Rick Karcher alerts me to an interesting story in USA Today regarding French golfer Jean Van de Velde's attempt to enter next year's Women's British Open. ("Van de Velde Wants to Play in Women's British Open," USA Today, 10/27/2005). Van de Velde is upset that women may qualify for the 2006 British Open, so he plans on submitting an application to the women's tournament. Earlier this year, the Ladies' Golf Union, which runs the Women's British Open, established a one-gender policy: "It shall be a condition of any competition organized by the Ladies' Golf Union that players must be of the female gender." As we discussed in February, the Ladies' Golf Union also banned players who had sex-change operations to become females. That move was made in response to transsexual Mianne Bagger's attempt to qualify.
Van de Velde has some interesting remarks:
"I'll even wear a kilt and shave my legs. My whole point is where do we draw the line? If we accept that women can enter our tournaments, then it applies that men can play with women."So is Van de Velde right--is it sexist to have exclusive women tournaments, but open men's tournaments? Or is Van de Velde overlooking obvious competition concerns of having male golfers enter female tournaments? And how do we balance these interests in a socially-desirable way?
0 comments:
Post a Comment