The tyranny of eve p.a the economic globalism
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The collapse of the Soviet bloc, the end of the cold war, the tou emergence of the uni-polar world, marginalised role of the UN system and the victory of the neoliberal economic and political bil agenda have affected India's domestic economy and political doi structures and policies. Ajit Muricken* Ait Murickon* MUMBAI-In the emerging global situation the international position of the South has considerably weakened. The North has intensified its neoliberal offensive to integrate the economies of the South, by profound changes in trade, finance and technology. The result is the so-called "process of Globalisation". This has been buttressed and enhanced by the Structural Adjustment Programme undertaken at the instance of World Bank and International Monetary Fundthemselves handmaidens of global capital, international private banks and giant corporations.
The immediate compulsion for India adopting SAP was the balance of payment crisis which forced the government to initiate a series of economic reforms from July 1991. The whole policy package makes a significant departure from the past. The long cherished principles of growth with justice, social responsibility and accountability, equity and self-reliance have been rendered obsolete with the new slogans of "liberalisation", "privatisation", ', "globalisation", "efficiency" and "competitiveness" Economic policy paradox
The basic argument of this policy is fairly logical within the neoliberal paradigm but adversely affects real peoples lives. It depends on the following propositions: • Economic growth is central to the reduction of poverty
This growth is best brought about by the kind of economic policies, which have focussed on liberalisation of internal and external markets and incentives for private capital rather than active state intervention; • Converting exports into the main source of economic growth
Give absolute precedence to the preservation of macro-economic objectives and policies, while neglecting the social cost to people in their everyday life.
But behind the promises of "good WET life" for all, there is the grim realities of 2800 increased inequality, deprivation, threat 22 International Viewpoint #311 May 1999 of fis bil to livelihood, disintegration of social dur order, displacement and landlessness,
9.4 alienation and violence as well as a
Gr growing fear of the future. Poverty and exclusion form an integral part in the development model.
alr
The developmental model based on
For the neoliberal paradigm has not only anc widened the social and economic are disparity but also forced new groups of eco people into poverty and dislocated local agi communities and traditional support systems.
par
Marginalisation and exclusion are
Cor inherent in the very structure of econohig mic globalism and economic growth new which in its present construct cannot solve the problem of poverty for various reasons:
• economic growth is predicated on a labour saving technological paradigm.
• science and technology has been controlled by the West to suit their resource endowments and interests.
• labour saving technology is the best linc way to beat labour and trade unions.
• market responds to the needs of the rich only. By its own logic it excludes those who have no entitlements to participate in the market exchanges and the production pattern is naturally geared to meet the choices of the rich.
dec
34.3 in 1
Debt crisis—a vicious cycle
310
Between 1980 and 1991, India's lime external debt increased 547% to об р
Rs.1,004.25 bn. This excludes the defence debt and short-term debt of less illi than six months duration. After the cap adoption of the SAP, debt rose rapidly to
SOC
Rs.1,990bn in March 1992 out
Rs.2,440bn ($87 bn) in September 1992
(Economic and Political Weekly 6 are
March 1993 and 5 June 1993).
pe
According to the 1993 Annual Report hea of the Reserve Bank of India, between dri
March 1990 and March 1993, the foreign sar debt increased from $61.5bn to $89.5bn,
(Rs. 1059.04bn to Rs.2800.76bn).
bel
In 1998-99 the external debt is $95.2 on bn. This means the repayment problem is an more intractable today than it was in res
1991. The ratio of debt service payments hot to export of goods and services is 30.8% or about Rs.250 bn. India is now the thin
most indebted country in the world, and Urban sector every Indian family has to pay Rs.1,400 With the globalising of the Indian p.a. ($38) to foreign powers for serving economy there is a radical reorganisation
Placeda the debt alone. In 1993, the debt of manufacturing activity. The manufacservicing was about $8.2 bn, including turing process is trans-nationalised $3.3 bn in interest payments. fragmented and dispersed across the
Notwithstanding several initiatives country. It is becoming extremely capitaltaken by the Government to liberalise intensive and increasingly replaces external trade, India's trade deficit has labour with machinery. The thrust of contemporary capitalism is more on dead touched a record high.
The trade deficit widened to $5.8 labour than on living labour, on transfer billion during April-October 1998- of new values rather than creation of double the level during the same period values. Similarly it is seen that it is not of 1997. industrial but finance capital which
The total trade deficit in the current dominates the economic scene. Speculafiscal year is expected to be around $9 tion becomes more important than billion. Exports fell 5.1% to $18.87 manufacturing during April-October 1998. Imports rose The majority of the workforce-both 9.4% to $24.67 billion. men and women-are employed in the rapidly swelling unorganised sector. This Growth, disparity and injustice sector is characterised by uncertain
The New Economic Policy has wages and job insecurity. With virtually already shown spectacular results. no legal protection or unionisation, Foreign investment is increasing by leaps workers in this sector are vulnerable to and bounds. Multinational corporations exploitation. In Mumbai (Bombay), the are entering almost every sector of the unorganised sector employs around 85% economy. the share markets are showing of the city's working women. a great activity and vibrancy. As the SAP unfolded, industries retrenched regular employees in favour
The availability of consumer goods— particularly luxuries—has increased. of contract and casual workers. In order Consumer choice has multiplied. At the to reduce product prices to improve higher levels salaries have shot up. A global competitiveness, companies shut new affluence is in evidence everywhere. down divisions and started sub-contrac-
Economic principles and policies are ting work to casual workers. oriented to meet the demands of the 250 The reforms also led to spiralling million member middle class while inflation as the lowering of trade barriers neglecting the survival demands of the affected domestic prices. Trapped in the poor through employment generation. vortex of growing retrenchment, This process is basically the inversion of shrinking household incomes and skythe Keynesian principle. rocketing food prices, more and more women were forced to enter the labour Income-poverty market with weakened bargaining
Much academic debate on poverty and deprivation in India focuses on The SAP's deregulation of the labour income-poverty. Current evidence market has also worsened conditions for suggests that income-poverty worsened workers. in India between 1991 and 1994. Even within the informal sector,
The proportion of poor households women tend to be found in the more exploitative jobs: home-based workers in declined from 39.3% in 1987-88 to 34.3% in 1989-90 and then rose to 40.7% those employed in shrimp- sorting or in 1992-93. In absolute terms, there were garment factories are mainly women. 310m. persons living below the poverty "Since their jobs are insecure, women in line in 1987-88. By 1992-93 the number the unorganised sector are more vulnerable to sexual exploitation." says of poor had risen to 355m.
At least 291 million adults are still Marium Dhawle of the All-India illiterate. Most are women, whose Democratic Women's Association.
The link between the economic capabilities are the key to transforming society. And 45 million children were reforms and the push towards the outside the Primary Schools in 1995. informal sector is illustrated by data from
Nearly one third of children under 16 the national sample survey. The proporare forced into child labour. 135 million tion of casual labourers in the country's people are denied access to primary female work force rose from 41% in health care, 226 million are without safe 1990-91 when the reforms were introdudrinking water, 640 million lack basic ced to 45.3% in 1993-94. The proportion sanitation. (Mahbub ul Haq (1997)). of regular salaried workers fell from
In short, 350 million people "live" 4.5% to 3.4% during the same period. below a poverty line which views people
Agrarian sector & globalisation only as a statistical or biological entity and not as a social individual with self- The logic of liberalisation prevalent respect. Ironically, the same India which in the industrial sector holds true also for the agricultural sector. In the name of houses the largest number of world's poor is the largest arms importer among efficiency small farmers are gradually driven out of agriculture by big farmers the developing countries.
International Viewpoint #311 May 1999 23
* India and agri-businesses. This has become a major area of concern especially in relation to the question of food security-critical in a country where a third of the population lives below the poverty line.
The export-drive has lead to further inequalities in land ownership. Small land-owners, without the means to shift production to more profitable exportcrops will have no option than but to sell off their lands and become landless labourers. Employment opportunities are minimum in the export-crops, the sector being highly capital intensive. This has resulted in massive unemployment, mass migration, disruption of family and family life, child labour and intensified exploitation of women. Thus, the globalisation of agriculture leads to the demise of rural life and society. Food security
The food security of Indians, especially the poor, is under threat by liberalised economic policies.
Indian agriculture is heading for a crisis of food production, food security and rising prices. The export driven policies of successive governments committed to liberalisation, have led to diversion of vast areas of agricultural land for horticulture, aquaculture, orchards among others. Government policy has deliberately encouraged production of commercial crops through increases in subsidies and loans.
According to figures compiled by the Foundation for Science Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), production of food grains like millet, consumed mainly by the poor, declined from 1.9 million tonnes in 1871 to 821,000 tonnes in 1995-96. The area of coarse cereals also declined from 45.95 million hectares to 31.49 million hectares. Paddy fields are giving way to factories and traditional crops like rice are being replaced by commercial crops. As a result, there is little employment for local farm hands. Women have been reduced to prostitution to feed their families.
Prices of these grains had become higher in India than comparative prices on the international market. In 1992-93,
WET 2800 24 International Viewpoint #311 May 1999 the wholesale price of wheat per quintal in India was Rs.304 compared to Rs.190 in the US. The wholesale price of rice was Rs.481 compared to Rs.348 in the US. To make matters worse, from July 1997 to July 1998, the retail price of wheat and rice rose 12.5% and 22% respectively. As a result of trade liberalisation policies, cereal exports had increased from 12% to total agricultural exports in 1991-92 to 27% in 1995-96. Globalisation and gender
At one level globalisation can be seen as compounding the class differentiated and gender-specific character of the failures of the post-independence period. Failures in agrarian reforms, egalitarian distribution of resources, development of infrastructure and provision of health and child-care facilities have taken genderspecific forms.
The New Economic Policy is reinforcing trends of the informalisation of the female workforce, subcontracting and piece-rate production by MNCs greater utilisation in the informal sector, and increasing the number of women in the reserve army of labour. Other consequences of the Structural Adjustment Programme for women are of course unemployment, retrenchment, marginalisation in the labour force, increase in girl-child labour, prostitution and relegation to the low-wage and unorganised sectors, increased drudgery for poor women in acquiring necessities such as fuel and water.
Livelihood resources for women have clearly dwindled and new ways of curtailing their consumption have emerged even as the commodity market expands and proliferates. At the same time women have become the objects of numerous development and micro-credit policies. This period has seen a feminisation of subsistence agriculture as men move into wage work.
The pattern of the global economy compels women to bear the brunt of the strategies of structural adjustments;
Market pressures pull women into exploitative relations in both the formal and informal sectors;
The informal sector is by no means a rent panacea for women. It is far less secure
The than the formal sector in terms of gio security of work and generally pays less than the minimum wage. In many ways it mos is a disguised form of enslavement.
to t pos
Political implications reli
There are serious political consequenwer ces inherent in the emerging nexus min ism between new institutional arrangements, idec new values and new individual drives of v through which people are being 'marketised'
. Quite apart from the decline in the
Co role of the State in preserving spaces for the underprivileged and protecting has peoples and cultures from globalising toile trends, there is the danger of the whole normative framework of democracy
Trac pris being undermined.
The assumption that the liberalisation good mod of the economy would lead to more liberal polity and generate more liberties reac visit for individuals and groups is thoroughly unfounded. On the contrary it will reinforce the authoritarian tendencies of to b the ruling oligarchy which has already the
Judit eroded the basic institutions of demotion:
cracy and is making the State more and more repressive and vindictive towards have the so-called 'weaker sections' struc
The institutions will be further eroded thirc lity once whatever little welfare orientation there was in the Indian State is discarded of 11 or considerably reduced. Already one thes notices that several of the IMF World inte
Bank conditionalities are forcing the
Peo
GI government towards anti-labour, antirural and anti-poor positions which may be to the liking of the business class or even the professional middle classes but will certainly not produce a more democratic ethos.
As the sense of insecurity among the people grows, alongside persisting poverty, unemployment and increasing injustice and discrimination, it pushes the poor and the unemployed into a culture of protest, anger and desperation.
Violent civil upsurges have also rela shown a remarkable tendency to occur, offe
Glo often at slight provocations or flimsy excuses. In certain areas, including the resp metropolis Mumbai, such mass violence threatens to become endemic.
bee
More serious conflicts between diffeagai гарі arou disi ban in s tion tior def req ture toil pro cal stra ide toili
rent groups also break out periodically. These can be ethno-linguistic, inter-religious communities, inter-caste etc. The most serious challenge to the polity and to the democratic traditions is today posed by communalism—a mix of religion and politics, in a conflict between the majority Hindu and the minority Muslim population. Communalism has now become a principle of ideology, organisation, mobilisation and of violent action. Conclusion
The New Economic Policy packaged has been an unmitigated disaster for the toilers unemployment is on the increase. Traditional occupation and petty enterprises face extinction. Mass consumption goods are scarce. Prices of essential commodities and services are climbing out of reach. These effects are now quite visible.
The globalisation programme needs to be criticised because it firstly reduces the controls over economic activity, including prices, supply, employment conditions, wages etc. that the government can have and secondly because it produces structural distortions in the economy, and thirdly because it increases the vulnerability of the economic activity to vagaries of international market and finance. All these effects are detrimental to the interests and welfare of the people. People's Movement and Resistance to Globalisation
The frightening fact is that the political parties in India were unable to offer any credible resistance to Globalisation and there now seems to be a consensus amongst these parties on the issues of Globalisation though the perception on the issue differ among themselves. The differences are on specific programmes, measures to be taken, sectors of investment, etc.
However organised trade unions related to different political parties offered resistance to the onslaught of Global capitalism by differing from their respective party positions.
These struggles by and large have been reactive and defensive in nature against unemployment, job security and rapidly worsening social conditions around public sector undertaking facing disinvestment and the insurance and banking sectors.
Defensive struggles while necessary in sustaining elementary living conditions against the onslaught of globalisation provide short term victories. The defence of these interests in the long run requires radical restructuring of the structures of world capitalism by uniting the toiling people with an internationalist programme and united struggle. This calls for not only the reorientation of strategies but more fundamentally the ideological and cultural education of toiling people in values of solidarity, cooperation and egalitarianism.
sibal
Various mass organisations in the country in recent past have risen against globalisation in whatever manner they could. These movements have made certain impact by offering resistance to invasion of Global Capitalism by highlighting and struggling on issues affect the everyday life of the people. "
A major organisation at the forefront of the struggles against infiltration of Global capitalism was the Karnataka Rytha Rajya Sangha (KRRS). It became famous in the early nineties by its agitation against Kentucky Fried Chicken and against the attempt at gaining monopoly rights on seed and plant material by Transnational companies like Cargill. The farmers were outraged by the prospect of buying seeds every season from multinational seed companies. Methods of seed preservation integral to the farming experience and knowledge system of farmers since the time immemorial will be destroyed by this
A. K. Ramakrishnan has explained how the farmers movement was able to raise major issues related to globalisation on a national scale and achieved limited success in resisting TNC operations in seeds and related fields and in obtaining assurance from the Indian government that farmers' rights to grow, exchange and reuse seeds will not be affected by signing the GATT treaty. Resistance also resulted in blocking, at least for the time being, the amendment of the Indian Patent Act of 1970 in the tune with GATT/WTO specifications."
The export-oriented policy of the Central Government in the fisheries sector has put severe pressure on traditional fisherfolk and small producers. Under the pressure of TNCs and National Monopoly houses, the waters of the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone have been opened to joint venture companies.
The survival of about 50 million traditional fisherfolk across the sea coast has been severely threatened by the new policy of allowing joint ventures for deep sea fishing. This new policy will lead to the indiscriminate destruction of marine ecosystem and erode livelihood of traditional fishing communities. It will have serious ecological consequences, throug the generalisation of intensive mechanised fishing.
The National Fish Workers Forum (NFF) was in the forefront of the agitation taking on issues of survival of traditional fisherfolk, demanding the preservation of marine ecology for use in a sustainable manner, and banning fish trawling during the monsoon months— the breeding season.
The opening up of waters of the Indian Exclusive Zone (EEZ) to joint ventures which exploit marine wealth in a indiscriminate way forced the fishworkers to launch major struggles on these issues nation-wide. Protests, blockades, demonstration and hunger
International Viewpoint #311 May 1999 25
* India strikes forced the central and state government to concede some of the demands. Notable among the gains were the cancellation of permits to foreign vessels under joint venture, denial of extension of existing licences and adopting of measures to preserve marine ecosystem.
Privatisation has become another "mantra' in the globalised era. The ruling block has expropriated large tracts of fertile agricultural land for shrimp aquaculture by larger corporate interests.
Prompted by rapid returns, short gestation periods, and the immense demand abroad for shrimp, many corporate house undertook prawn farming in
Ath Congres of the Fourth Internationa
Transformation and regroupment
Regroupments of forces determined to learn the lessons of the historical abomination that was Stalinism and to continue, against the winds and the tides, to fight against capitalism are being realised in a number of countries.
In all the countries where such possibilities exist, the organisations of the Fourth
International are ready to be part of the process—as an important step towards the recomposition of the anti-capitalist left on a world scale.
At the international level, the Fourth International is an active participant in regroupment, bringing with it the advantages of a long tradition of combat against capitalism and Stalinism. *
Price: £5/$10. International Viewpoint, PO Box 27410,
London SW9 9WQ, Britain.
International [email protected] 26 International Viewpoint #311 May 1999 torable Placade DRINK 0I00-E massive way causing ecological, social and economic destruction due to high rate of water usage, introduction of chemical input, and salination of water.
The struggle by organisations like Grama Swaraj Movement against globalised aquaculture resulted in the Supreme Court of India giving a verdict to close down commercial shrimp farms along the Indian coast. But the government is now contemplating ways to dilute the judgment.
As in the case of the fishworkers' movement, movements against exportoriented aquaculture also have formed a national network, People's Alliance against Shrimp Industry (PAASI) and they have also initiated joint activities with similar struggles in the third world. Vandana Shiva has documented the attempts to generate awareness among shrimp consumers in the West.
The new politics of solidarity between Third World communities and northern consumers is part of an emerging citizen politics at the global level that is making visible the social and ecological costs of globalisation and creating new mechanisms for social control and regulation of commerce at the international level.
Globalisation has been very rapid in Indian infrastructure sectors like power. Transnational corporations have been able to make great inroads into the power sector as exemplified by the Enron project in Maharashtra and the Cogentrix project in Karnataka. These mega power projects are also centres of people's resistance; the struggle against Enron being able to catch wide national attention. Apart from these there have been other struggles against TNCs, including DuPont in Goa state.
The various social movements in the country have effectively challenged the neoliberal paradigm which more or less uniformly marginalised communities of people from resources and power. The neoliberal globalist vision of governance through "market" faces serious challenge and the reemergence of new politics that requires the construction of new kinds of social and political institutions which will create a real space for the articulation and mobilisation of the poor and the most socially oppressed sections of society.
peo] culti trans nisal each rela unde chal and just cont supp com be o
This new politics is not an "end state"
com but the affirmation of the State as an instrument of peoples' power, peoples' democracy and peoples' empowerment.
It also means reaffirming the States' obligation of justice for the people from where it supposedly derives its legitimacy and power according to the democratic traditions and challenging and
No
$3.
altering the development paradigm that argues for the market as the only provi-
No der and the new answer to the problems and
£2, of economic development.
Global capitalism is no longer identi-
No.
fied with one country. It is a borderless the global order with increasing de-nationali-
No.
sation of the nation state. It is at work
$3.
through the new liberalising disguise that
No.
has metamorphosed through the collu-
194 sion of the ruling bloc and the agencies
No.
of global market. It cannot be resisted
Car with isolated actions, confined to indivi-
LÖv dual countries however militant the
No.
struggle may be.
Cal
There is a need for strategic thought
No.
as linkages are built among organisations
193 and movements that might form part of a
No.
counter- hegemonic bloc. The beginnings
£2, of a new grassroots internationalism of
No.
social movements have to be affirmed, as a new stage of internationalism from
£4,
No.
below.
Mig
The immediate struggles will have to focus on the questions of survival and
No.
sustenance; on economic and social rights, on human rights including the right to self-determination. Along with protecting the sovereignty of the state against force of international capitalism and compel the state to fulfil its obligation to the people, to provide them with social security and welfare, and meet
Y their minimum needs. Also prevent the state to fritter away our natural resources and our environment in the name of development to transnational or indigenous capital.
The content cannot be exhausted by these immediate needs. A goal of a new universal culture and a new internationalism will be necessary components of the vision
Alliance building and people's solidarity is a focal point for promoting movement for justice concerns and buildup people's resistance against the forces of globalisation across nations.
allah local
This alliance should be based on
people-to-people contacts rooted in a culture of friendship and partnership that transcends borders and sectoral and organisational concerns.
This calls for an attitude to learn from each others struggles and strengthen the relationships and alliances already underway in our own societies. We are challenged to be open to other cultures and experiences in our efforts to link not just ideas but persons; to support and contribute rather than merely expect support; to give meaning to language and communication between peoples; and to be open to initiatives and alternatives coming from all levels. *
Intonational!
* Mr.Ajit Muricken is the Director of Vikas Adhyayan Kendra. This NGO was set up in the year 1981. The area of its activities is Western India viz.Gujarat, Goa and Maharashtra. Western India has been held as a model of development and pinnacle of achievements. VAK therefore examines the existing development paradigms critically. It does not stop to criticise the existing models of development but also looks of alternative models and indigenous systems. Particular concerns of VAK are the dalits, adivasis and women's issues. Besides, subjects of special concern to VAK are, environment and ecology, religion and society; ideology and culture; and practice of social transformation. The activities of VAK in areas of its concerns have been study and research, consultations, education of the public on issues of concern, publication, documentation, campaigns and advocacy. VAK also publishes a bi-monthly called VIKALP (Alternatives). VAK did extensive campaign and advocacy through the print media against the SAP in Western India in local languages. Several activists could be reached out through the campaign to make them aware of the implications. Several publications were brought out for into for Donnam the purpose. These addressed many misconceptions spread by the mainstream political forces representing the elite, including the ruling party and the parliamentary opposition. For example, the myths of health and health care and role of MNCs, the myths of Dunkel and GATT, World Bank, IMF and SAP, myths of free trade and markets. VAK is currently handling an ambitious project of conducting a mapping of the state to find out the resources of the people and alternatives available for the people. This paper was presented to the March 13 Brussels gathering of COCAD (Committee for the Cancellation of the Third World Debt)/CADTM (Comite pour l'Annulation de la Dette du Tiers Monde) For more information contact the organisers at 29 rue Plantin, 1070 Brussels, Belgium. tel (+32 2) 527 59 90, fax 522 62. 27, e-mail <[email protected]>. http://users.skynet.be/cadtm
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International Viewpoint #311 May 1999
27
Britain/Ireland
women and sport beh ideals resp exc
SHIPTIER
WOI ship marks
ISLEAZIE
DODGIER
Fro
"BI fem agg test and ene the nity long the wor pict ress abo
The deep fast
Fem visic no
It's a man's game
Sport is front-page news. But playing sport is still, clearly, "for the boys". And the violent euphoria of some male spectators is a coarse reminder of the darker aspects of the world we live in. Meanwhile, women's magazines constantly encourage their readers to exercises. But only in order to lose weight, and sculpt our bodies so as to resemble the dream-world models which fill the media. Isabelle Forest The world of sports is gender-divided. Sport has traditionally been masculine. The sexism of the "founding fathers" of modern sport is illustrated by the convictions of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who re-established the Olympics in the modern world. He was convinced that: "female Olympics would be uninteresting: not aesthetic, and not correct." |
Is this an outdated view? Are there still dinosaurs that think in such a crude way? After all, in 1999, television regularly shows high level sportswomen in action. But just show people around you a photo of a female weight thrower 28 International Viewpoint #311 May 1999 and ask for their reactions...
Of course, the evolution of sport has meant a certain feminisation. This evolution is parallel to the evolution of leisure time itself: from an elitist practice of bourgeois women wishing to entertain themselves, it has because a mass phenomenon.
And traditional female gymnastics (based on female supports, such as the plank and the asymmetric bars - "to avoid shocks to the ovaries"), are giving way a little, now that it has become clear that high-status sports (like running) do not diminish the hips or lessen the breasts, in short that they "do not stop women from being women"!
But everyone can see that high-level sports destroy the bodies of the athletes: men as well as women. Some female athletes take male hormones to increase the level of testosterone, with visible and destructive effects. It is probable that Soviet trainers on several occasions asked their top gymnasts to conceive a child: once pregnant, your physical output is increased by a higher transport of oxygen. And you could always abort once the contest was over.?
It is clear that coaches play with bodies and manipulate them, trying to find the most powerful hormone cocktail for each athlete. This causes premature menstruation for some, delayed periods for others. This costly personalised treatment is not carried out in the name of the carri athlete, but in the name of the sacred or tl one-hundredth of a second, of the medal, of n of the glory, and of the money involved.
und
Of course, this criticism of competitive taste sport is not specific to women.
com
Are competitive sports genderone specific at all as we enter the 21st seve century? Women have advanced in many that areas; are they not going to become com
"equal" to men? According to sociologist stron
Catherine Louveau, "sports has become,
DesS today more than yesterday, a place of real mas slide of women towards men. It is true pub that this is the direction of History, since shan women continually take over activities that initially were the domain of men.
femi
"However, in competitive sports, the
189 performance levels attained require work the and physical preparation that modifies
US morphologies, making women's and viol men's bodies more similar."
Chr
At this point, an inevitable hypothesis neig arises: with equal physical training from acco early childhood on, women could attain by l equal performances to men in many into sports. The question will probably not be bask answered, but doubt is justified." 3 If this the hypothesis of equality in sports may be unde considered, what is left for men in the ( sports? Should (can) sports be co-ed?
Should we call for equality or nurture our conc difference?
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