Cassy Herkelman can take of herself. After all, she’s one of the first girls to ever qualify for the Iowa State wrestling tournament, along with fellow high-schooler Megan Black.
And yet when she was set to face off against tournament favorite Joel Northrup in the division finals, she won only by default. Northrup forfeited the match, stating publicly that he had moral qualms about fighting a girl.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cassy and Megan and their accomplishments. However, wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. As a matter of conscience and my faith I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most other high-school sports in Iowa.
Needless to say, the gender politics behind this are complicated. I’ll admit my first reaction was to take umbrage. Herkelman had qualified by state standards and she had made the conscious choice to place herself in potential danger. She was talented, trained, and game. So what right did Northrup have to take the competition away?
Well firstly, this was in no way an easy decision for him. As SportsGrid explained it:
Wrestling is to Iowa as football is to Texas, and Northrup was a favorite to win the 5A state tournament in his weight class—so he gave up a lot by not fighting Herkelman.
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Further, Northrup was clearly acting in large part out of religious faith. And whether or not I agree, his old-school sentiment reflects good intentions. I’m torn between admiring a young man who gave up something to stay true to his own convictions, and shaking my head at an archaic notion of femininity being rehashed yet again.
So I leave it to you, readers. What are the implications behind a decision like this? What would you have done in Northrup’s place? Leave it in the comments.
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A bad situation for a young man to be in. If he won he would be the guy who beat a girl. If he lost he would be the guy who got beat by a girl. And it would be women doing the name calling. He did the right thing. Smart kid.
I see the dilemma. My very first reaction though, was that he gave a very articulate public statement. Okay, maybe someone wrote it for him, but wow, that was good grammar and everything! Props to the kid for taking his stance with a little class and dignity, whether I agree with his reasons or not. If only the debate on gender roles could sound like that all the time…..
Quite honestly I’d consider becoming a boxer solely so I could get into a coed division and beat the shit out of a woman with no societal consequences.
@Derek: Sparring and competition are NOT one and the same. Cheryl makes the point quite succinctly to that end. While I also sparred with women in my jujitsu dojo, our class was a street defense class. There were no MMA rules, and the sensei explicitly paired women of smaller stature with men of larger stature. He told us that they were instructed to treat us like we were attempting to rape them, and we were to treat them like they were trying to kill us. We lost a few girls and guys because the concept was so offensive. But the… Read more »
It is sexist to force boys to compete against girls just because they are girls. This is especially the case in a sport like wrestling where there is so much close contact and touching. Last time I checked, ‘touchy’ behavior among males is thoroughly demonized by American society. Why is it OK to not respect the comfort zones of male athletes? If you have a problem with boys who don’t want to compete against girls in sports then why don’t you also have a problem with female-only gyms? Even if his reasons were not religiously motivated, his decision would still… Read more »
I think the drive to categorize the behavior of the boy is highly misdirected. As social roles continue to be redefined and expanded, how do any of us ‘know’ what is the best or more destructively ‘correct’ thing to do? The boundaries of old are crumbling, and have been in flux for the last 50 years. There are so many unknowns out there, with people young and old trying to figure out how to act, given that there are no instruction or rule booklets, and what books are there (e.g., sacred texts) we don’t agree on their applicability or validity.… Read more »
i think that the dichotomy you set up is misguided: sexism and gentlemanliness stem from the same root. to be sure, there is a difference between being a nice guy and being a gentleman: you can be a nice guy without being sexist, but imho, it’s very difficult to be a gentleman or chivalrous without sexism.
gender roles (and the inferior role of women within that paradigm) are constantly evolving, but this young man’s behavior is decidedly archaic, no matter how noble i think it is.
Anyone who thinks it is even the slightest bit sexist for him to refuse to compete with a girl, is actualy sexist themselves. It is totally sexist to expect someone to be obligated to accept the challenge just because of the opponent’s gender. There is no obligation to accept a challenge/opponent. You all talk about how she qualified to be there, and how *she* chose to compete. Well, so she gets to decide to compete, but the boy is not allowed to decide whether to compete or not? It’s ridiculously sexist to assume she gets to make deicisions about who… Read more »
I don’t think the boy was being sexist. I think he was not worried about fighting a girl: he was worried about the reaction. What if he hurt her? Iowa is a place where a guy hurting a lady is frowned upon heavily. His friends would not respect him if he won and they wouldn’t respect him if he lost. I think he forfeited, not out of misogyny, but out of fear of the reactions of others.
He was probably afraid of ending up in jail, or dead. We live in a world where every form of interaction between men and women is criminal, if the woman either does not like it, or regrets it later.
Does this also mean that women’s only sports / women’s only gyms are a sexist double standard?
I only wrestle women in tubs of mud or olive oil. It is a great workout and good for the skin.
This is an interesting dilemma for men and women who practice combat sports. It’s ok in the gym to grapple and wrestle with male or female training partners, but some guys feel differently about competing with women. At a tournament last year, my wrestling instructor, Little Benny, was completely thrown off when he realized his next opponent was a woman. He was in distress for a few minutes whilst he thought about what to do. I suggested that he forget she was a woman and just consider her to be his next opponent. He did. The girl put up a… Read more »
Guys are in a lose-lose situation. If they beat a gril it’s not big deal and she gets kidos for jusy showing u and competing. if he loses he will be mocked forever.
The boy didn’t want to fight a girl, what’s so wrong in that?? good old fashioned chivalrously, furthermore, he didn’t want to based on his religious beliefs,, that’s as respectful explanation as any other.
Cassy Herkelman ended up losing to another boy within seconds, she was not much of a match in the end, so if there are folk in need of a mental masturbation why don’t we turn *that* instead into a disempowerment of women argument??
I feel bad for Northrup in a way. He doesn’t want to be seen as a misogynist and I understand about being uncomfortable wrestling a girl.
But his argument is ultimately weak.
She qualified to be there. She’s there voluntarily. If he really had respect for her as a competitor, he would treat her as an equal and wrestle. Forfeiting simply because she’s a girl actually displays a lack of respect.
Yes, I agree.
I don’t feel like either of you wrestled or know the whole mentality behind it. You are going into a match wanting to win, no matter what. There may be blood drawn and blows thrown. And you grow up in the midwest where we are taught to treat women with utmost respect and then are told to apply your inner beast against her? I had a friend who we will call D. He was wrestling for the championship of a really important tournament. We had this friend who was a girl, and she ultimately ended up taking third in my… Read more »
I agree @Anderzoid. This male’s decision is not only sexist, but it has disempowered this legitimately equal and competing woman entrant. And people do not hide behind religion, unless it is a cult – which all about sexism and disempowerment of women.
I agree with you MitchellAndr.
Plus, the boy is not distinguishing situations where the woman wants to “fight” and has engaged him in this way, with those where the woman has not. Also, he is not distinguishing an athletic competition from a “fight” that is more raw and boundaryless.
I think many boys/men have the policy with other boys/men that they fight only when attacked, and don’t initiate fights?
Many a man is currently in prison for defending himself after a woman attacked him. Many men have found that the fact that he won a fight, protected himself after having been attacked first by a woman, is reason for the police and judiciary to sentence him to time in jail or prison. If this young man had hurt her, his reputation would have forever been harmed and he could possibly have been arrested.
If a man wrestles a woman, she can ruin his life at any time for “inappropriate touching”.
How can you call the man “sexist” for protecting his liberty and his life? In a society of feminists and their cronies, all tripping over each other in their eagerness to vilify every man for everything, any man who refuses to come near a woman is simply protecting himself.
Initial reaction is sexist. In this case it sure seems like that to me. I’d prefer no fighting 🙂 if I’m pregnant I’d expect some1 2 protect me (but I’d fight 4 our life). That to me is where “don’t hit a girl” comes from. We are responsible for caring for next generation, right? But let’s face it, women in sports is still new. When I ran cross country in HS in IL we had a day to celebrate being ALLOWED to compete. I am so glad to have the opportunity. Especially bc when girls hit puberty our bodies change… Read more »
If the man touches her, he can go to jail. In many places you can go to jail by looking at the wrong thing, saying the wrong words, or being in the wrong place. In this man-hating world, if a woman says it is a crime, it is a crime.
All smart men stay away from women at all times. The wrestler was protecting himself from random feminist hate, enforced by the state.
I’d have to agree with this. Until men can say their treatment by a woman was criminal, such as groin assaults for every reason in school years (and after), then men have to take precautions that reduce freedoms and increase the divide (dislike, hatred) between the genders.Cornered people tend to hate, avoid, etc. The courts and media opinion of what is right have cornered men.
I don’t think this necessarily gentlemanly or sexist. It’s just plain smart.
Boys are taught young not to touch women and in a wrestling match there is touching all over. It’s not surprising that men would be uncomfortable about it and put at a disadvantage when they could be blamed for any number of things.
Well, she knew what she was getting herself into. She could very well grab the boy’s crotch, but I didn’t see her backing out of the tournament because of that.
When I was in middle school, an eighth grade girl played on the boy’s football team, and they never once felt like she was inferior to them, or that she was fragile, or that she could get hurt. And I bet her competitors never felt that way either, because she succeeded in being star on the team and being the most valuable player.
I agree with you in principle, I used to play tackle football with girls who were friends. However, young boys have their own fears about a more intimate sport like wrestling in state competition where he is unsure of himself about his ability to be aggressive and intimate in public with a girl. He’s scared.
First off, GMPM, get rid of the automatic page reloading, or add in something that stores the text field’s content. Now, on topic: While she may have accepted the potential risks and consequences, he did not. She may be willing to risk getting touched inappropriately, or being hurt, but he isn’t willing to be the one to do it, even by accident. Given that we are inundated every day about violence against women, which includes both the sexual assault and physical abuse that could occur, being the leading social epidemic that it is, I can hardly blame him. Of all… Read more »
Kratch says:
February 19, 2011 at 1:46 am
First off, GMPM, get rid of the automatic page reloading, or add in something that stores the text field’s content
Good Lord yes…PLEASE get rid of this feature or add auto save…I can’t TELL you how many times I’ve lost posts
Because she, unlike the boys, would care if she grabbed the sexual parts of the opponent and caused distressed, or merely threatened it continually and “bumped” him constantly there.
Exactly the point I was going to make Denis. “Don’t hit your sister” “Never hit a lady” “Play nice, she’s a girl” “Real men don’t hit women” “He hit her? What a bastard!” “He hit her? He’s obviously a psychopath” “He needs counseling, he’s obviously violent and has mental issues” Males get these, and variations of, these messages from the time they can walk until the end of their lives. They get them not only directly from parents, teachers and peers; but also indirectly through media (print adverts, music, television etc). Males are constantly surrounded by ‘reminders’ not to hit… Read more »
Nice post. Length was needed 😉
I could understand this stance if it were actual fighting, like boxing or some other martial arts where opponents hit each other. Wrestling, although physical, wouldn’t count as fighting in my book.
Personally I would have no issues with wrestling a female within a competition, but never would strike a lady in any situation. I still consider myself a gentleman.
I spent 10 years studying martial arts with a female sensei. Full contact co-ed sparring was the norm. In such an environment you soon realize that women are not fragile or weak and to think of them as such is archaic and sexist.
The only problem with that is in wrestling, unlike other martial arts forms, involves a large amount of extended bodily contact, including and especially holds that contact the crotch area (i.e. fireman’s carry, double-leg takedown). This is more than problematic for some men. The second issue that I have seen is what happens when a girl athlete takes a bad bump. I was an assistant wrestling coach for a high school. At a tournament, a girl took a bad fall from a fireman’s carry. Despite that the move was perfectly executed and it was a legal maneuver, both the girl’s… Read more »
As a former wrestler myself from another state like Iowa where wrestling was important, whenever I had to wrestle a girl after reaching high school, it was always a challenge. Not only did I HAVE to win (I’ll focus more on this later), but I had to win in a way so as not to embarrass the girl involved and not display anything sexually explicit. That meant my main mode of pinning was out of the question along with most take downs i was proficient in. And when I said I had to win, it meant that there was the… Read more »
“… girl’s coach and her father were calling for the boy to be disqualified, kicked off of the team, expelled, and arrested …” The reason this boy declines to compete with a woman is so obvious, it is a wonder we even have a forum to debate it. His life and liberty are in grave danger if he touches/looks/speaks to her, so he stays away. We should all learn from his actions. Any interaction with any women is a crime, if she says it is a crime. The only way to stay out of jail is to stay away from… Read more »