Sociologists’ Book Urges End of Sex Division in Sports
Can you imagine a world with no gender divisions in sports? University of Alabama at Birmingham sociologist Adrienne Milner can. Not only that — she wants to help make it happen. Along with University of Miami professor Dr. Jomills Henry Braddock II, she’s written a new book called “Sex Segregation in Sports: Why Separate Is Not Equal.” WBHM’s Dan Carsen caught up with her to ask what else she hopes to accomplish, and why.
Listen to the five-minute on-air version above. Key interview excerpts and a web-only extended version are below.
The Main Argument
“Similar to racial segregation, sex segregation denotes the inferiority of women. Until women are allowed to play in integrated contexts and reach their full potential as athletes and people, we will never have equality in sports and in the broader society.”
Like Race, Sex Isn’t “Real”
“We look at race as a social construction. It is not genetic, it is not biological, and we believe the same is [true] for sex … The male-female dichotomy doesn’t cover everyone, right? We have trans people, intersex people.”
You Can’t Actually Have Football in Your DNA
“There is no ‘football gene’ … And you don’t play football, you don’t play any sport with your genitalia. So there’s no reason to separate people, and we learned with Brown versus Board of Ed that separate can never be equal.”
A (Very Good) Example from the NBA
“Muscle [mass] is not the be-all-and-end-all of sports ability. Look at someone like [recent NBA MVP] Steph Curry, who is small for an NBA player …”
Even If…
“If women [were] always smaller than men, they could still have positions on football teams as kickers. And [in] other sports like diving, where we would maybe look at being smaller as being an advantage, women might excel.”
Why Is This Important?
“Sports show the main problems of other aspects of society … They’re also very beneficial in cutting down obesity, heart disease, [domestic] abuse, and eating disorders.”
Click below for the web-exclusive 17-minute interview, which includes thoughts on cheerleading, men competing on the balance beam (ouch), Milner’s own experiences as an athlete, and the book’s recommendations for making sports more equitable:
NPR ‘founding mother’ Susan Stamberg has died
Susan Stamberg, an original National Public Radio staffer who went on to become the first U.S. woman to anchor a nightly national news program, has died.
President Trump envisions D.C. arch to mark 250th anniversary of U.S.
On Wednesday, the president showcased models for a grand new monument to be added to the gateway of the National Mall: a large, neoclassical arch topped with eagles and a gilded, winged figure.
Trump says he plans to meet Putin again as Ukraine war drags
President Trump says he will meet with the Russia president in Budapest, after high level meetings next week that would include Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
You know Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’ — but she also wrote these terrifying tales
Rebecca dominates du Maurier's legacy, but she wrote plenty of other macabre novels and short stories. A collection called After Midnight gathers 13 of these tales, with an intro by Stephen King.
Julian Brave NoiseCat’s survival story is both personal and ancestral
NoiseCat is the son of an Indigenous Canadian father and white mother. After a cultural genocide, he says, living your life becomes an existential question. His new memoir is We Survived the Night.
At least 27 states turned over sensitive data about food stamp recipients to USDA
Democratic-led states secured a legal victory to keep the personal data of food recipients out of the federal government's reach. But NPR's reporting shows that millions of records on Americans have already been shared.