Athens’ Special Olympians
Okay. This is an updated version of an essay I wrote for my school paper a couple of years back. I think it's a cool argument, even though I'm not sure I totally buy it. But what's cool - if you're into this kind of thing - is that it turns liberalism against itself (more on that, some other time). Aright, enough intro. And if I don't piss off at least one feminist with it, then, well, then I'm not really sure what the point of this site really is.
Athens' Special Olympians
Lost amidst the security concerns and general hoopla generated by the current Olympic Games in Athens is the simple fact that this Olympiad, like every other since 1900, features a politically correct element perhaps unparalleled in any other global venue. This feature is never mentioned in the massive advertising campaign launched by NBC to promote the Olympics, but its influence permeates the essence and totality of the Olympic Games as we know them. The Olympics thoroughly empowers a physically disadvantaged minority – whose constituents are neither the world’s fastest, strongest, nor best – and affords its members the legitimacy of worldwide athletic acclaim. The disadvantaged minority members being referred to, of course, are Athens’ female athletes.
Although not conventionally perceived in this way, the participation of women in the Olympic Games represents an exemplar of the purest sort of affirmative action. Consider the following: The sixteen fastest swimmers on planet Earth happen to be males. Yet, rather than having these sixteen, most qualified, individuals compete for the title of “world’s fastest swimmer,” the organizers of the Games disqualify swimmers nine through sixteen and ensure that eight other, female, swimmers participate in their own competition for the title of “world’s fastest female swimmer.” And so, instead of one competition between the world’s elite swimmers, we are provided with two races, one to decide the world’s fastest swimmer, and the second to determine the champion swimmer of a subgroup of athletes who can be considered fast swimmers – that is to say, extraordinarily and unusually fast swimmers – only if the competition is circumscribed to exclude the half of humanity with the inborn predisposition towards optimum athletic achievement.
But this, perhaps novel, understanding of the Olympic Games need not foment, in itself, any degree of consternation. So long as the participation of female athletes is recognized for what it truly is – the implementation of a particular format of competition, in which rank is decided not strictly by merit but by extraneous factors as well – why should the system spawn any sort of complaint? Conventional wisdom seems to dictate that the Olympic system is perfectly sound; the best athletes conduct one competition, and a separate, less rigorous, competition is reserved for female athletes. The system could hardly be fairer.
Furthermore, a potentially troublesome point raised above can be dispatched rather easily. It was remarked that in conducting two separate competitions – and let us continue with our example of a race among swimmers – the Olympics, in effect, preempts the participation of swimmers nine through sixteen among the world’s sixteen fastest swimmers and substitutes the fastest female athletes. But this contention is illusory. For after all, even if there were no separate contest for females, what compelling reason is there to believe that the men’s competition would be broadened to include eight additional competitors? None comes to mind. Seemingly, female athletes do not impinge upon the men’s competition; they simply complement it.
The accommodation of female athletes, then, seems perfectly justified: no one mistakes the fastest female swimmer for the world’s fastest swimmer; female athletes seem not to occlude the Olympic destiny of athletes greater than they; and the participation of females in the Olympic Games indubitably serves as an inspirational example for women around the world. Is there any sense, then, in which the participation of female athletes seems anything less than equitable?
Indeed, one dimension to the participation of female athletes in the Olympics represents the starkest form of discrimination. Ironically, the tremendous lengths to which the organizers of the Olympic Games have gone to include female athletes has obscured the fact that this arrangement systematically disenfranchises an enormous percentage of the world’s population – the group of athletes with any physical shortcoming other than that of being female. For, as we have already noted, the Olympic Games have been designed to establish two parallel, but wholly unequal, athletic competitions – one that measures the athletic skill of the world’s finest athletes, and another that gauges the skills of a physically disadvantaged subgroup of the world’s athletes, namely, the female athletes. But is such largesse bestowed upon other groups of athletes with physical disadvantages?
The problem here being examined is very simple. In general, athletes with physical circumstances preventing them from competing in the highest level of competition are provided with some particular, non-mainstream, venue in which they can showcase their skill: athletes with physical or developmental disabilities participate in the Special Olympics; athletes below a certain age level, who are limited by the relative physical immaturity of their bodies, compete in the Junior Olympics; and even Jews, because of their genetic (or otherwise determined) athletic deficiencies, feel the need to arrange the Maccabia Games, the Jewish Olympics. Our question, then, is the following: Why is it that females, who – bottom line – simply cannot realistically vie for supremacy in athletic competition with males, are not relegated to some sort of “Women’s Olympics” parallel to the other “special-interest” Olympic Games, but instead are indulged as if they fully epitomize elite athletic competition?
The organizers of the Olympics, in other words, are faced with the following dilemma: If the Olympic Games are supposed to be an athletic competition based solely on merit, females should be judged according to the same criteria that apply to men – in which case, they [and, for that matter, lightweight male boxers, and perhaps a few other such athletes] most likely would not qualify to actually compete. However if, on the other hand, the Olympics are not about pure athletic merit but rather about allowing people with physical disadvantages to demonstrate their athletic skill on a worldwide stage, why are women [and lightweight male boxers] the only group to be granted this privilege? Why are contests among female Olympians broadcast in prime time on network television all across the world, while competitors in the Special Olympics, the Junior Olympics, and the Jewish Olympics receive only minimal, if any, media coverage? Furthermore, why are the Special Olympics called the Special Olympics (or any of the other Olympics given their own specific designation)? What defect makes a Special Olympian (or a participant in the Junior Olympics or the Jewish Olympics) unworthy of the simple moniker “Olympian”? Why must we stamp the athlete with the qualifying title, “Special” (or “Junior” or “Jewish”)? And given that we do refer to these Olympians with these specific labels – which mark the fact that these athletes cannot physically compete in athletic competition of the highest caliber – why are the Olympic Games’ women athletes not referred to as “Female Olympians”?
The only obvious distinction between the group consisting of the world’s female citizens and the groups made up of the world’s physically or developmentally disabled, young, and Jewish citizens, respectively, is that the group of females has many more members than any of the other groups. Relative size, then, is a factual distinction between the group of women and all the other groups. But does the size of a group justify affording it special treatment? Well, in free and democratic societies, no. In general, modern societies and governments that profess to adhere to progressive – or just, or equitable (or some other such adjective) – policies go out of their way to enact and enforce legislation that prevents any group, even the most populous group, from receiving privileged treatment. For instance, though the United States has many more white citizens than black citizens, white people in America – under the law – are entitled to no special protection or privileges simply on the basis of their belonging to the most populous American demographic. So, in a truly equitable world, it seems that simple numbers would not justify preferential treatment. And, extending that logic to our example: The considerable number of females in the world seems not to constitute legitimate grounds for the exclusive treatment that female athletes competing in the Olympic Games receive.
A number of other possible distinctions (between women and all other physically disadvantaged groups) perhaps merit consideration, but I found none particularly compelling and will not discuss each independently. Instead – as my analysis unearthed no meaningful distinction that would justify the status quo – I will, rather than justify the status quo in a normative sense, attempt to explain, in a pragmatic sense, why it is that female athletes are in fact afforded privileged treatment that is denied other physically disadvantaged athletes.
The reason that female athletes receive preferential treatment has nothing to do with consideration of athletic merit or fair play and everything to do with economics. Athletic competition, it must be realized, comprises only one element – though an essential element, to be sure – of the phenomenon known as the Olympic Games. But in addition to athletic competition among nations, the Olympics constitutes the quintessential example of corporate commercialism. Today, the single-biggest driving force behind the marketing bonanza known as the Olympic Games is the dollar. According to a study by USA Today in 2002, the entire operating budget of the Olympics – approximately two billion dollars – derives from “sponsorship, broadcast, and ticket revenue.” Corporate sponsorship represents the largest source of funds – 42% of the total, or $840 million. Broadcasting rights earns the silver for a contribution of 37% of the budget, or $740 million. In short, it should be unmistakably evident that the Olympics, which receive about 80% of their budget ($1.6 billion) directly from corporations, are largely beholden to corporate interests. (It could even be reasonably argued – though I do not do so here – that non-corporate sources of funding for the Olympics such as ticket and merchandise sales are themselves a derivative of corporate promotion and sponsorship).
And it is this mutualistic relationship between the Olympics and the world’s (primarily America’s) largest corporations – based as it is on the realities of the capital markets rather than on any principled devotion to athletic competition – that guarantees female athletes the worldwide media exposure and general validation denied all other physically limited athletes. We noted above that the major factual distinction between the group of the world’s female athletes and the groups of all other physically disadvantaged athletes was numeric. We concluded that this differentiating factor does not ethically justify special treatment for female athletes. But ethical justification, of course, is in no way a precondition for corporate (or any other) action.
The simple fact is that the world’s female population represents the world’s – and Nielsen’s – single largest demographic group. And the single most effective method of ensuring that women tune in to the Games is to ensure that female viewers identify with the athletes who are competing. Hence, female Olympians are Olympians, while all other physically disadvantaged groups are considered undeserving of that appellative. In truth, the bureaucrats and businessmen who control the Olympics are not the least bit concerned with providing female athletes a worldwide forum in which to showcase their athletic skill, but they are most assuredly concerned with boosting networking ratings, even if it entails the adoption of discriminatory criteria regarding who may participate as an Olympic athlete.
But, in a sense, perhaps this realization – that the inclusion of female athletes in the Olympics is an economic, rather than moral, policy – can provide youngsters, Jews, the disabled, and all other physically disadvantaged athletes some measure of solace. For, in theory, these groups, too, might one day qualify for the real Olympics. The organizers of the Olympics have no ideological objection to their participation and would gladly provide them with a “seat at the table” – so long, of course, as their participation guarantees that sufficient millions of Americans will be moved to occupy a seat on the couch.
