I have a new little girl.
This makes 2 girls in my family.
I was discussing sports with girl 2 yesterday and how society will look at them. Needless to say, she wasn't pleased. It might have been because she is 8 days old and wanted to eat, but I saw the look in her eyes, she was listening.
Hear me out, I have never really been a huge women's lib guy. I believe that women are equal to men and all that crap, but men and women are definately not the same. Men, (on average) are taller, faster, stronger, etc. but when it comes to the brain, we are the same. We both have different instincts when it comes to life and how we go about it, but I'm not talking about that. I am talking about sports.
Yes, I believe if you take the best man and the best woman at any given sport and compare the two, it is not close. The man will be superior everytime. My follow-up question to that is, "Who cares?" Why have we decided that because there is a difference between men and women, we must make that difference greater than it is?
Basketball is my favorite sport. I have always enjoyed playing and watching basketball. Can anyone give me a logical reason why a women's basketball is smaller then the men's? Can anyone answer why women play softball in high school while the men play baseball? I realize that this was decided before 1950 when women were clearly looked upon as a weaker sex. But in the 60+ years since the decision was made, I have not read one article about someone wanting to change it.
I imagine the day one of my girls askes the question, "Dad, why is the basketball my team plays with smaller than the boys basketball?" "Well honey, a long time ago, someone decided girls are not as good as boys and therefore you have a smaller ball." "But Dad, there really isn't much of a difference in size or weight, why doesn't someone change it now?" "Oh honey, it's because society secretly thinks that you are still inferior and you wouldn't be able to pick up a full size basketball. Now stop asking so many questions or the president will take away your voting rights."
Can you imagine if a golf ball was a different size for women vs men? Or a basketball hoop was only 9 feet instead of ten for the WNBA? Or we had different tracks for men and women to run on? Or we let girls play hockey but said they can't check because they're too fragile. Oops, that one is already in place. Madness! Aren't we to a point in our society that this can finally go away?
Why? Why do we still make girls play softball instead of baseball? It's not like they are playing with the boys and could get hurt by the physical size of a man vs a woman. In fact, if there was a girl who made it to the MLB and everytime she came up to bat they switched it to a softball, there would be outrage!
I get it, if we switch everything right now there would be a lot of confusion. Girls in high school who have been playing with a womens basketball their whole lives would have to adjust. How long would that take? 2 months? 3 months? At most, there would be a year long adjustment period and the everyone would be using the same equipment. Done.
In the LPGA, (women's professional golf for all you who didn't know), they don't tee off from the ladies tees! They are all good enough to playfrom the men's. In track, there isn't a shorter marathon or a shorter mile. In almost every sport across the board, things are the same. But not in the big 3. (I excluded football in the big three because there is no women's football. Unless you count lingerie football but that is a whole other story). Basketball, baseball and hockey are wildly inconsistent when it comes to men vs women. It's time for a change.
The real tragedy is coed leagues. Once in awhile, men and women play on the same team for fun and when that happens, it is always the girls sport that takes over. How am I supposed to impress my wife with my basketball skills when I am using a girls ball? I'm not used to it! My shot is going everywhere and I have trouble dribbling. As a 33 year old man who plays basketball once a year and is trying to relive the glory days of being second string at a very small high school, it is a real buzzkill.
"Dad, is it true that back in the day girls used a smaller basketball then the boys?" "Yes, girl 1 and 2, it is true." "Wow! That seems so sexist and old school. When did they end up changing it?" "Well girls, in 2012 a guy named Norm Alman stood up for sports women across the globe and said a change needs to be made. And now, we are all equal in the world of sports."
End of story. The fact this hasn't happened yet is mind boggling. We will most likely have a women president in the next 10-20 years. It nearly happened last election. We give women the power to run the greatest, most powerful country in the world, but we won't give them a proper size basketball.
All that said, I will never be in favor of girls volleyball getting rid of those short shorts.
