On a case for gender integration in sport

There is an interesting piece by Andy Markovits on Jeff's blog, asking why, against the historical current, gender segregation is largely unchallenged in sport, especially at the the top level.

[W]hy have there not been any movements afoot to change the rules to have every football team consist of six men and five women (or vice versa) in effect making them into mixed-gender teams...?

Andy's conclusion sketches some possibilities towards gender integration in sport at the highest level. He writes:

Does the logic of citius, altius, fortius - swifter, higher, stronger - by definition demand our currently practiced and legitimately perceived sexual apartheid at the very top level of sports since the most accomplished men will always run faster, jump higher, and be stronger than the most accomplished women? If we continue to define "the best", which is such an integral part of any sport, by our current criteria, then this separate but equal world will never change. But if we construct alternate logics to what constitutes "the best" - include metrics of cooperation and style, for example, in computing winners and losers, or create truly gender-integrated teams in which the women's output would be weighted more heavily (e.g. assign five points to baskets scored by female players as opposed to the two by males) thereby creating real incentives to have the women be welcomed as positive additions to these teams, as has been the case in the aforementioned intramural contests - then we might actually arrive at a truly integrated sports world which would thus be congruent with virtually all important public institutions of our contemporary democratic world.

In this post I won't be taking a position on whether the benefits of gender integration along the lines envisaged here outweigh any possible drawbacks. But I do want to register two such drawbacks. I think Andy's case would be stronger if they were acknowledged and arguments deployed to meet them.

The first drawback is that sport, above all professional sport, is importantly about winning. One might want to try and relegate this objective, to make it more subordinate, but it is surely relevant that one of the things that makes sport attractive and enjoyable to both participants and followers is that they care about the result. To have gender quotas, with teams composed of six men and five women or vice versa, would mean that, say, England are obliged to leave out one, or two, or three, men (or women) who are better by far than the one, or two, or three, women (or men) who are their top choices in that gender category. They're about to defend the Ashes and have to leave out an Ian Botham for a Doris Pringle; or Australia have to omit a Shania Warne for a Ray Bright. Note that even if the rules of the relevant game are changed so that the skills desirable in a gender-near-equal team are as evenly distributed as possible between men and women, this effect wouldn't necessarily be avoided. It could just so happen that the eight best players for the various roles or positions were all men or all women. So, clubs, teams, countries, might well be obliged by the rules to field weaker sides than they could otherwise.

The second drawback is already implicit in the above. This being a quota system for selection, particular sportspeople would, on the assumptions just illustrated, sometimes be passed over for players of the other gender markedly less able than themselves. Selection on merit, in other words, would be constrained by the compulsory quotas, and somebody who 'deserved' selection on talent and form might find him or herself omitted for not being of the required gender.

Whether these considerations matter more than overcoming 'gender apartheid' in sport is an issue I've left to one side here. But on the face of it I'd say that they do at least matter - enough to be given attention by anyone building a case for integration.