Socio-Biological Aspects of Women’s Participation in Sports: An Analytical Study

Abstract

Women’s sport is expanding rapidly in recreational sports in local communities, or at national and international competitions. But, in many societies, women do not enjoy enough equal opportunities to fully engage in sports especially when comparing South Asian with Euro- Americans. Women in sports have now become an effective force in world competitions, and the domination by men of world-class sport is threatened. This paper will not give solutions to all major problems, but it will identify them and endeavor to provide a better insight in the athletic potential of all women. It is believed that inherent biological factors limits female performance potential such as height, body composition, muscle mass and cardiovascular endurance capacity which constitute biological differences between the sexes. The delayed menarche, which is often found in female athletes who train at high levels, and is associated with estrogen-a necessary hormonal trigger for increasing bone density in adolescence. The social conditions prevalent in society and their roles in sport have developed to this orthodox view and are said to be justified, to great extent. The highly trained male and female athletes have more similarities than differences in these physiological and physical parameters. Physically fit women sweat less and have smaller rises in rectal temperature under strenuous conditions, and assumed that women may be better suited physiologically to long-distance running than men. The biological factors of a highly trained female athlete, as manifest in physiological functioning and physical characteristics change and develop similar capacities equivalently as compared to trained male counterparts.