Robb Newman writes:
 
>When I say that "separate but equal" sports programs can't be equal, I'm =
>NOT in any way suggesting that we should have one program that both men =
>and women have to try out for.
 
        Actually, I have a hard time seeing why that shouldn't be the
case.  The example of fencing is a good one; fencing teams are so
closely inter-linked that I thought men and women did compete in the
same sport.  I'd think that some sports could be made coed without
upsetting their gender balance.  And to bring us back to hockey, the
women's game is different from the men's, being non-contact.  You
could open both hockey teams up to men and women, and put
gender-neutral physical requirements on the "women's" game, sort of
like 150's football.  For women's basketball you could level the
playing field by requiring a maximum height [or minimum accuracy from
the free-throw line :-)].  And I'd like to see a
physiologically-average man try to compete in women's gymnastics.
 
        If you ask why sports are segregated by gender, it's
presumably because a secondary female sexual characteristic is a
physical build less conducive to sports.  But we come up with the
usual question of why a 5'5" man who wants to play college basketball
should be afforded less opportunity to do so than a 5'5" woman.  The
best reason to keep something like Title IX is the convergence of
men's and women's swimming and running times over the years, which
would indicate that that the disparity is as much social as physical.
(Do we really believe that there's not one woman in the country who's
as good as any of the thousands of men in major- and minor-league
baseball?  Or how about as an umpire or referee in any major league
sport?)  If it works, we would expect that in another twenty years the
participation and popularity of women's sports would be on par with
men's, and female athletes will be more comparable to male.  Then
colleges could open up their "men's" and "women's" teams, replacing
gender restrictions with physical ones, and all students, not just
those at the top of their gender physically, would have
intercollegiate athletic opportunities.
                                        John Whelan, Cornell '91
                                        <[log in to unmask]>
        <http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/jshock.html>
 
Cornell Men's Ice Hockey: Back-to-back ECAC and Ivy League Champions
 
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