A friend recently pointed out to me that our weekly hometown paper disproportionately covers boy’s sports over girl’s sports. I never noticed because the only sport I follow is professional baseball. (Go Sox!) How sad given the fact our high school girl’s teams have had some incredible championship years. The boy’s teams haven’t fared as well. Still it shouldn’t surprise me.
Last year I questioned a local blogger on a statement he made that “people prefer men’s sports to women’s.” I asked, do we really “know” that or do we know that historically men’s sports have dominated the media? Another commenter on the blog cited advertising dollars and paying audiences as proof “that men’s sports are preferred by more people.” And further proof? He watches men’s sports almost exclusively. I bet during the recent Olympics he watched men’s ski jumping and not women’s. Oh right, the women weren’t allowed to compete. Anyway, enough complaining. Time to back our words with action.
If you understand the benefits of girls participating in team sports, if you believe women deserve equality, if you are tired of the mainstream media serving up male athletes and ignoring the women, join this group on Facebook, “I pledge to attend one women’s sports event (college/pro) in 2010.”
The group’s mission is fantastic. From the Facebook page, “Being pro-woman, feminist or full of girl power requires action. Spurred on by the attention women athletes received during the Olympics and the history of that attention waning afterward, we created this challenge to put our money where our heart is. Everyone who becomes a fan is pledging to attend one, just one, professional or collegiate, women’s sporting event by the end of 2010.” The group was partially inspired by this commentary from Frank Deford of NPR.
As we’ve said before, if we expect little girls to believe us when we tell them they can grow up and be anything they want, then we need to show them strong women role models. And this mother wouldn’t mind watching her daughter pitch for the Red Sox someday.
Well, obviously if we place her pitching for the Red Sox, we can assume hypothetically that at least one female plays for the Red Sox.
But baseball is, and has been, and always will be considered a male sport. If, according to this group you encouraged, someone said, “I’m going to one female sport this year”, baseball would not be on the list.
You would not be bringing any sport to any greater attention. Baseball is already a sport loved by, and fanatically followed by millions, and played by millions upon millions more. I’m not sure baseball can be brought to anymore awareness.
The best that could happen is that it wouldn’t become a “women’s sporting event”. It would simply become gender neutral, and I’m guessing that’s not good enough. Also, if your son ended up pitching for the Red Sox, and not your daughter, would you be, even the tiniest bit, disappointed?
Good luck to her, though. 92 MPH is the magic number on fastball. Fastballs in, sliders away. Plus there’s no real arm action on a slider. That means no danger of destroying a young arm with the added plus of being an amazing strike-out pitch. But she does need to build up arm strength and find a throwing motion that can eventually get her to 92 MPH. By age 13 she should be shooting for about 65-70 MPH.
I remember a girl that went out for our football team. She didn’t make it, but I always gave her props for trying. Best of luck to your daughter if that’s what she wants.
Peace.
Assuming the Red Sox remained an all-male team, perhaps.
But if she pitched for the Red Sox, wouldn’t that mean that this goal ultimately failed to bring women’s sports to the same level as men’s?