The ethics of the special ranking for pregnancy in tennis

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we provide a normative analysis of the Women’s Tennis Association revised policy on maternity leave, which is regulated by its special ranking rule. To do so, we first explore how the revised policy functions when probed in relation to the nature of competitive sport. Then, we examine the revised policy through the lens of the literature on maternity discrimination. We argue that, when compared to its previous formulation, the revised special ranking rule is morally defensible because it better protects female players’ interest in being able to combine their professional careers and their personal lives. However, we also identify several pronounced vulnerabilities and criticisms to the revised policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethics
• discrimination
• maternity leave
• pregnancy
• special ranking
• tennis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. See, for example, Armour (2018), Detrick (2018), and SBS News (2018). Women’s tennis governance has a troubled history of decision making. For details of such history see, for example, chapters 23, 25, 33, 40, 41, and 42 of Lake (2019) and Tredway (2013, 2019).

2. While the 2016 WTA Official Rulebook made reference to maternity leave, the 2019 WTA Official Rulebook does not. However, the popular press keeps using maternity leave (see some examples in the previou note). The language of the special ranking rule now repeatedly includes ‘pregnancy’ to refer to maternity leave and also ‘parental start’ which ‘means adoption, surrogacy, or becoming the legal guardian of a person under the age of eighteen’ (241).

3. The reference to the positions within the tennis community (mainly female players, administrators, and specialized journalists) comes from reading the articles published in English-speaking newspapers, magazines, and websites at the time of the controversy. Many of those articles are cited throughout this paper.

4. See also Rothenberg (2018).

5. See also Women’s Tennis Association (2019).

6. See also Loland (2016).

7. For a thorough analysis and critique of rankings in competitive sport, see Bordner (2016).

8. Of course, this predicament is not unique to sports. As Deardorff and Dahl (2016) argue, women face challenges in negotiating how to integrate pregnancy, maternity leave, and employment into their lives.

9. Certainly, neutral actions, regulations, and practices can be discriminatory. These actions, regulations, and practices might apply to everybody equally but treat people differently. In the legal literature, these cases are labeled as ‘indirectly discriminatory’. As Anatole France (1910) famously pointed out in his book The Red Lily, the laws that prohibited ‘the wealthy as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges, from begging in the streets, and from stealing bread’ are an example of indirect discrimination (87). Despite applying to all citizens alike, the regulations treated certain groups (i.e., those forced to live on the streets and steal in order to survive) differently. As Deardorff and Dahl (2016) point out, formal justice fails to appreciate people’s unique needs and interests. This must be done by adopting a substantive approach to justice, which determines what kind of treatment is owed to people based on differences rooted in social and physical factors. Equal treatment can still be discriminatory.

10. The distinction between pregnancy and a medical condition is key, for the categorization of pregnancy as a medical condition is instrumental in work policies discriminatory against pregnant women.

11. We are aware of the risk, and the inappropriateness, of medicalizing and pathologizing pregnancy and the pregnant body through language as well as social practices. Having said that, we do not believe that by alluding to ‘recover’ peak form after pregnancy, or other similar phrases, we are doing so. In this regard, we do not mean that pregnancy harms or incapacitate women. As any other extended absence from intense training and competition, pregnancy, in its uniqueness, typically has a detrimental effect on performance. While regaining peak form, or any desired level of performance, after pregnancy is challenging (see Pilon 2017 for an account of some athletes’ experiences resuming training and competition postpartum), empirical evidence suggests that it could be achieved.

12. We use the term ‘maternity’ instead of paternal because the WTA’s policy only regulates women’s tennis competitions; it does not affect male competitors.

13. Surely, there would be more cases like these if women were not expected to stay at home or offered worse working conditions after childbirth. See Crittenden (2002). For discussions of how female athletes recover their peak form after childbirth, see Kardel (2005), Michelson (2018), and Pilon (2017).

14. A report from the Equality and Human Right Commission in Great Britain estimates that 54,000 new mothers lose their jobs due to maternity every year. See Topping (2015).