Oh, you silly radical social constructivist, you . . .
Apparently, the International Quidditch Society created “Title 9 3/4,” based off Title IX, which aims to promote gender equality in the sport by mandating there's a 4-gender-max on the team's playing field. That's awesome on a number of levels.
In related news, though, currently reading this academic article about Quidditch that, though extremely intelligent and well-written, is making me shake my head at the entire “everything is a social construction” crowd.
“[M]en did claim [on various quidditch blogs] that females made the game slower, less physical, and often less competitive. Thus, to truly see equality and acceptance, both by the individual and the culture, the language of gender and sex must be challenged.”
So, the basic idea seems to be that, if ONLY the dominant discourses on gender and sex can be changed, we can forego hegemonic masculinity and come to a true equality. The difference between the average male and average female athlete has nothing to do with natural (or biological) differences, but simply discursive differences which are much more susceptible to change through critique. (A marginally stronger point could be made for cultural explanations of natural differences, but this author doesn't make it.) And this whole essay adopts that tone in the most “it’s obvious and nobody rational disagrees with this” manner. The radical social constructivist crowd does seem determined to construct themselves a Harrison Bergeron-world.
Oh, and the following polemic-ranting-masked-as-academic-writing doesn't need much more response than “shut up”:
“The original function of organized sport was for middle-class white males to display their superiority over women and over race-and-class subordinated groups of men,” following by citing a whole bunch of people who have “proved” exactly this.
In related news, though, currently reading this academic article about Quidditch that, though extremely intelligent and well-written, is making me shake my head at the entire “everything is a social construction” crowd.
“[M]en did claim [on various quidditch blogs] that females made the game slower, less physical, and often less competitive. Thus, to truly see equality and acceptance, both by the individual and the culture, the language of gender and sex must be challenged.”
So, the basic idea seems to be that, if ONLY the dominant discourses on gender and sex can be changed, we can forego hegemonic masculinity and come to a true equality. The difference between the average male and average female athlete has nothing to do with natural (or biological) differences, but simply discursive differences which are much more susceptible to change through critique. (A marginally stronger point could be made for cultural explanations of natural differences, but this author doesn't make it.) And this whole essay adopts that tone in the most “it’s obvious and nobody rational disagrees with this” manner. The radical social constructivist crowd does seem determined to construct themselves a Harrison Bergeron-world.
Oh, and the following polemic-ranting-masked-as-academic-writing doesn't need much more response than “shut up”:
“The original function of organized sport was for middle-class white males to display their superiority over women and over race-and-class subordinated groups of men,” following by citing a whole bunch of people who have “proved” exactly this.
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