The Competitive Edge

This week we had two speakers visit us and talk about women in sports and specifically Physical Education. To jump right into it I asked if they thought it would be better for the popularity/ media coverage of women sports if we just made the teams co-ed.

One of the speakers answered saying that since men do have more testosterone, there isn't an even playing field unless a third party is involved, like the Equestrian team or Bowling. So then one of them asked us if we believed playing with boys makes us more aggressive? Have we ever experienced boys making fun of us for being competitive or sporty?

Well, 1) From my personal experience, I do become more competitive when playing with boys. I guess it is because most boys feel like they have to make sure they won't be beat by a girl, which makes them more competitive, and as a result, I kick it up a notch. But another reason why is because boys tend to have a stronger interest in sports than girls do so I get excited that I can actually play a sport and thus become more competitive.

In high school there were three girls in P.E. class who would do anything: my friend Coni, my friend Lexi, and myself. When we played softball, Lexi would pitch, Coni would do anything she could, and I would play either short stop or second base. All the other girls? They would be in the outfield talking in clumps and making flower necklaces. The same thing happened for hockey, tennis, and basketball. The three of us would play with the guys as the girls re-enacted the typical scene from the movies: talking in a clump and squealing when the ball came near.

So as I'm writing this I realize that I have two different views:

1) Yes, I understand why the girls don't want to play, they are just not interested and/or are afraid of the ball and don't want to get hurt. They probably also think that P.E. was pointless (because they were skinny anyway, and you know, skinny means healthy, right?) and didn't want to put in effort that wasn't needed.

2) But at the same time, they also just want to appear cool, girly, pretty, and attract the boys. They don't want to get sweaty and smell, they want to just be the eye-candy. Now can I blame them for that?

They were the types of girls that didn't care about school. They skimmed by in every class and had no motivation to do anything but shop and drink at the age of 13. So should I be jealous? Upset? Well yeah it upsets me that they are doing nothing with their life except becoming a future trophy wife (and pictures on Facebook are showing this to be true), but if that's what they want then I can't blame them. I just have to follow my own path and let them go where they want.

And now I've gone a whole different direction than I wanted. So, skipping back:

2) Was I teased by the boys for participating?

Well sometimes when I would make a really awful throw, even I would be embarrassed, but for some reason the laughter of the guys stung more than that from the girls. I did feel like I needed to prove myself to them, and when I screwed up, I was only making my situation worse. Maybe I should just sit back with the other girls and not play sports...

But then my competitiveness would kick in and I would just keep playing.

At the same time though, I made some of my best guy friends from P.E. class. I can name at least 4 that I still talk to. They define me as "a strong independent girl who knows what I want" and they like that about me. Some even say that it was my competitiveness that made me stand out from the others, even if I can get a little too crazy.

So yes, I was teased, and it sucks, it honestly hurts looking back now. I made a fool of myself sometimes, and the judgment from the boys was either "ha ha you lost to a boy!" if I messed up or "you just got lucky, I wasn't paying attention" when I scored a point. It hurt that I still had to put up with the idea that I wasn't good at some sports. But, there were those guys that would pass me the ball, that would invite me to hang out outside of class, or those that even asked me out on dates because no matter how sweaty I was, I was still a girl.

So thank you to those boys who are starting to change. Thank you for appreciating girls who work hard, who try. Thank you for letting them be competitive and not teasing them when they mess up or even do well. You have no idea how important that you are to them, how influential you can be. So pass it on, make sure those after you carry the same respect, because honestly, it will be better on both teams; and for lack of a better ending joke, just keep the ball rolling.