Recently in class, our focus has been on if women and men
should play sports together or not.
There are many potential views on this subject, with all of them having
very valid reasoning to their thought process regarding the issue. My personal stance is that girls and boys can
play together up until a certain point, with a few exceptions. I think that it is acceptable for boys and
girls to play together at all ages when there is no physical separation between
the boys in girls in terms of strength or speed, as a collective measure. More specifically, I feel it is okay for boys
and girls to play soccer together until
they reach 5th grade or so
because at this point in time boys and girls have the same speed, and relatively
the same strength depending on personal development of the child. I think this is okay because at this point in
their life, the child is only evaluated purely on skill in comparison to
physical attributes. But once boys start
to hit puberty and develop to where they could potentially hurt someone without
realizing it, I feel it then becomes time to separate them as a whole. But this is where I think it is okay to be a
little more lenient in this viewpoint.
For example, if a girl wants to play football and her parents are
comfortable with it, then I feel that she should be able to do that because
that is her dream to do so. But on the
same hand, a boy who wants to play volleyball, if they offer no boys team,
should be allowed to if he wanted to as well.
I think that it is okay for people to play sports competitively with the
opposite sex as the majority if there is nothing comparable to their sport in
their gender. But I think society as a
whole would be more welcoming to a girl playing a boys sport because she wouldn’t
be as expected to succeed as if a boy were to play a girls sport then he may be
looked down upon or held to a higher performance standard when compared with
everyone else.
Zane,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that this could be acceptable early on in life. Often times children play with their friends of another gender on the playground or after school and we think nothing of it. At some point in middle school I think you can see where it would become uncomfortable. Personally I am fine with the combining of genders to play sports, however on a professional level I see it doing more harm than good for gender equity. The fact that women would be put on an uneven playing level again would set back the gender clock and wipe out all of the hard work put in over the years. What are your thoughts on that?
Hunter Haas
Zane,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that it makes sense to keep children together until a certain age. At a young age, there is not much difference mentally and physically between a male and a female. Both sexes have about the same coordination and skill level (although there are bound to be exceptions to this rule).
I find it interesting though that you mentioned that when boys hit puberty it might become an issue and need to be addressed. I feel that it might be the other way around. In one of my classes last year we learned that girls hit puberty at an average age of 10-11, while males usually start puberty between the ages of 11 and 12. So it might actually be the females that first cause the difference in size and strength.
-Andrew Hayes
Zane,
ReplyDeleteWhen I read through this post I sort of had a similar view as Andrew mentioned in his comment. My first thought about the “males hitting puberty,” thing was, shouldn’t we be concerned with females hitting puberty as well? At the end of this comment I have attached a link to a news article done in October 2012 on New York Daily News’ website. I believe the article ties into what is being said in this discussion very well. Yes females are hitting puberty earlier than males, but according to the news article, “Boys in the US are hitting puberty as much as two years earlier than in previous decades, according to a new study out Saturday from the American Academy of Pediatrics” (“Boys hitting puberty”, 2012, para. 1). This is interesting because now the gap between the two genders is getting closer and earlier when they are each hitting puberty. With this phenomenon going on, I have one question, does this affect the age when males and females should stop playing sports together competitively? I completely agree with everyone on this post that yes, males and females can play together, but there is a certain age when I believe they are not on an equal playing field when it comes to physical attributes. Since it seems there is an argument made that once children hit puberty that is the age when the genders should be separated in sport, does that mean children now should be separated at a younger age than around fourth or fifth grade?
-Tyler Jester
Boys hitting puberty up to two years earlier: Study. (2012,October 22). New York Daily News. Retrieved from http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/boys-hitting-pubertyyears-earlier-study-article-1.1189192
Zane,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the fact that boys and girls have the right to play sports together until they reach a certain age level. Once it hits that certain point, it becomes relevant that boys and girls have their separate teams. I like the comparison that you made about a girl receiving consent from her parents to a boy wanting to play for the volleyball team. I agree with this because if a girl is allowed to participate in something socially unacceptable for girls, then a boy should be allowed to do the same. I also feel that in society, it is truly more acceptable for a girl to participate in a sport more socially acceptable for boys. If a boy were to play on a softball team, many fans would complain because it would be "too easy" for the boy to be successful. I feel there is a gray area in this situation.
Dan Pesato^
ReplyDeleteJeremy Shay
ReplyDeleteI agree that boys and girls should be able to play with each other until a certain point in their life but once the abilities of the males are better than the females at a certain age that is when they should start playing with the same gender they are. If you start letting females play with males at the college or professional level you would start seeing a very uneven playing levels. I think that if a male tried playing with a female team at those levels that it would be very unfair for one and that he would have to dominate at that sport just because he is a male playing with females but if it was a female playing with males she wouldn't be expected to do very well just because they are different abilities at that age they are at.
Zane,
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree with you on that girls and boys should and can play together until a certain age. While growing up there was plenty of times that I seen girls playing with boys either on a co-ed team or outside during recess while in school. At one point I played soccer on an all guys team and I did okay with it since our skill level and abilities were about the same during that time. As we got older that is when girls and guys started isolating themselves from each other because they felt more comfortable hanging out and playing sports with their own gender. In all actually I am completely fine with combing gender to play sports but there will always be comparison in some way or another if a female is actually fit and right to play on a male team sport or vice versa.
Lindsey Landversicht