Misleading Aesthetic Norms of Beauty

Abstract

The history of gender challenges faced by women in elite sports is fraught with controversy and injustice. These athletes’ unique physical beauty creates what appears to be a paradox, yet is scientifically predictable. Intense training for high-level competition leads to unique strength and beauty associated with specific anatomic changes, leading top athletes to be singled out as exceptions from their gender and excluded from competing. Authorities like the IOC and IAAF, along with coaches and fellow athletes, use traditional and sometimes racialized aesthetic norms as the basis for ungrounded judgments of gender misidentity. Misjudging the gender identity of elite athletes exemplifies a biased cognitive framework, a form of erroneous and damaging categorical perception that we call perceptual sexism. This chapter argues that perceptual sexism has a long history within aesthetic and competitive realms and is still perpetuated by popular culture. Correcting this will reduce injustices created by gender identity controversies.

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