I stare out the window at inequality
When you drive by a golf course, do you ever notice the majority of players are black women? If you go by a skate park, do you ever wonder why so many skaters are middle-aged women in sweats? What about when you pass a playfield, or school ground, have you ever asked yourself why it is only the girls out there kicking, throwing, or hitting balls around?
The answer to all of the above, of course, is “No.”
That is because it is the twenty-first century, and it is still male recreation that society deems worthy of the most investment. Yes, of course, you will sometimes see some girls. Even women. But from munchkin league to the good ole’ boys’ golf country club, it is a majority of men and boys, who seem to have all the fun.
When I was very young, I played everything the boys played. But after a certain age, day by day, access to fields, balls, and running disappeared.
Statistics on athletic opportunities show that even when the play space is available, it is still dominated by boys and men. According to ESPN, by age eight, sixty percent of boys, and a lesser forty-seven percent of girls are on some kind of team, often arranged through their school. This changes drastically by high school when girls drop out of athletic endeavors, and boys are encouraged to play football, basketball, soccer, and hockey. For boys of High School age, surveys show that a very large part of their identity is wrapped up in being an athlete, especially with football, hockey, or basketball. Beyond middle school, women do tend to play basketball more-so than football, or hockey. Yet, I have seldom — to never — seen a majority of women at the hoops anywhere in this country, when I look around at public courts and parks.
I began to ask myself why. The answer always seems to be the same: inequality.
Gamer Grate
Looking at activities other than sports, we can find a few more women in the action. Women now make up close to half of video game players. Even so, they are not always welcomed as warmly as the guys, preferring to play solitary, and often quiet games. When it comes to who buys video games and devices, men still hold the solid majority. Suggesting, perhaps, that once the console is available, more girls and women sneak in some kick-butt time of their own.
Speaking of kicking butts, with martial arts, something closer to equal numbers of male and female participants can be found. Yet, even here, men make-up fifty-two percent of those air-punching and kicking fighters, leaving women as less than half the participants, that is, forty-eight percent of them. Boxing and wrestling still favor those of the male persuasion.
Kicking and punching do not fend off a rapist or mugger as effectively as shooting him in the foot, (assuming a firm “No,” isn’t heard due to the possibility of a football concussed skull). Although there are no reliable statistics on just how many women are sexually assaulted, we know it is always more women than men. Therefore, one might expect women to be more enthusiastic about guns. Unable to locate statistics about just how many women like playing around at the gun range, I was, however, able to find that with hunting, women make up about thirty percent of those who hunt and/or fish as a hobby, which again leaves the vast majority of gun enthusiasts who fire the actual things predominantly boys and men.
My husband has two guns. I have none. Neither of us use them. Ever.
Guns are overwhelmingly adored more by men, as any quick visit to your local gun show, or unite the right rally will demonstrate. Maybe that’s why we have Proud Boys, but few militias of Proud Girls? Like me, you may well wonder if maturity has something to do with it.
People care about fitness. Women and men both attend gyms in roughly equal numbers. Women are far more likely to be taking Yoga classes, while men are more likely to be pumping iron, or working out in hopes to muscle up, rather than just to lose weight. Even so, experts warn that by 2030 more than forty percent of all people (almost half!) will be obese. Staying active in athletics is not just a way for kids to learn social skills and team spirit, it is a very real way to predict whether they will struggle with weight issues, and therefore health issues, later in life. That is, fat girls are more than twice as likely to become fat adults. Given this, active participation in sports, or active playtime, is a real factor in any quality of life.
I keep fit by walking up and down a volcano, but there is no organized adult play alternative for Gretchen and I.
When I was a girl, I joined girl scouts. We collected leaves and pasted health and history information in scrapbooks, and sewed “Indian maiden” dresses. When I grew up and learned my spouse, in boy scouts, went camping, played with fire, ran around in the woods, and generally got wild, I was indignant with outrage, and not just due to the cultural appropriation. After all, real “Indian maidens” did all that stuff and more, including opening up the West with an often clueless Lewis and Clark, who needed Sacagawea as a very necessary guide and diplomat. And someone to change the baby.
If you are like myself, you wanted to be that kind of maiden; to be as much a leader as a follower.
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Fit for fun
Staying fit is useful. However, being fair, I would argue, is even more important. The message we send to all girls is that they are just not as important as the boys. We do not even know we send this message. For the most part, I never noticed the lack of girls in public play spaces until my mother pointed it out years ago. Decades, ago.
My mother loved forest more than golf courses, and when our neighborhood was ravaged to put in a large golf course near the lake that had previously been a sanctuary for birds, wildlife, plants, and walking trails, she, and then I, was very disappointed. To this day, I cannot pass by that gigantic space without thinking of what has been displaced, but also set as off limits, to most of us.
In the 1970s’, Title nine (IX) was enacted, creating far more official opportunities for girls to have access to athletics. Although that was decades ago, enrollment numbers for boys steadily continue to exceed the numbers of girls participating in organized play. Then, there is also unofficial play. When I was a “tomboy” we got down and dirty with full tackle football, hit each other with baseballs in the cow pasture, and had a hoop over the garage. Without any realization of it, I quit all of these activities around middle school, just because it “wasn’t done,” not because of any strict enforcement. Somehow, without even speaking of it, we always manage to tell girls: “You are not welcome here.”
Fairness is much bigger than any game. Besides the gender number discrepancy, there are many other factors. Impoverished kids don’t participate in most activities that richer kids take for granted. According to ESPN, the average little league participant comes from a household with annual earnings of more than $100,000. Urban kids, and especially girls are less likely to have as many options. Immigrant children very often have a son, but not a daughter participating. Then there are opportunities such as sports scholarships, professional sports teams, career and endorsement opportunities, fan adoration, coaching positions, and community accolades. We should not give more of these possibilities to male people than we do to female people, yet this is the world we live in.
Where the girls are
Today, when we roll past a playfield, or skate park, I often mutter “Where are the girls?” This got me wondering what DO girls do with their time? When I do see them, they are usually clustered in seated circles clutching phones. Or they are walking, talking on phones. Or they are punching fingers into phones, or onto other devices. Or shopping, but usually while they push a cart around while blocking aisles — because they are oblivious — on their phones.
I am sure they are doing more than this, but honestly, I cannot say what it is. By womanhood, I think women are far more likely to be the ones shuffling kids around, cooking, cleaning, shopping, or washing stains off of the more active family member’s clothes.
There is one sport/game-related activity in which women’s numbers absolutely crush the numbers of the guys. Don’t worry yourself that women are not involved; the job of being a “team parent” is by far overwhelmingly performed by women. She is the one arranging the pizza stop, baking the treats, keeping order in the ranks, raising funds, treating emotional drama and trauma, and getting the boys there on time, among other thankless chores.
Getting girls out in the field
We already know that we should encourage our girls to push envelopes if they are ever to escape rigid roles. It is also important to encourage kids to at least try to escape their comfort zone once in a while. It is not just girls we must encourage. Boys can take dance, yoga, crafting, and sewing lessons, to name just a few. Girls can try out for team sports, or attempt the Queen’s Gambit in a chess club. All STEM courses are important for kids, but they are especially important for girls.
Non-competitive activities also are important. But, if competition is so important to socialization, why don’t schools compete with other schools to see who can plant the most tree seedlings, best veggie garden, or sponsor the biggest plastic clean-up? Awareness of how a person can “make a difference” in the real world is much better than participation trophies.
We can also encourage kids of all ages to be on debate teams, learn public speaking, find an individual passion, and cultivate it into real life.
The language, encouragement, and expectations around what a “girl” can do, must progress to “more than before.”
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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