Victimized by equality?

Drawing the gender line

Jacques Marcoux, Volunteer Staff

I always try to avoid using apocalyptical statements in my arguments, but it needs to be said: the Pasternak twins have set a precedent that could lead to the disintegration of women’s sports in Canada.

You may recall back in 2006, when the two sisters made headlines after winning their court battle, entitling them to tryout for their high school boys’ hockey team, despite the fact that a girls’ team was made available to them. The Manitoba High School Athletics Association (MHSAA) was required to compensate them financially as well as provide special training sessions to further their hockey skills.

The Human Rights Commission decided that the MHSAA was in fact guilty of gender discrimination for forcing girls to play only on all-girls teams. Following the decision, the MHSAA executive director, Morris Glimcher, immediately took action and appealed the case only to, unsurprisingly, have it rejected by the courts for a second time this past week.

The immediate knee-jerk reaction of most is to scoff at the courts for their verdict on the matter, when really we should be patting them on the back. If there is one thing learned from this case, it’s that the courts are functioning properly within their defined boundaries. They successfully identified, however counter-intuitive it may appear and despite strong public outcry, the narrowest and necessary legal principle that was under fire: discrimination on the basis of gender. This is certain.

The question then is not whether the Pasternak twins were the victims of discrimination, as the courts have already demonstrated. Rather we should ask ourselves whether or not charted rights and freedoms should be absolute in nature, as they currently are. Is there a point in time where some levels of discrimination are acceptable and even necessary to uphold some form of social order?

It is ironic that chartered rights are what likely accelerated the advancement of women’s sports, and now those very same rights are beginning to erode all that has been gained over the past half century. Gender rights were originally intended to counter discrimination from the realm of activities where there is no clear distinction between the abilities of men or women and thus both parties should be treated equally and provided with the same levels of opportunity. It is important to note that we currently accept a certain degree of discrimination in certain areas such as law enforcement, fire-fighting and in military. The common link that binds these three examples is an element of physical ability required in performing the specific tasks. High school sports, or even sports in general, should be viewed as an extension of this acceptable degree of gender discrimination. Why? Because it acknowledges that despite our best efforts to place both genders on the same playing field, in this specific example, males’ physical abilities are almost always superior. To put it another way: it takes reality into account. In the case of the Pasternaks, the issue was greatly magnified given the aggressive and physical nature of the sport. Certainly the public uproar would have been lesser if the sport in question was golf or curling.

Of course there will always be the exception to the rule. Although in this case the Pasternak sisters were not that exception (they were cut from the varsity boys’ team), others female athletes such as Hayley Wickenheiser (arguably the best woman hockey player in the world), has managed to play on a few semi-pro European leagues. Should we allow these few athletes to break down the gender barrier and play with the men’s league at the expense of developing stronger female leagues? Let’s not forget that gender discrimination is a double-edged sword: it can go both ways. This argument has been beaten like a dead horse, but it is still worthwhile re-iterating: if we allow women to cross over into men’s leagues, then we must also allow for men to cross over into women’s leagues, otherwise we are creating a discriminatory double-standard. The end result is easily imaginable. All the male athletes who fail to make the boys’ teams and still have a desire to compete will try out for the women’s team and inevitably force out all female participation due to their physical superiority, regressing female involvement in sport to levels equivalent to the pre-suffragette era.

Of course, the example above is the worst-case scenario, but it is not that far from the truth. Following the verdict back in 2006 favouring the Pasternak sisters, there were already a half-dozen requests from male athletes inquiring about the possibility of playing on a girls’ team, each of which were legitimate inquiries in the view of the MHSAA. The point is that we can easily visualize how this precedent can be detrimental to women’s sports in general if this blurring of gender lines continues to occur. Surely we can agree that in certain situations discrimination can be in best interest of all parties, even those who have allegedly been victimized by inequity.

Jacques Marcoux is a commerce graduate.