This colloquium talk is planned as an in-person event with the speaker joining online. Registration is only required for non-CEU members.
ABSTRACT
Women’s sport is often considered to occur within a protected space, into which there is no voluntary entrance. Protection is presented as necessary since if men were allowed to compete against women, women would never win and, in the case of contact sports, women might sustain injuries. However, Women’s Sport is not a protected space but a segregated one. The differences between protected and segregated spaces is that the former serve the interests of those within the spaces while the latter serve the interests of those outside them. This is evident in a second difference, which is that a protected space permits voluntary exit while a segregated space does not. What this suggests is that the creation of Women’s Sport – a separate women’s category – was not the straightforward feminist win that some might consider it to be. Segregated spaces exist to perpetuate injustice and the create difference rather than merely reflect it. If so, this may assist in an argument for the sex-desegregation of sport. We must consider, then, how the resultant Feminist Sport is to be distinguished from the current Women’s Sport.
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