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The actual utility of determining who is the 'Fastest Woman' or 'Fastest Man' is non-existent and society's interest in elite sports is in entertainment and propagandizing physical fitness. Anyone who is an Olympic finalist at something like the 800m is the recipient of profound genetic gifts, and the concept of fairness between them and the average person is laughable. Excluding an extreme outlier in terms of genetic advantage for the benefit of a cluster of the far far right tail of the distribution doesn't seem to have much to do with 'fairness' for the general population.
Semenya differs in that her genetic advantage is larger, traceable to a single chromosome, and used to construct a category of social solidarity. If Semenya wins over and over XX women may be less inspired to participate in athletics since they cannot identify with her as an intersex person. Or if there is a single gene which gives massive athletic advantage among 'women' then women without that gene would be less inspired to compete. The carve out for women's sports is an acknowledgement that it is worth creating categories for people genetically disadvantaged at athletics so that even though they can never really be the best they can still be honored for fulfilling their potential, even if it's limited.
The fun futuristic version of this to me would be if we eventually develop some way of calculating genetic advantage from DNA and creating athletic 'gene classes' for different sports. If we're worried XX women will be less inspired to compete if someone with an identifiable genetic advantage like Semenya wins than shouldn't we be worried about short men, or people born with poor biomechanics not competing? In the short term something like height classes in basketball seems like an obvious starting point.
That sounds hilariously demeaning to those who would participate. If you think womens basketball is unpopular, this should be a hit right?
Is being a lightweight or middleweight boxer instead of a heavyweight demeaning? Why would participating in the 5'9" and under Basketball Division be demeaning?
I don't expect it to be a commercial success. When they're not joined to nationalist competitions like the Olympics track, swimming and gymnastic events don't seem to draw large audiences either. Youth & College Sports are basically publicly funded programs outside of a few major sports like Division I Football & Basketball.
I don't think we fund them because it's extremely important to society to determine who the fastest 800m runner is, we do it to encourage athleticism broadly. Why not allow the bottom half of the male height distribution an opportunity to participate in the organized version of am enormously popular sport and get some degree of social status for fulfilling their athletic potential?
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Perish the thought! How could we, as a society, endorse such a thing?!
Like, I'm sorry, but do you think it's bad to encourage people to be physically fit?
To add onto Ec's reply, I think the argument they were trying to make is that the Olympics and all other televised major sports sell a subtly/deceptively-unrealistic image of human capabilities. Frankly, I think a lot of sports-related marketing also does that (athletes on the Wheaties boxes!), and if, instead, we were honest while still trying to make sports a thing for everyone, we'd probably have to become bio-realist to some degree.
I don't see how the Olympics presents an "unrealistic" image of the human body when it's explicitly marketed as an event meant to showcase the absolute peak of human fitness. If it were marketed as "anyone can do this if they put their mind to it" then fair enough, but I really don't know that that's how the event is marketed. Does the Nobel Prize* present an unrealistic image of the capacities of the human brain by handing out awards to the brightest people in the world?
*Peace and Literature excluded.
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No? It's a good thing to encourage physical fitness. I suppose I could have used a term with less negative connotations but something like the Olympics is government produced media designed to promote specific values, we just happen to think those values are good.
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