from Amazon
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
This Day In Genderism
Yet another play with your own kind articles:
This wouldn’t be a bee in my bonnet if the determined young ladies didn’t have the option of trying out for the school’s girl’s team ... but they do. Apparently the pair are unimpressed with the calibre of play on the team designed for their sex. They say “some of them can barely skate.” I suggest perhaps they take that problem on rather than bypass it and leave it for others to fix.
...
These young ladies, who are so talented beyond their gender, need to help their gender. They can look at it as a challenge and a rush to become builders of the sport. The sisters say they are ecstatic about their chance to battle with the boys for a roster spot, or two. Fine, but the guys who don’t make the boys’ squad now don’t have the right to try out for the girls’ team.
Wow. The Michelle Wie syndrome in teen sports. I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, so I’ll repeat it here.
We have women’s league to give women an additional opportunity to participate, not the sole opportunity.
The way the leagues are setup, you have the top division, where the best person makes it, regardless of gender. Then, you have two branches, which are split by gender. You move up the rung, until you reach the top. That the top division is almost always made up of boys doesn’t mean it’s a boys-only division.
This is the 21st century. Why are we still talking about gender?
I DNRTFA, but I could not agree more with Tango, and it is quite simple. There should be no controversy with any of these women’s/girl’s, men’s/boy’s team/league issues. You can create an issue if you really want, but as Tango says, it is quite straightforward. Women’s teams and leagues are created so that more women have a chance to compete (there are other reasons, but that is the primary one). If there were only one team or league, then it would be dominated by men and boys of course. However, if a woman is good enough for a men’s team or league, who in the world should care about her gender? I can’t emphasize that last sentence enough. If someone cares about someone’s gender in men’s golf or on a boy’s baseball team, that is strictly their problem and is no different from objecting to someone’s race or religion.
There are simply two levels in sports. One is the top level open to all candidates, but traditionally called the “men’s” level. Actually, in many sports, there is no reference to gender. If a woman can make in in the NBA, MLB, NHL, etc., that’s fine. Where is it written that it is a “men’s” league? It is not! In school, it is simply for convenience and by tradition, that it is called the “boy’s” team, and in order to distinguish it from the “lower league,” the girl’s team. Now, the reason the lower league, or “girl’s” league or team in all sports and in all venues is not open to the boys is obvious! I shouldn’t even have to explain it and I won’t. If it were, there would be no need for two leagues in the first place, and we would be back to the original problem (that most of the girls would not make a “co-ed” team).
We have the special Olmpics, open to certain kinds of challenged players, right? It is not open to everyone. Yet, any of those challenged players can compete in the regular Olympics if they have enough talent, right? We have junior events and leagues for kids, yet if one of those juniors is good enough for the “adult” league, they can play in that, and eveyone thinks that is great.
I mean where is the controversy, here, if you take a rational and sensible attitude? People are just not smart enough to see the logic in this, and frankly I am tired of hearing criticism from people who are apparently not smart enough to realize when something is perfectly reasonable and is done all the time for other “subsets” of the population (beside gender) and no one thinks anything of it. Again, the argument that, “Then the boys should be able to play on the girl’s team,” or, “Why should the girls get “perferential treatment” is ludicrous! And yes, I agree that in 2006, we need to stop making arbitrary distincions between the genders. But I guess these things take time. It only took one or two hundred years before we stopped doing that regard to race. We still have around 50 or 100 years to go with respect to gender I guess.
Oh, and to stop making arbitrary distinctions between genders does NOT mean to integrate the leagues and teams and not giving girls “preferential” treatment. Maybe one day, the gap in athletic talent will narrow to the point where we don’t need two leagues or teams. Who knows? Obviously there is an area which is grey, such as should there be two leagues in basketball, one for white and one for black, since the blacks are better in basketball and it is tough for the whites to compete? As far as I can tell, the difference in most sports between girls and boys is large enough that it is not yet a grey area.