Feminism & Sports

A couple of weeks ago I was somewhat surprised by a discussion on the show “To The Contrary” where even the host Bonnie Erbe got her two cents in the discussion.  My first and lasting thought was simply “are these topics mutually exclusive?”  To put the discussion in context the question arose out of the ongoing controversy with famous sports figures getting into trouble over sexual abuse and violence against women, including their wives coupled with frat party rapes on and off campus.

I don’t know very much about what goes on in training of sports but I would be really surprised to learn that because you train as a quarterback you are taught that all women are yours for the taking or anything remotely connected with women and sex.  The discussion at one point veered to “we should do a better job of raising our boys” which again I thought was being very exclusive.  Are parents doing a better job raising girls than boys? 

We have here several different discussions but just to scrap the first one out of the way I believe any woman can enjoy sports of any kind and still be a feminist.  You can take feminism as having a number of different definitions including and excluding various areas of humanism.  That’s for another discussion.  In this context I am taking it that feminism means women who believe in equal rights for women.  One of those rights would be going to a football game, for goodness sakes!

With regard to how we raise our children I would hope that the majority of parents would raise their sons and daughters to respect each other and abjure violence towards anyone.  If I child is going on to college I would hope, for heavens sakes, that there would be enough intelligence in that boy’s noggin to realize that rape is wrong.  The fault, one would assume, lies not in the parenting but in the culture in the college.  I was going to add “and in the game” however I don’t think that is quite right either.  Whether it is hockey, football, basketball or javelin throwing sports are about excellence.  The sport itself is not wrong but the culture which may grow up around certain teams (professional or college) and the sort of mob mentality that can arise at any time (not just when young people are in college and perceived to be more impressionable). 

What do I mean?  I mean that there are certain people of all ages who are influenced by others very easily.  As well there are certain people who seem to enjoy violence of any type whether it be in a sport or an accident on the road.  Some people are like that, rubbernecking their way through life.  In preparing our children for life, not just college, we should prepare them as strong and independent individuals who do not rely on the approval of others in order to exist.  Too often it seems teenagers of 17 or 18 head off to college without ever having been away from home before and consequently they do not know how to handle their “freedom” in an adult way.  Peer pressure is alive and sick in colleges around the world so instead of being a helicopter parent give your child the tools he or she needs to become independence.