In Defense of Team Sports

There’s an interesting thread going down at Feministe about traditional, sports-focused gym class and how much it sucks. One commenter: “I am saying that team sports in gym class are bad. Fucking evil, actually.” Most emphasize the humiliation of being picked last and the frustration of public failure.

Honestly, I don’t know why reading these comments got my ire up the way they did. I agree that humiliation is bad, that gym class ought to introduce kids to a wide variety of physical activities, and that kids who can‘t climb a rope should be given a way to develop their skills instead of being set up to fail. I do not agree, however, that team sports “enforce a hierarchy and instill bad feelings.” To borrow a questionable turn of phrase from the wrong side of the aisle, "team sports don’t rank and humiliate kids -- kids, when improperly supervised, rank and humiliate kids". Actually, team sports usually do the opposite, even in gym class.

Sports were a huge part of my life, starting from age 4, when my father noticed my pre-existentialist depression and insisted that I be enrolled in sports to get out of my head. (My mother countered this by insisting that I go to church in order to see that there are bigger things than me in the universe. I’ll let you guess which decision had the most positive influence on my life.) I always played with the boys at recess, I was the first girl to make my neighborhood little league all-stars team, and I captained two sports in high school before going on to play rugby in college. I credit sports with my uniquely good body image throughout high school, my healthy relationship to food, my ability to balance leadership and teamwork, my single mindedness in pursuit of a goal, my healthy competitiveness (my unhealthy competitiveness really only manifests itself in board games), and my feminism.

Along the way, I ran into the problems most girls face when they play sports during recess or on all-boys teams. I remember a teacher (!) at my elementary school who always organized the lunch-time games of kickball and flag football picking all the girls at once -- five girls equal one boy -- everyday. I remember him never passing to me, regardless of how open I was or how many interceptions I made on defense. I hated him. While I played little league, I remember boys running around with bats doing “cup checks,” which was fine, except that I, of course, didn’t wear one. I remember one particularly horrible game where the opposing pitcher beaned me four times in a row rather than risk letting a girl get a hit off him (smart, really, since I had a .630 batting average at that point in the season). I was shaking in fear when I was on-deck the fifth time.

But, when I changed schools to go to a class for smart kids in fifth grade, that changed. The boys there originally picked me (and everyone else they didn’t know) last, but once I proved my abilities they never did that again. Most of the girls played along at recess -- flyers up, kickball, four square, what have you. That was the first time in my life that my abilities meant more than my gender. I played sports with them all through middle school -- picture 14-year-old me, as tall as I’d ever be, complete with fully developed boobs, playing basketball with 14-year-old boys who ranged in height from 4‘7“ to 5‘9“. That experience, added to playing competitive soccer, basketball, and fast pitch softball on all-girl teams did more to get me through high school in one piece than anything. Along the way, I learned to value my body for what it could DO, rather than what it looked like. I never exercised to lose weight. I never even worried about what I ate, since it required a ridiculous amount of calories to compete at the level I was at. I never shied away from something because it was traditionally off-limits to girls. And, as I came to feminist consciousness, I began to credit my early experiences with fostering a rabid egalitarian ethos.

Above all, I think team sports, more than individual sports like track or swimming, and especially more than an emphasis on fitness starting at age 5, encourage healthy body image and behavior among women. IF you can make sure to equally include everyone and cut down on needless humiliation. The challenge is to make gym class varied enough so that the experience of moving and playing can be fun for everyone, if not all the time, then at least some of the time.

Word of the day: Tolerance

This site (specifically, this line of reasoning) contained so many artfully elusive logical leaps that I felt compelled to keep reading because of the brazzenness of it all. After I skipped past the argument that 'gays commit more crimes than they have committed against them for being gay,' I stumbled upon an actually interesting idea.

"Many people are confused about what tolerance is. According to Webster's the word tolerate means to allow or to permit, to recognize and respect others' beliefs and practices without sharing them, to bear or put up with someone or something not necessarily liked.

we can't tolerate someone unless we disagree with him. This is critical. We don't "tolerate" people who share our views. Tolerance is reserved for those we think are wrong.

This essential element of tolerance--disagreement--has been completely lost in the modern distortion of the concept. Nowadays, if you think someone is wrong, you're called intolerant.

This presents a curious problem. One must first think another is wrong in order to exercise tolerance toward him, yet doing so brings the accusation of intolerance. According to this approach, true tolerance is impossible."

(I'm going to force myself to ignore the main logical flaw in the above argument. Wait, no I'm not: homosexuality is, on its face, a practice and not a belief. So, using this definition, a tolerant person, while not sharing a propensity toward gay sex would "permit," "recognize," and even (gasp) "respect" a homo's practice of said sex.)

Whereas I usually enjoy conservative and anti-gay writing just because of the shits and giggles I get from feeling outraged, this writing actually touched on something that I've been meaning to write about for a while: the fundamental assumption that liberals want "tolerance" or, if they're a little more radical, "acceptance" of differing viewpoints.

Fuck that.

I may or may not be a liberal. If you're conservative, and you use the term "liberal" as a slur, then, sure, I'm a liberal. If you're a leftist and you think liberals are whiny sell-outs, then, no, I'm not a liberal. But regardless of my political label, I think this subtle charge of hypocrisy needs to be addressed, but good.

This comes up a lot on college campuses, especially at my alma mater. In the groves of academe, the political gradations tend to run from "not voting out of protest" to Nader to Gore. But there are always a few frat brothers who vote Republican. Inevitably, some wildly unimportant event will bring all the conservatives out of the woodwork to decry the university's discrimination against white male athletes, or support of Islamic extremism, or something. When this happens, all hell breaks loose. You've got your yelling, crying, spewed invectives, and, shock of all shock, disagreement.

Then comes the clincher: "You liberals claim to be tolerant, but you don't tolerate people who disagree with you. In fact, you're silencing me right now. As I speak."

I've got one fundamentalist bone in my body, and that bone is devoted to freedom of speech. I don't care if it's racist, sexist, homophobic, rude, offensive, or stupid: you can say it. Hell, I'll even let you print it if someone is willing to spill ink on you. However, once you've said it, you've got to stand by it. You've got to accept criticism, disagreement, and anger. That anger, no matter how harsh, hasn't prevented you from speaking; don't prevent the emotions you've evoked from being expressed.

That's tolerance.

It doesn't mean putting up with offensive shit. It doesn't mean that you think every conceivable way of living is fine and dandy. It doesn't mean reserving judgment. It means keeping a healthy distance from what you believe is right and what you will permit other people to do. It means calling people out when they do something you disagree with. It means putting yourself and your convictions on the line and allowing the person or lifestyle you've criticized a space to respond.

This is one of the reasons I'm skeptical of calling all the 'phobes out there intolerant. If they want to criminalize sexual expression between consenting adults, that's one thing. If they want gaymos to 'keep it in the bedroom,' that's another. In those situations, they are refusing to t tolerate expressions of difference. But if they simply believe that gay people are diseased, unhappy, and perverted sinners, they're not intolerant-- they're bigoted and ignorant. Let's call a spade a spade.

How to Take Money from the Right Wing, Legally!

Apparently, Focus on the Family will give free books (including shipping costs) to anyone who wants them. Probably in the hopes that these free books will convince gaymos to become ex-gaymos. If you're secure enough in your sexuality/gender/religion, order some books on their dime and sell them on eBay. You'll make money, they'll lose money. Everyone's happy! Follow this link to learn the 12 steps of this fun direct action.

Don't worry, folks, gentrification is GOOD for Black people

You have to love the sheer audacity/cluelessness that permeates this article by the SF Chronicle. Front Page. Above the fold. (For those who still think in newspaper terms.) Headline, you ask?

"The Bay Area's Minority Migration Population Shift: Inner cities shrink as minorities seek better schools and lives."

Hm.

The story opens with an anecdote about a Black family that decided to move from Berkeley to Antioch because:

"I have a big, huge yard, and I love the weather. The streets are cleaner, and the schools are better."

And this is the only analysis they offer of the possible reasons behind the sudden shift of Black and Latino populations away from city centers. There's no discussion of sky-rocketing rents. Nothing about the changing character of the city. Nothing about the changing nature of the types of jobs that are available in cities. Nothing about the prevalence of young, white, college-educated, 20-somethings moving to San Francisco and commuting to Silicon Valley to take part in the next dot com boom/bust. Nope.

Black and Latinos are moving because they can have a better life in the burbs. That 90-minute commute doesn't bother the author of that first quote at all.

One quotation (not even a poorly-conducted survey!) provides the rationale behind the entire 'behind-the-colon' portion of the headline.

What I find interesting about this article is the not-so-subtle comparison of minority movement to the burbs with the "White Flight" to the burbs that took place in the 70s and 80s. I've seen it before -- mostly from White liberals who whine: 'I can't do anything right! If I move to the suburbs, I'm participating in White flight! If I move to the City, I'm gentrifying!' This is coupled with an almost manifest destiny approach to movement towards outlying areas.

Go forth, young non-white, and grow up with the suburbs.

For those keeping track (ha), I plan to revisit this issue in the future, because I think this article brings up another important fact behind recent population shifts. Namely, that these shifts aren't only the result of forced displacement, but are also the result of rational decisions to improve one's economic situation. When addressing these sorts of population shifts, into and out of cities, it's important to keep in mind each individual's decision to move or stay put. Another time.

my two cents.

My mom was a single mother for most of my brother's and my upbringing. She worked as a nurse and supported us in every way imaginable. In a lot of ways, she defined herself by her relationship to us, and she prided herself on being a good mother. Which she was.

So, when one of her colleagues decided that our family didn't meet the definition of 'family' because there was no 'marriage' and no 'father,' it hit my mother hard. I was young, but I remember it involved some sort of invitation snub -- a party for 'families only' or something -- and a subsequent confrontation. By proxy, it hit me hard. This was the family I knew, the mother I knew, and someone felt entitled to literally define us out of existence.* By heading up a non-traditional family, my mother was forced to constantly fight for the right to mother her children.

As evidenced by recent blow-ups over motherhood on some popular feminist blogs, motherhood is an emotional subject. It's hard out here for a mom. Single moms, working moms, stay at home moms... older moms, younger moms, adoptive moms... The struggles are different depending on your position -- maybe a working mother struggles with inadequate family leave policies, while a stay at home mother struggles with isolation -- but birthing and raising a child is a friggin' hard job. All these mothers have to deal with the judgment of strangers, the government, schools, family, bosses, lovers, psychologists. I will not add to that judgment.** Well, maybe I'll add a positive judgment to the mix. Here goes: Yay Mothers! You rock.

But.

My initial reaction to these posts was defensive, angry, and resentful. I'll explain why I reacted this way and why this anger and resentment does not necessarily denigrate motherhood or women who mother.

I'm not a mother.

Chances are I will never be a mother. Not by having been pregnant and giving birth, at least. Maybe by raising kids, my partner's kids, adopted kids, something like that. Who knows. Maybe not.

I have a tenuous enough relationship to my gender as it is. So when something like pregnancy or birth i s held up as indicative of one of the main things that separates women from men, something that that "vast majority" of women do, and something that turns women into productive members of society, I cringe. Not because motherhood is wrong or bad, but because I have decided not to identify with motherhood's centrality to a productive female identity.

It's worth noting that feminists aren't responsible for emphasizing the role of motherhood
in a female identity. A childless woman -- an infertile woman, a childfree-by-choice woman, a woman whose gender identity doesn't permit pregnancy -- doesn't thing she's less of a woman because angry feminist moms are telling her so. She gets this from society at large and brings these sentiments into feminist discussions. Likewise, a feminist mom doesn't feel guilty about how she approaches motherhood because angry feminists have some anti-child, anti-mother bent that makes it more difficult for her to birth and raise a child. No, it's just easier to fight over specific blog quotes from specific feminists that we read everyday, because society is just too big. We can't even decide what to call it! (I didn't use the word "patriarchy" for a reason.)

I've opted out of a female identity that requires pregnancy. I'm of the opinion that expanding the definition of womanhood is a good thing. Give mothers the support they need to succeed in a very difficult job. Fight for the right to choose motherhood. Avoid the dreaded mommy drive-by. But acknowledge that, as women, we're being groomed to have children from the moment we're handed a doll. Having a child is wonderful and difficult. But choosing to remain childless also requires strength and conviction.

*This is mean: this woman was an evangelical Christian whose son got addicted to meth and hid gay porn under his bed so she would be sure to find it. I judge her, even though my mature self recognizes that she was denigrating my family so that her own family could be redeemed.

**Now that I have the first * out of the way: I vow not to judge children or their parents in supermarkets, nice restaurants, family restaurants, fast food restaurants, bars, taquerias, movies, parks, cars, schools, zoos, church, the post office, streets, and offices. I make no guarantees for other locations, but only because I can't think of any others.

Word of the day: "strawman"

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to write this blog because I was interested in being able to re-read old writing and cringe at my naivete. I can't believe it's happened already. In the past few days, I've decided that I hate the term "strawman." And I used it in the title of my very first post.

I first encountered the word in Intro Women's Studies (before it was Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) during the Anthropology unit. Back then, I young and impressionable. I started using words like "problematic" and "discourse." Soon, I made jokes about "hailing" people, yelling "Hey! You there!" at random people on the street. Boy, I sure called them into being. Somehow "strawman" never entered my vocabulary. Until now. And I want it out out out.

A strawman, as most bloggers know, is a logical fallacy. It refers to the common practice of mischaracterizing an opponent's argument in order to easily refute it. To unpack the word further, the term evokes a specific action: building an effigy out of an argument, preferably in the shape of a scarecrow, and setting it on fire. We all know that straw burns more easily than ideas.

Why do I suddenly detest this term? Because it has become a useless cliche. It no longer evokes the mental image it once did -- a burly man in an army uniform thrashing a limp scarecrow until straw pokes through its eyes. That image was great: it was silly, it made the burly man look angry and useless, it took everyone down a notch. Now, however, its meaning has morphed into shorthand for "you're not engaging my arguments fairly, so I will not engage your arguments at all. Rather, I will accuse you of committing a fallacy in order to prove I am smarter than you." Instead of encouraging someone to stand up and debate, it is a way to shut down the conversation. It concentrates on the debate method or the rhetorical device used rather than the idea itself. Also, it is often used incorrectly. I hate that. I hate words that have lost their punch. I hate words that have been conscripted into the service of people who wield them indiscriminately. And therefore, I hate the word "strawman." I will be on the lookout for misuse of this horrid term. Consider yourself warned.

If only.

I am printing gobs and gobs of documents so that I can produce them to the defense before an expert gives her deposition. First, however, I will copy them with a fancy copy-setting that adds little numbers to the bottom of the page so that they are recorded, accessible, and easily referenced. Chances are I will organize them into a three-ringed binder with color coded exhibit tabs at some point. Such is the thrilling life of a paralegal. I sit back, relax, do some printing and copying, and watch opposing attorneys hit each other over the head until one expert emerges as the most expert-seeming to potential jurors.

All this, when I could be sipping pina coladas in a beach hut bungalow off the coast of Honduras.

Or exploring the Mayan ruins of Tikal.

Or boating down the Amazon.

Or even getting travelers’ diarrhea in a dingy hostel with hairy tarantulas crawling around in the shower.

Better get back to work.