Feminist Sport?

My views on

Open Play. The Case for Feminist Sport

by Sheree Bekker and Stephen Mumford (Reaktion Books, 2025)

Sport is a feminist issue. We also know that it is highly gendered. But what if what we know about gender and sport is wrong?

Sheree Bekker and Stephen Mumford set out to show that physical differences between men and women are artificial ('socially constructed'), not ‘natural: they are the result of social and cultural forces including differences in opportunities, resources, and rewards. Furthermore, Bekker and Mumford make their argument by asking readers to reflect on history, science, cultural representations, and the politics of sport.

Their greatest wrath is focussed on the category ‘women’s sport’. They make coherent arguments for the radical position that ‘women’s sport’ has been deliberately created as a way of ensuring that female athletes remain subordinate to male ones. ‘Women’s sport’ cement ideas and practices that result in women never beating men at their own game.

The greatest lie of all is that ‘women’s sport’ benefits women. Bekker and Mumford argue that the ‘performance gap’ between male and female athletes (typically estimated to be around ten per cent) is the result of differential treatment of female athletes: they are given inferior facilities; second tier training; prejudiced socialization, fewer rewards for excelling; and so on.

Bekker and Mumford encourage us to ask: ‘are women treated differently because they are the physical inferiors of men, or are women the physical inferiors of men because they are treated differently?'

Anyone who has read anything on the history of female athletes will know that they have been disparaged and denied opportunities throughout time. Prierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, even argued that the Olymics should be ‘reserved for men’. Until recent decades, a vast array of sports have explicitly prevented girls and women from participating, despite clear evidence not only that women enjoy sport but are actually very good at them. When given equal training and opportunities, that is.

Who is the ‘woman’ in ‘women’s sport’? I was stunned to be reminded that it is only female athletes who have their bodies surveyed for gender conformity. In order to participate in sports, women have to prove that they are ‘women’. The techniques and technologies used to demonstrate ‘true femaleness’ are scientifically unfounded, profoundly prejudicial, and humiliating (if you only have time to read one chapter, it must be Chapter Three). No-one participating in ‘men’s sport’ (which is called ‘sport’) have to endure nude parades, chromosome testing, or any of the many other kinds of ‘gender tests’ that have proliferated in recent decades. This is because the male is the default ‘human’. It is a terrible thing to be reminded that ‘sex tests’ are no longer the preserve of elite, professional sporting bodies, but are being used in primary and high schools throughout the U.S.

The most powerful arguments in this book refer to trans athletes: these were the sections that were most revealing to me. There is a moral panic about ‘imposters’ in 'women’s sport', accompanied by claims that, without ‘sex verification’ in sport, women will never win tournaments. This is nonsense, Bekker and Mumford exclaim. They warn that

if we allow attacks on trans athletes to continue unchecked, and accept the patriarchal policing of women’s bodies, this will quickly transfer to any woman whose body fails to match a certain narrow standard of femininity.

What should be done? Bekker and Mumford make a strong distinction between ‘protected spaces’ (which serve the interests of the disadvantaged group in an unequal relationship) and ‘segregated spaces’ (which serve the interests of the privileged group), arguing that women’s sports are an example of the later. They make a plea for the desegregation of sport. The deeply paternalistic arguments about women, describing them as innately weaker and less capable, do female athletes an immense disservice. Who benefits from segregated sports? A patriarchal-orientated, misogynistic (men’s) sport. (Male athletes also suffer from patriarchy, but that is another issue).

A truly feminist sport would be inclusive. It would move beyond the binary of male/female, and celebrate all forms of human difference. Bekker and Mumford are calling for nothing less than a feminist future in sport, in which ‘collaborative activity’ will ‘raise and nourish us all’.

It is a thought-provoking and invigorating read.