The Cause of Women’s and Men’s Gymnastics
The current competition state of Olympic Gymnastics is a large divide between the men’s version of the sport and the women’s version of the sport. They have different skills, events, and rules, yet there is still overlap. This separation of the sport was created under the idea that women could never compete against a male and win because of biological make up. The separate genders give the women a fair opportunity to compete against their own kind, and same for the men.
Women’s sports can be justified by biology. In The Washington Post Titled “The Key Question Raised By Lia Thomas’s Swimming Success: What is The Purpose of Women’s Sports?” Discusses how women’s sports were only created to benefit them and delete the unfairness that different biological make ups have in the sports world. They have been made in an attempt to benefit the women when in reality are only holding them back from real competition. It was stated in The Washington Post that “A woman is not a disadvantaged man.” A woman is their own unique and strong athlete with their own strengths and weaknesses. As a man has different strengths and weaknesses. Biology can also be considered unfair within women’s gymnastics. Some of the competitors were born with more athletic ability, or coordination than other women. Biology and gender will always be labeled as unfair so if we eliminate those titles all together we can eliminate the unfairness of competition that goes along with it.
Previously transgenders have had to go through extensive examinations in order to be eligible to compete in any Olympic sport. In and article by NBC News titled “International Olympic Committee Issues New Guidelines on Transgender Atheltes” discusses the elimation of making transgender go through hormone level modicaitioncs to compete. As these athletes were considered unfair they previously had to make adjustments to their hormone levels which is can be considered unethical, and thankfully has now been changed. Instead of changing the regulations and rules of the sport to make it unfair they were attempting to change the athletes themselves, to make them more fair. When the whole point of competition is to see who is the superior athlete.
By eliminating gender divisions in Olympic Gymnastics allows for more events and more competitors. Gender will no longer remain a title of unfairness. In this scenario Olympic gymnasts of any gender will be eligible to compete in all events, whether or not they were previously of only a specific gender. For example women being eligible to compete on the pommel horse, and men eligible to compete on the balance beam. This also opens the doors for transgenders who have the skill set to compete without considering their biological make up as an advantage or disadvantage.
In this evolved sport of Olympic Gymnastics events may have to be alerted to be inclusive for all, and have ranges of adjustments for different competitors. As women’s and men’s gymnastics have different events there are crossovers. But in the end the events would consist of: floor exercise, uneven bars, vault, balance beam, parallel bars, pommel horse, high bar, and rings. The events such as uneven bars, vault, and parallel bars would be able to be adjusted by the gymnast to their preferred height, as regulation calls for now in the Rules and Policies for 2020-2021. The remaining events already have set requirements that are fair to all competitors. The floor, pommel horse, high bar, rings, and balance beam are all the same size.
Within this open gender competition we are eliminating gender as an unfair quality, but not biology. In order to tend to that unfairness by distinguishing categories by size and weight. Men and women in the same range of height and weight will compete in all events together. With those classes of height and weight biological advantages will be eliminated because there will be no situation where a taller gymnast is at the disadvantage of a smaller gymnast, because they will not be in the same category. Smaller Men and larger women may find themselves in categories that are heavy in the opposite gender. But the regulations and rules of the event settings will allow for fair competition among the athletes. By simple judging based on these categories of height and weight we as spectators will have a more interesting time viewing the competitions. By seeing the difference between the larger male and female gymnasts versus the smaller male and female gymnasts. The difficulty of skills and the execution will differ based on their height and weight.
The door will be opened for new competitors. Including transgender gymansts who have yet to been seen in the gymnastic Olympic Games. And athletes of gender orientation will be eligible.Those who were before labeled as an unfair participant are no longer considered unfair. As gender is eliminated Olympic teams will be able to be coed. The Washington Post Titled “The Key Question Raised By Lia Thomas’s Swimming Success: What is The Purpose of Women’s Sports?” Stated “ winning isn’t the only purpose of sport; it also teaches teamwork, self discipline and important social values such as inclusion.” By opening up inclusion and making gymnastics able to compete individually or within a coed team brings more fairness to the sport. Coed teams will be competed in an even amount of men to women. For example a team will compete with three men and three women to be eligible. If a team had more men to women or more women to men it could be considered an advantage or disadvantage.
By settling certain labels and stereotypes we define as unfair, and creating more similarity within the sport of gymnastics, we can eliminate unfairness and have true competition. By changing the way the sport is competed and not those competing it opens doors for more intense competition and enjoyment for athletes, judges, and spectators. Gender and biology will be eliminated from the Olympics all together and no longer used in situations as to something being biased or unfair.
References
2020 – 2021 women’s program rules and policies. (n.d.). Retrieved April 4, 2022, from
McArdle, M. (2022, March 23). Opinion | The key question raised by Lia Thomas’s swimming success: What is the purpose of Women’s sports? The Washington Post. Retrieved April 4, 2022, from
NBCUniversal News Group. (2021, November 17). International Olympic Committee issues new guidelines on transgender athletes. NBCNews.com. Retrieved April 4, 2022, from
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Counterintuitive Fall 2022 
Hi professor, can I please have feedback on my arugment. I’m not completely sure what kind of feedback I want, all I know is I wanna make this better.
Let’s start with your opening paragraph, Reeses. My observations may apply to the rest of your paragraphs as well.
—It’s odd to claim that “The state is a divide.” And probably, if you were to choose the real SUBJECT of your sentence, it would not be STATE. The verb, IS, your choice, is the weakest of the verbs. So, let’s decide what your sentence really wants to say. The Men’s Version of Olympic gymnastics is divided from the Women’s Version of Olympic gymnastics. Who can we blame for that? The Olympics! The verb? Divided. Did they do so for a good reason? (Maybe.) Is it time to evolve beyond that reason? (Yes!) Can you say all that in your first sentence, to guide your readers directly to the heart of the argument? (Of course.)
FIRST DRAFT: The Olympics divided its gymnastic events into Women’s Gymnastics and Mens Gymnastics to give women a fair opportunity to compete against women; that division should now be abandoned.
—Now, we’re getting somewhere. Olympic gymnastics is divided by gender, but there is overlap in the events in which the competitors compete? Is that the point?
—Got it. This is a causal claim, and a valuable one. It establishes that somebody WAS TRYING TO BE FAIR when they separated the genders. Do you agree that the result is fairness? Or do you argue that the result is a “baked-in” inequality?
—Well, I’m surprised. I thought you were going to dispute the value of the gender divide and recommend, instead, that competitors be divided by height and weight, primarily, and perhaps some other non-gender physical characteristics.
If this introduction is meant to lead to an argument that gender division should be eliminated from the Olympics, I don’t see how it could succeed in that.
You meander, Reeses. I got lost three times on the way through your second paragraph.
Here are your sentences reduced to their essence:
1. Women’s sports can be justified by biology.
—This sounds like a defense of the gender divide. But what you really mean is that Women’s Sports has BEEN DEFENDED as a necessity dictated by biology.
2. In The Washington Post Titled “The Key Question Raised By Lia Thomas’s Swimming Success: What is The Purpose of Women’s Sports?” Discusses how women’s sports were only created to benefit them and delete the unfairness that different biological make ups have in the sports world.
—Women’s Sport was created to eliminate the biological advantages of size and strength that most men hold over most women.
3. They have been made in an attempt to benefit the women when in reality are only holding them back from real competition.
—But separating the genders deprives BOTH men and women from competing fairly against their true athletic rivals.
4. It was stated in The Washington Post that “A woman is not a disadvantaged man.”
—The Washington Post unmasks the hypocrisy in the gender divide, which treats women athletes as if they were physically inferior.
5. A woman is their own unique and strong athlete with their own strengths and weaknesses.
—Women athletes of any size can compete perfectly well against equal-sized men.
6. As a man has different strengths and weaknesses.
—Men, too, have a full range of athletic ability regardless of their size.
HERE YOU SHOULD START A NEW PARAGRAPH
7. Biology can also be considered unfair within women’s gymnastics.
—Fairness of the sort the Olympics claims to prefer is impossible anyway. Nature blesses some people more than others, both male and female.
8. Some of the competitors were born with more athletic ability, or coordination than other women.
—To reach the Olympics, all athletes have trounced opponents with less athletic ability and coordination.
9. Biology and gender will always be labeled as unfair so if we eliminate those titles all together we can eliminate the unfairness of competition that goes along with it.
—No Olympic rules can “balance the scales” to make life “fair” for clumsy weaklings. Separating women from men doesn’t make things fairer. It only deprives women the chance to compete against men with similar abilities.
I think my interpretations of the points you were trying to make are accurate, but comparing the versions should make it clear how much more careful you need to be to make your points specifically and very deliberately.
Does this help?
As a reader, I reject your proposal that coed teams be balanced by gender. That contradicts your own strong thesis that gender divisions are unfair. You’ll have to describe how teams are composed now, but if, for example, Yugoslavia used to send TWO teams of gymnasts to the Olympics: FOUR men and FOUR women, under your new rules they would send TWO teams of gymnasts to the Olympics: FOUR small gymnasts and FOUR large gymnasts, however you divide the sizes. If open competition regardless of gender determines who makes each team, the small team could include a man or two or a transgender athletes, and the large team similarly could end up either all men or mixed. THAT, I think, is the kind of fairness you’re looking for.
Am I right?
Feedback is a conversation, Reeses. Please respond.
If you’re a good thinker, Reeses, I can help you be a better writer, but it’s going to take a little work. Please schedule a conference in which I can conduct a writing exercise to break you of your habit of trying to write like a research paper. You need to write like a person telling another person a story about fairness.