Michael Ganeles Responds

I thank Mr. Bin-Nun for taking the time to craft a response to my article.  I am flattered that he found my argument entertaining, and I am sure he will be happy to learn that I found his comments amusing as well.

Mr. Bin-Nun attacks the theory that men enjoy a physiological advantage – and hence an athletic advantage – over women.  He claims that such a stance is “completely groundless with no scientific backing.”  Mr. Bin-Nun prefers to explain the “discrepancy” between male and female athletic performance by arguing that women could perform as well as men, were they encouraged to do so early in their youth.

Mr. Bin- Nun’s contention, of course, is patently ridiculous.  There is no greater “scientific backing” for the conclusion that men possess physiological and athletic advantages over women than that provided by one simple, undisputed fact: all objective athletic records that are a function of physiology (i.e. fastest, strongest, farthest, etc.) in the history of the world have always been held by men, and never by women.  This fact points, undeniably, to the conclusion that males have some sort of physiological advantage over women with regard to optimum athletic performance. 

Mr. Bin-Nun’s theory, on the other hand, represents nothing more than his personal musings regarding the role that motivation plays in athletic performance.  In order for Mr. Bin-Nun’s theory to qualify as acceptable, the burden is upon him to substantiate his claim that training a girl from a young age (which, by the way, does occur quite a bit among female Olympians) actually enables a female athlete to meet or surpass the athletic achievements of male athletes.  He will find no such proof.

Let me illustrate the difference between our contentions with an analogy.  I believe we can all peaceably agree that for all of recorded human history, birds have been able to fly (unaided by machine), while humans have not.  Now, the rational explanation for this fact is that birds enjoy physiological advantages over man with regard to flight.  A person, of course, can posit that the reason why birds enjoy flight advantages is because they are trained from a young age to fly, while humans are not.  But such a stance would be considered foolish by most thinking individuals and, in the absence of other evidence, rightfully so.

But, for the sake of argument, let us grant Mr. Bin-Nun’s untenable assumption; females, we will pretend, really can be trained to achieve athletic results equivalent to those of males.  The exact same argument – as Mr. Bin-Nun himself admits – could be applied to the developmentally disabled, junior, and Jewish athletes.  So, as Mr. Bin-Nun himself concedes, the entire “lack of nurturing athletic environment” argument is entirely pointless.

In the end, Mr. Bin-Nun resorts to the contention that women are more deserving of mainstream Olympic representation because the other groups simply are not “large enough.”  What does he mean by this claim?  Surely, he cannot mean that the more people there are in a group, the more deserving they are of receiving confirmation of their athletic legitimacy.  Size of a group – as was mentioned in my original article – does not constitute moral justification for treating certain demographic groups in society better than other, less populous, demographic groups.  Perhaps Mr. Bin-Nun means that since more people are interested in watching female athletes than other groups, the more deserving they are – on an economic level – to be featured in the televised Olympic Games.  If so, I heartily agree, and perhaps Mr. Bin-Nun would be surprised to learn that that was my point in the first place.

Again, I thank Mr. Bin-Nun for his time and effort.