exceptions routinely, I think they're being treated fairly.
I wouldn't mind a discrimination suit forcing the justification of gender separation case-by-case, though.
23 - Odd. I am currently working alongside a former senior executive of Space Adventures, and have done some lobbying work on legislation affecting the suborbital space tourism industry. I'll hook you up.
25 haaa, what a coincidence, really
it's like telepathy something
okay, i want the TV rights, now!
Curling, marksmanship, archery, and equestrian are coed right now.
Not at the Olympic level, iirc. They could be, maybe.
There doesn't seem to be a good reason not to let women who qualify compete with the men, though I think it would still be good to have a women's division eventually (Van seems to be something of an outlier. Plus, the boys might still want medals even if they're not as good.)
but otoh have to die after that, so, no rush, i'll wait another 5-10 yrs perhaps
Yeah, apparently the Olympics divides everything. Some say it's just so that there can be more medals to award. I've seen co-ed or mixed national championships in all of those sports except curling.
I still don't think that Canadian woman with a rocket booster instead of legs should be allowed to compete.
Do you have to die after being a space tourist? I am unsure on the evidence for this.
28: It's a deal. It'll take a few years to line up funding, locations, sponsors, anyway.
32 -> 30. It does seem like a sport where a well-timed explosive fart (or better yet, projectile diarrhea for the greater mass) would give that little something extra to put you over the top.
31 that's like kind of resolution, one have to bargain with fate is my belief, one can't have it all
32 i'll wait :) be pushy though
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. You may have heard the expression 'See Paris and die.' I advise you to look out your window."
one hass
the other day i practiced html tags, did not find the correction tags yet
Rather women's jumping than "moguls" -- one sure way to tell a real sport from a contrivance is whether Classic Rock is involved.
I still don't think that Canadian woman with a rocket booster instead of legs should be allowed to compete.
I hate it when her skis catch on fire. All that drama.
...one sure way to tell a real sport from a contrivance is whether Classic Rock music is involved.
See also Ice Dancing and Rhythmic Gymnastics.
I sure disagree about ice dancing. I watched some on Xmas day and some of those stunts look fearsome. Scating gracefully along while lifting someone over head by their groin area and holding them overhead strikes me as near impossible, and being thus held overhead by the groin doesn't look easy either.
A lot of difficult things aren't sports. Admittedly scating gracefully is something to which we should all aspire.
Ski jumping would be improved if the moves were accompanied by a band consisting of a drums, slide whistle, and cymbals. Drumroll, WhooooooooooeeeeeeeeEEEE, Crash!
We've been through this argument before, and it all seems to be about whether winners and losers can be objectively quantified. In terms of athleticism, ice dancing has it way over a lot of that stuff, e.g. luge.
Without corruption in the judges, we probably wouldn't even have this argument.
I think that unconscious judge bias is significant in these types of events. Also the fact that what is considered important seems to shift over time bothers me.
I'm with you on the athleticism thing, though.
A lot of the subjectively judged events just have a lot more amazing athleticism than a lot of the other stuff. Even though it's foo-foo and pretty.
"I think the alleged problem with women's ski jumping is that there aren't all that many competitors yet?"
Why is that? Admittedly I know next to nothing about the world of serious winter sports, but ski jumping wouldn't seem to be a naturally gender biased sport, either culturally or physically.
There are very few ski jumpers of any gender, outside Scandinavia at least. There just aren't that many ski jumps, and few of them are usable more than 4 months a year.
re: 48
It looks really dangerous, and for the obvious cultural reasons women's participation in dangerous sports was discouraged until fairly recently?
I doubt it's any more dangerous than downhill skiing or, say, equestrianism.
How many people worldwide have ever engaged in ski jumping? Ten thousand?
Whatever it is, it's still probably more than Olympic-style trampolining or skeletonizing.
The abstract of a 1991 study of American ski jumpers: "Little data are available in the medical literature on nordic ski jumping injuries. Injury questionnaires were sent to all active American ski jumpers registered either with the United States Ski Association or with a jumping club registered with the United States Ski Association. One hundred thirty-three of 286 (46.5%) injury ques tionnaires were returned. Eighty-one of the 133 re spondents (60.9%) had been injured sufficiently to re quire examination by a physician at least once during their jumping careers. This report describes the types and frequencies of injuries sustained by this group of nordic ski jumpers as well as provides demographic data about American ski jumpers. The risk of injury per 100 participant years was 9.4, a rate less than that reported for most high school or college intermural sports."
So, 286 people in the United States were "active ski jumpers" in 1991. That provides a good perspective.
Indeed. And according to the always reliable Wikipedia, there are 135 women ski jumpers "competing on an international level". Which seems plenty to me for an individual sport. Still, the world championships rule would seem to be overriding (except for, you know, baseball and basketball and so on), at least until 2011 when there should have been two women's championships.