Here is a question for the lawyers out there.
Do FINA regulations supersede US federal anti-sex discrimination laws?
Granted, I am not sure I know what the latter are. However, if I were to show up at a USMS swimming meet, wearing a perfectly legal women's swimming suit, one of the zipper-free kneeskin type models that also covered my ample boobage, and the officials rightly disqualified me for wearing this get-up because it is against the FINA/USMS agreed upon New Order, could I then turn around and sue under some federal statute prohibiting discrimination because gender?
In my mind, the new FINA rules are going to end up making swimming even more of a dying sport for boys in the US than the unintended consequences of Title IX, etc. Girls, especially in the younger age groups, can often beat boys in swimming, and in fact our own Mr. Qbrain got a top 10 time in the men's 30-34 LCM 1500 this summer. His wife, if I am remembering correctly, beat his time but failed to make the top 10 in the women's category.
If anything, it is we men who are now at a disadvantage. I say make the dystaff gender wear thongs and let us wear body suits fashioned to look like very streamlined tuxedos.
Suits for women now remain pretty much unchanged by the new FINA ruling, with the exception, that is, of getting rid of zippers and getting rid of non textiles. But that means women can continue to swim in what are still arguably very fast suits--FS1's, for example, that are very close to the short john types that helped loads of people get their best times. Men are prohibited from wearing anything but jammers.
Chicks, in other words, get 2004 technology; guys are back to the 60s. Why not let us go back to the 20s instead, when Johnny Weismuller wore a full body suit, albeit of wool?
So, in the spirit of Larry David, who recently concluded an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm with the line, "I'm Larry David, and I am comfortable in women's underwear"--I propose that any men who want to join me in the latest civil rights battle of our time show up at nationals this summer in women's suits and accompanied by our class action lawyer, and join me in echoing in a collective voice that rings out in natatoriums all across the fruited plain:
"I am a male USMS swimmer, and I am comfortable wearing women's suits."
Provided I can find an esquire who will agree to take the case on a contingency basis, I say this to the USMS sexist powers that be:
See you in court! Suckers!
Parents
Former Member
No joke, though proposed jokingly. I hope the difference is clear.
It would be clearer if you didn't muddle the two yourelf, btw.
But no, there would seem to be no legal basis for a claim of discrimination.
It is certainly legal to discriminate between men and women (rather than to discriminate against one in favor of the other). Drawing disctinctions between the sexes is commonplace and universal. As a trivial example, it's not illegal to demand that women use one type of bathroom facility while men are required to use another.
Of course, the devil can be in the details. For instance, the bathrooms provided to men and women, while different, should be "equal and equitable".
Some states (as well as the International Building Code) now enforce so-called "potty parity", which means it's not enough to provide an equal number of same-size bathrooms for men and women, because the installation of urinals in men's rooms, which take up less space, effectively gives men more access to toilets in public facilities.
And anyone who attends an event in an older sports stadium will notice that lines outside women's rooms are much longer than outside men's rooms for this reason.
Also, because of the logistics of how men and women typically urinate, it takes women longer, so to provide parity, there actually have to be more stalls in women's rooms than the total number of stalls and urinals in men's rooms.
So in that case, women get larger facilities with more toilets, but the result is parity -- that is, equal wait times.
So in this case, if anyone wanted to claim discrimination, they'd have to show that FINA is effectively withholding something of value from men that is being granted to women. And as qbrain noted, the separation of competition -- which is itself legal in athletic competition because men and women have different bodies (it would not stand to require segregation of, say, race car drivers or poker players by sex as a general rule) -- pretty much obviates that.
Especially so when you consider long-held social standards of decency (specifically, toplessness for women) in the US.
FINA appears to be applying the same standard to men and women in this case -- requiring suits which meet basic standards of modesty without going to extremes (e.g., requiring old-style Speedos for men and bikinis for women) while limiting the coverage of the suit to something short of a whole-body, wrist-to-ankle leotard.
In short, the standard seems to provide parity based on the differences in male and female bodies as well as common standards of public decency.
No joke, though proposed jokingly. I hope the difference is clear.
It would be clearer if you didn't muddle the two yourelf, btw.
But no, there would seem to be no legal basis for a claim of discrimination.
It is certainly legal to discriminate between men and women (rather than to discriminate against one in favor of the other). Drawing disctinctions between the sexes is commonplace and universal. As a trivial example, it's not illegal to demand that women use one type of bathroom facility while men are required to use another.
Of course, the devil can be in the details. For instance, the bathrooms provided to men and women, while different, should be "equal and equitable".
Some states (as well as the International Building Code) now enforce so-called "potty parity", which means it's not enough to provide an equal number of same-size bathrooms for men and women, because the installation of urinals in men's rooms, which take up less space, effectively gives men more access to toilets in public facilities.
And anyone who attends an event in an older sports stadium will notice that lines outside women's rooms are much longer than outside men's rooms for this reason.
Also, because of the logistics of how men and women typically urinate, it takes women longer, so to provide parity, there actually have to be more stalls in women's rooms than the total number of stalls and urinals in men's rooms.
So in that case, women get larger facilities with more toilets, but the result is parity -- that is, equal wait times.
So in this case, if anyone wanted to claim discrimination, they'd have to show that FINA is effectively withholding something of value from men that is being granted to women. And as qbrain noted, the separation of competition -- which is itself legal in athletic competition because men and women have different bodies (it would not stand to require segregation of, say, race car drivers or poker players by sex as a general rule) -- pretty much obviates that.
Especially so when you consider long-held social standards of decency (specifically, toplessness for women) in the US.
FINA appears to be applying the same standard to men and women in this case -- requiring suits which meet basic standards of modesty without going to extremes (e.g., requiring old-style Speedos for men and bikinis for women) while limiting the coverage of the suit to something short of a whole-body, wrist-to-ankle leotard.
In short, the standard seems to provide parity based on the differences in male and female bodies as well as common standards of public decency.
