Korfball, a Game Men and Women Play as Equals

“The boys were like, ‘Oh my God,’” Tromp said with a laugh.

The reasons for promoting women were as tactical as they were social.

As korfball developed a more dynamic style, top Dutch clubs like PKC and Fortuna hastened the transition from traditional roles of men rebounding and scoring and women providing assists. PKC’s motto is that women should be dominant in attack. The more players who can score, the more threatening and unpredictable a team becomes.

And because skill differences among women are generally somewhat larger than those among men at this stage of korfball’s development, Scholtmeijer said, female players can provide the decisive edge in matches with speed, anticipation, elusiveness and shooting. On PKC, the shooting accuracy of the women is higher than that of the men.

Drawing a basketball analogy, Scholtmeijer, a former coach of the Dutch national korfball team, said, “If you put five LeBrons on one squad, it’s much more difficult to defend.”

Olympic Dreams

Some critics contend that korfball undermines gender equality by requiring women to guard women and men to guard men. While this might reinforce preconceptions about physical superiority, a widely held view within the sport is that changing the marking rules would be unfair. Women would be held to far fewer shots if guarded by taller and bigger men, which would radically alter the inclusive nature of the game, said Laura Gubby, a lecturer at Canterbury Christ University in England, who has played and researched korfball.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/20/sports/korfball-gender-equality.html