This is an article I first wrote in 2012. I updated it in 2016. More than 10 years since I originally wrote it and in many ways we are further away from any potential appearance at an Olympic Games. Men’s baseball and women’s softball have just been announced for LA28. Baseball-softball is not in the 2024 Olympics and right now there is an extremely low chance that it will be considered for 2032. What will it take for female baseballers and male softballers to get equal rights?
The article from back then
I’m sorry. I just can’t do it. There is a whole bunch of people shouting it from the roof, but I can’t get excited about it. We are just three weeks out from pinnacle event for women’s baseball, it only happens every two years, last time we brought home bronze, and what are people talking about?
The re-entry of “baseball-softball” into the Olympics. That’s right, hyphenated like an awkward marriage. Baseball for men, and softball for women have been included in a limited team (6) format for the 2020 Olympics.
In 2012 the International Olympic Committee “recommended” to the international federations for baseball and softball, that if they wanted to be considered for re-inclusion in the Olympic Games the two organisations needed to merge and provide a joint bid. For better or worse, the federations took the advice and became the joint World Baseball Softball Confederation.
The position is a stark contrast to the acknowledgement and excitement of the “Womens’ Games” as the 2012 Olympics were known as. The Women’s Games celebrated the inclusion for the first time ever of a women’s discipline in every sport. And a female athlete on every team. These were hugely significant firsts in the recognition of women’s rights, and then at the same time these two federations were saying … well actually “boys play baseball, and women play softball.”
The good news is that they beat Sports climbing and wushu. Yes, go and google them … I had to.
The practical person would say, well there is only one spot, so better to join forces and secure a foot in the door, and maybe we can expand later. Really? Really?
I can’t speak for men’s softball, but one of the arguments I hear against women’s baseball being in the Olympics is the number of countries that have women playing baseball, and the standard of the game/athletes. Well I’m sorry, but whoever heard of Women’s Rugby 7s until it was announced in the Olympics? If quality of players and the standard of the game is the issue, how about putting more support behind women’s baseball. There is no doubt that the best players in women’s baseball are legitimately elite athletes. The fact that many of these women compete with and against men in domestic competitions says a lot of their ability. But it is also true that the quality and depth drops away very quickly. But all this is reflective of is the lack of numbers and lack of support for women to play baseball
There is another irony there. Baseball is one of the few sports, I would say the only sport, where women can and have competed directly against men. Junior baseball everywhere sees smatterings of girls doing their gender proud, not only competing with the boys, but holding their own physically up until about age 15. After that the numbers drop but there are notable inclusions such as Eri Yoshida, the Japanese knuckleballer who played minor league baseball in 2010 – at age 16!
But taking the issue of numbers and quality of players out of the picture, and there is a basic human rights issue at play here. What softball and baseball are effectively saying (and perhaps even more importantly the IOC) is that “men play baseball, women play softball.” The statement reminds me of some others that used to be common … ‘men are doctors, women are nurses.’ ‘A woman’s place is in the home.’ Even in the international boxing federation didn’t get away with their position of “we need women to wear skirts so we can tell them apart from the men.”
The two federations and the IOC are either not recognising the basic right of men and women to choose what they want to play, or they are ignoring it, flying directly in the face of anti-discrimination laws and the IOC’s own charter and setting women’s equality back 100 years.
“The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of
practising sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which
requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.”
“Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the OlympicMovement.”
The exclusion of women’s baseball and men’s softball from the Olympics is direct discrimination. You cannot, on the one hand, promote the “possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind”, while on the other hand enforce that if you are female, at the Olympics, you cannot play baseball. The inclusion of two single sex sports in the 2020 Olympics, is categorically not engaging that right.
You cannot “encourage and support the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women”and at the same time tell young girls and boys that men’s baseball and women’s softball are “more equal” than their counterparts. It reeks of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
In my personal battle of my “ists” … the feminist says itswrong, the optimist hopes it will ultimately benefit women’s baseball. Being an Olympic medal chance has big sway with the Australian Sports Commission, and sway equals funding. It’s that simple. But right now, Australia is sitting 13th in the world rankings for men’s baseball, and the Aussie Spirit (women’s softball) had a disappointing 2016 World Cup, finishing 10th. They are still ranked third in the world, but the next World Cup will be the key qualifier. Only 6 teams will compete in the 2020 Olympics for either sport. So the other “ist “ (pessimist) is thinking that while the two sports might be “back in the Olympics roster” Australian supporters of both sports, shouldn’t let their hopes get too high.
So lets hope that both baseball and softball get to the 2020 Olympics. As a proud Australian’s that’s what we should all be hoping for. But I can’t help feeling concerned about the future of women’s baseball, (not to mention men’s softball), and the impact on our society, when all around the world, the gender stereotype is being reinforced on the world’s biggest sporting stage.
Jugood 