Linguivocal podcast epiode # 9
Listen online: (episode length: 09:38 minutes) 
Yesterday, I read an article about sport and sexes in our linguist library. Now days, there are lots of concern about sex discrimination and equal opportunities. There is no doubt that women should be treated equally in every field. In today’s modern society, women are not behind us but they work equally along with men. It is common in society, perticularly at work place, woman get less pay than her colleague male worker. That’s the reason why the sex discrimination act is implemented in most of the countries. Women have organisations and there are human right commissions that fight for women for their equal opportunity and equal pay. However, sometimes the definition of human right is being stretched too much so that it creates dispute in society.
Now, there are increasing cases of sex discrimination in sport and women want equal opportunity in every sport. Some cases are based on human rights and they consider sport as a sort of human right. It is sometime hard to implement the definition of equal opportunity or human rights in sport. There are so many sports where strength and fitness are main traits of player and women can’t compete with men. Sports like soccer, rugby, NHL, and same sort of sport events, really need you to be tough and fit physically as well as mentally. These are outdoor sports and team sports, where physical fitness is prime important. In such sports, woman can’t compete with other men members of the same age. In scientific language, the growth of our body in boys and girls is same at certain period of age. However, after puberty boys grow faster than girls and they become more muscular and tough physically. So, even though some girls are good in a particular sport or sometime better than boys, they no longer compete with boys after puberty. Boys get more strong and wiry and tough even if they are the same age or sometimes smaller. I personally feel that this should not be an issue of human right. It shouldn’t be a human right for girls. If a girl is very good in soccer at school level, but then she is refused by soccer club then this should not be treated as a human right for that girl. This can’t be a human right.
The most important thing is that now sport is merely not a game but it is a huge trade and people invest lots of money on sport. So, it should be a club’s decision whether women are allowed or not in men’s team. After all it is matter of money and nobody wants to ruin. However, it also looks odd that woman is playing in men’s team in terms of physics as well as tradition. We are used to see some sports played only by men and it is hard to accept women in that sport. I think there are so many other ways to improve women’s role in sport, instead of fighting in the terms of human right. Women can create a separate women team and league matches. They can pressurise the government to improve sport facility for women so that more and more women can take part and become competitive player at international level. Now there are separate events for women at international level in various sports like cricket, hockey and so on. So it is not logical and ethical to argue for place in men’s team. There are so many sports where women and men can take part equally; like tennis, badminton, chess, holly ball where physical strength is not as important as in other games. I think it should not be a right for woman to be selected in men’s team even though she looks like competitive. Otherwise boys start to inter in girls team as it might be a human right for them to be played in women’s team and actually that will lead less women in women’s team.
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