Women's (Sporty) History Month

So ESPN jumped on the Women's History Month bandwagon. But I have to say I learned a few things.

Did you know that girls used to play six-on-six basketball, which had different rules than the game we know today? They played this version because a full court, five-on-five game was considered "too aggressive... inappropriate and too physically demanding" for girls. Unbelievable that some small towns played this unequal game until the 1990s!

First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in Japan

16-year-old Eri Yoshida was drafted by the Kobe 9 Cruise--a new profession baseball team in Japan. I was the only girl on my little league team when I was growing up so it's awesome to hear about a woman breaking into this old boys club at the professional level.

Okay so now I'm going to link to (gasp!) Fox Sports. I'm not linking there because they have some fantastic in-depth article. It's more because I want you to share my exasperation over the obnoxious comments:

"As long as she realizes that there is NO CRYING IN BASEBALL I think she'll be fine." -- GiantFanSince1990

"I finally figured out whats wrong with baseball---this" --davesgood2

Thankfully there are some really positive comments to balance out the annoying ones.

Equal Play

My mentor and friend Farra just shared some awesome videos from the V is for Victory campaign. They're raising awareness about how girls sports still aren't treated fairly at lots of schools.



I could relate to this undercover video showing the drastic differences between the boys and girls facilities at one school. In my high school the gym only had a boys locker room. The coach's changing room (which was the size of a large walk-in closet) had been converted into a makeshift girls locker room. So every class period 40-50 girls had to squeeze into that tiny room to change. Some people changed in shifts and some people resorted to just pulling their sweats on over their street clothes in the hallway.

One day at the end of class we went back to the locker room to change back into our regular clothes and the door had been removed! When we complained to the male gym teachers they brushed us off by saying we better hurry or we'd be late for class. It was pretty unbelievable.

Do you have horror stories about inferior equipment, not having uniforms or unacceptable facilities?

New Word for Tomboy

Over at Shameless Magazine they're talking about an article in the Toronto Star called "Why 'tomboy' remains a loaded word."

The article quotes a description in the NY Times of actress Ellen Page as "a tomboy – her on-screen persona is sharp, clear-eyed, determined and self-consciously original."

Apparently a Sarah Lawrence professor wrote a response saying:

“It is unfortunate that we have no other word available to describe this strong, independent young woman than to refer to her as a tomboy. This continues to convey to girls that growing up clear-eyed and courageous is being like a boy.”

Well said!

I was the only girl on my baseball team when I was younger and have often been mistaken for a boy when I have short hair. But I can't think of an instance where I was directly called a tomboy. I definitely identified with boys when I was little and even wished to become one, but I never liked the word tomboy.

Were you ever called a tomboy? How do you feel about the term? What are other words we can use to describe strong girls? Does even having any word assume that it's unusual or unnatural for girls to be strong?

Marathon winner can't run away from sexism

I was watching the LA marathon on TV last weekend with my girlfriend because she's training for the San Francisco marathon in August. My first time watching a marathon and I got to see a woman win! Very cool.

But it was not cool what William Burke, co-founder and president of the City of Los Angeles Marathon, said about it. We're sitting enjoying the excitement of watching Tatiana Aryasova cross the finish line first and the station goes to Burke for a comment. "You can't keep those women down," he says. "You can't get them back in the kitchen." What?!?

There was so much shrieking coming from my house I didn't even hear the rest of the interview. For a few days I wasn't sure if I had dreamt that moment or if it really happened. Unfortunately, later in the week, Feministing (by way of the LA Times) verified that my ears hadn't deceived me. People commenting on Feministing have asked if maybe he was joking. It's possible, but I definitely didn't get that impression. He didn't smile, or wink, or laugh, or give any other clue that he was attempting to make a joke.

All I can say is keep running and let's leave this sexism in the dust!

More Girls Fighting?

So I'm driving to work this morning listening to Day to Day on NPR and I hear the host proclaiming,"'Fight like a girl' used to be an expression that meant you didn't fight all that hard or all that violently. Well things have changed."

My ears perk up. Did I miss something? Is this cause for celebration? Are people not using "like a girl" as an insult anymore? Welllll...not quite. The story is about videos posted on YouTube showing girls fighting each other. They say in it that girls are getting in physical fights with each other more often than in the past. Not sure what the past is to them, but I definitely remember fights among girls when I was in middle and high school. But maybe it is getting more common. What do you think?

There was one part of the story that was especially annoying. Dr. Louis Kraus at Rush University says, "We see more girls interacting in competitive sports. We've seen girls get into more fights." Are we supposed to draw some connection between girls being more involved in sports and getting in more fights? What happened to sports being so good for girls?

And then they talk to a thirteen-year-old who says, "Guys aren't better than girls. Girls can fight too." Ah equality at last. But seriously let's strive for no fighting.

Oh but the Dr. Kraus guy brings up a good point at the end about how schools are less likely to take fights among girls as seriously as fights among guys. Teachers and administrators often see girls' fights as "skirmishes" and are less likely to intervene. Hopefully awareness will do a little something to help people not diminish girls' activities and expressions (however unacceptable).