the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Well I’m glad that one’s been cleared up. I’d always been labouring under the misapprehension that men shouldn’t hit women. But if you do hit a woman, make sure you do it in a boxing ring at the Paris Olympics. Then its OK. You might even get a medal for it.

The specific details surrounding this incident are best discussed elsewhere. But for me, this highlights a growing trend, not just in sport, but in society, specifically societies in parts of the global north. Ones that are so enlightened that the rights of women can so easily be discarded. Ones who are governed by a political elite so in thrall to idea of being seen as progressive that their blind adherence to a bastardised notion of inclusivity results in assault.

When is this madness going to end? When will the rights of women be taken as seriously as the rights of men? How inclusive can any activity be if by doing so it excludes people who place their own safety at a higher premium rather than suborning it to a dangerously nebulous concept?

Despite having been thrown out of the boxing world championships in Delhi last year amid questions over their biological sex, the International Olympic Committee IOC) have given them a free pass to go up against female opponents in the most dangerous sport, and on the grandest stage of all.

Whilst that is bad enough, it is the trickle down effect that this insanity will engender further down the line that really concerns me. Far removed from elite sporting competitions, sporting at a local level will be impacted. Thats where the real harm its; it isn’t to one Italian boxer with a broken nose and shattered dreams. It’s to athletes at the grassroots, at schools and colleges, because various different sporting organisations have different classifications as to who can be classed as a man and who can be classed as woman. Some have even reverted back to their old classification. But sadly some will interpret the IOC’s decision as legitimising the idea that biological sex is a traceable commodity and not an inalienable fact.

The only benefit that one can possibly take from all of this is that it simplifies for many what can be a confusing issue. All of the disputed science and all of the difficult to understand claims and counter-claims that that arise from all of the background noise has hopefully become irrelevant. Most people accept it as a given that a man shouldn’t hit a woman. Most people accept that there do exist differences between men and women.

Most people understand unfairness when they see it.

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But the IOC reminds me of Eddie Izzard when they parrot the the notion that just because someone has a passport that declares them as woman, they are one. Izzard did a routine where he explained that Britain only got an Empire thanks to the cunning use of flags. ‘I claim India on behalf of Queen Victoria.’ ‘ You can’t do that, there are 500 million of us, we live here! ‘But do you have a flag?’

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