Should Boys and Girls Teams Compete in the Same League
I’ve competed in sports my entire life. I currently play volleyball, basketball, and soccer, but have also done archery and horseback riding for a large portion of my life. I play on all-girls teams now, but I have either played on co-ed teams or scrimmaged with all-boys teams in any sport. Some sports, I don’t really think it matters what gender you are; Chess, for example, is a mental game and is an even playing field for both genders. But even though I don’t think it’s right to separate gender in chess, I do think boys and girls teams should be separate in physical sports.
There is science backing this up. Boys, as everyone knows, have a lot more testosterone than girls. Girls have between 15-70 ng/dl of testosterone whereas boys have 208-496 ng/dl. Testosterone allows boys to build more muscle mass and strength, stronger bones, and just overall increases physical physique. This leads to men having a 45% higher vertical and a 25% faster sprint. This means that boys will always have a biological advantage against girls when engaging in any physical activity.
This can lead to lots of problems if they compete together. Namely, injuries would be more common. Women are already more susceptible to injuries such as ACL tears, shin splints, and ankle sprains. Now, if they were playing with boys who biologically will be stronger and faster than them, more injuries would be bound to happen. Plus, another advantage of testosterone is that boys recover faster. So maybe at the end of a sports season a girl might need more rest than a boy purely because the girl’s body needs longer to heal.
Another issue is fairness. Because of all of the advantages of testosterone, boys will be biologically better than girls at sports. Girls have to work twice as hard to build muscle or speed than boys do. If a boy and a girl have the same drive to make it pro and work really hard at the same sport, biologically the boy will be better and take away opportunities from that girl. Women in sports would fade out of existence because the boys will always be better. Female athletes just wouldn’t exist anymore.
The same goes for the boys though too. While testosterone does give them huge advantages in sports with a lot of explosive movements like jumping and sprinting, women’s bone structure is better for long distance sports such as long distance swimming and running. The bone structure of girl’s hips and shoulders make it easier for them to bear the weight of running for long and their higher body fat makes them more buoyant in the water. They are also more flexible which is helpful in sports like gymnastics, dance, and figure skating. Those would quickly become women dominated sports.
Boys and girls are athletically the same till they’re 8 but when they get to middle school, high school, and further on, it is no longer fair or safe for girls and boys to play together. The advantages and disadvantages between the two genders are too great to make them compete together. The reason that they are separate is because there are so many differences in gender that matter in physical sports. They are also separate in order to protect both female and male athletes from gender erasure in their sports.
Works cited
Handelsman, David J et al. “Circulating Testosterone as the Hormonal Basis of Sex Differences in Athletic Performance.” Endocrine reviews vol. 39,5 (2018): 803-829. doi:10.1210/er.2018-00020
"Why Girls Should Not Be Allowed to Play Sports with Boys." Wildcat Voice, https://wildcatvoice.org/854/opinion/why-girls-should-not-be-allowed-to-play-sports-with-boys/.
"Testosterone Levels." Mount Sinai Health System, https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/tests/testosterone#:~:text=Normal%20Results&text=Male%3A%20300%20to%201%2C000%20nanograms,0.5%20to%202.4%20nmol%2FL.
"Normal Testosterone Levels by Age." Baptist Health, https://www.baptisthealth.com/blog/mens-health/normal-testosterone-levels-by-age#:~:text=Normal%20testosterone%20level%20in%20early,100%20to%201%2C200%20ng%2FdL.
I really like some of the points you make here, even though I believe that there should be some blend between certain sports. It is true that males have a higher ability to gaining muscle mass compared to females but I think that there should be more in play when differentiating the two than just their sexs. I think we should view it similarly to wrestling where it depends on multiple factors such as weight and agility (along with other things) to determine where someone should be placed.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a great take on this topic. I am so used to hearing "Boys are just better at athletic things" and "Girls don't stand a chance in competitions." But your fifth paragraph is super awesome in defending against that. I really appreciated you taking both sides of the argument here. And it was really interesting to read into the nitty gritty and the "why" of it.
ReplyDelete