Gender in sports

I am remembering back to a twitter conversation I had with a few other students after the lecture about the sprinter who won the female event, and then had her sexuality in question. Someone on Twitter had asked "If a male runner finishes last, do they question if he is a female?"

I get the point she was trying to make, that we assume being really good at sports as being a masculine thing, and being really bad at sports at being a feminine thing, but is that so wrong? Now, of course it's wrong to say if you are bad you are a girl, or that all girls are bad, or at the worst male athlete is better than the best female. None of those things are true. However, I think it's very fair to assume the average male athlete is going to be better than the average female athlete in strength-based events. Like I had said on Twitter, if this was a chess tournament that the woman won, no one would ever question if she was a guy, because men and women are intellectual equals. But physically, there is definitely a distinct difference. Also, I prefaced my comment above with "strength-based" because I think there are some sports or sporting events that are more of a particular skill that doesn't require strength or size. While I could tell you the world's strongest person, the world's faster person, the world's highest jumper are guaranteed to be male, I can't say the same for the world's most accurate rifle shooter, the world's best archer, the world's best curler, etc. Those are sports or events that require finesse, intelligence, discipline, and more of the cognitive skills than just shear strength or size. Not to make men sound like mindless behemoth's, but I think the playing field is even when it comes to those more intellectual events.

I hope that made sense.

Now back to my video games, where I can PRETEND to be a world class baseball player. Video game skills know no-genders!