Animosity or Admiration?
Female athletes don't deserve ambiguous audiences
By Molly Long

"Aww, man, you throw like a girl."

For most grade school boys, this was the king of all recess taunts, one that, if applied to you, would ensure your last-pick status when it came time to choosing teams.

After all, what could be worse than being compared to the rope-jumping, hopscotch-playing, skirt-wearing cootie carriers that were your sworn playground enemies?

Girls, yuck.

And to be likened to one of those athletically-challenged Barbie devotees seriously undermined your prepubescent psyche.

Well, watch out boys, cause the playground, it is a changin’; girls are no longer content to sit on the sidelines and allow gender inequality to persist in the athletic world.

In the past few years, women have shattered the gender stereotypes in both amateur and professional athletics, proving that we are a force to contend with on the playing field, be it a basketball court, baseball diamond, or hockey rink.

Moreover, we’ve shown that to jump/kick/shoot/bat like a girl is definitely not a drawback; in fact, estrogen is enviable, as the recent successes of female athletes in America have shown.

Take, for example, the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan weren’t the only American women who won medals by skating on a thin sheet of ice; the U.S. women’s hockey team also won Olympic gold, and they didn’t exactly prance around in sequined skirts to do it.

Basketball is another case in point. Wesleyan’s next door neighbor, Old Dominion, sent their women’s team to the finals in the NCAA tournament; though they fell, they were the top-seeded team again this year. Feeling a little jealous, Monarch men?

The creation of the WNBA last year means that women don’t have to abandon their athletic dreams after playing collegiate ball; just ask Sheryl Swoopes, who not only gets paid to play a sport she loves, but even has a court shoe named after her.

Yet, despite women’s growing presence in the world of sports, we’re not exactly welcomed with open arms. Female athletes remain peripheral figures, while men’s sports teams have a monopoly over audiences and advertisers alike.

When it comes to fans, just ask any female athlete here at VWC what it’s like to play a sport which the rest of the college doesn’t support. How many times have the stands been packed at a men’s soccer game, only to empty to a handful of ardent fans when the girls take the field immediately afterward?

Prestige is still conferred on men in the world of athletics, and that’s something that we, as spectators, have the power to change. It begins at home: next time there’s a women’s lacrosse or softball game, make your way out to the field and support the women of Wesleyan.

Bored on a Sunday afternoon? Turn on a WNBA game or watch ESPN specifically for women’s sports.

Only when we demand more and better coverage of women’s sports will gender bias be eliminated in athletics.

And maybe one day in the not-too-distant future, that familiar playground phrase will have a whole new meaning; imagine little boys saying to one another, in tones of admiration, not animosity, "Wow, man, you throw like a girl!"