"But as I sat in the stands of my local indoor soccer facility, watching my son's under-12 boys team being physically abused by a girls team, I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps feminism has finally gone too far.
"During the game, I saw a female player actually punch one of our boys in the back of his head (the ref did not see it) and later, I saw my own son's face being smashed into the boards by another young lady. (The ref did see that.) I noted the parents of the girls' team smiling smugly whenever one of their players managed to knock over one of our boys.
"Now, the fact is, when you get into the age of puberty and beyond, most of those boys could, if they chose, send a girl flying into the boards at any point. Feminism aside, it's a simple fact of nature that men are physically stronger than women. But they are taught never to use that physical strength against a woman.
"Listening to the grumbling coming from the parents of the boys, it was obvious that our guys weren't playing their best game. They would hesitate for a second too long or hold back just a bit, yielding to a baser instinct not to hurt a girl. Our boys were simply not playing full-out against this girls team. And to be honest, I'm not sure I would have wanted them to."
Holly Bowne (pictured) makes some good points about modern gender dynamics in her recent column Feminism may go too far in girls vs. boys (Detroit Free Press, 3/28/08). While feminists relentlessly portray men as being prone to violence towards women, Bowne accurately describes exactly how the overwhelming majority of men normally behave--they'll go way out of their way not to do anything to harm a woman. It's a very perceptive column.
One reason why it caught my eye was that I had a vaguely similar experience playing against a girls' team when I was a kid. It was a soccer game between my team, probably consisting of 12 and 13-year-olds, against a girls' team from the next level up, probably 14 and 15-year-olds. I played goalkeeper, and with a few minutes left in the game their team broke through and a girl had the ball maybe about 20 feet in front of our goal.
I certainly wasn't the most athletic of goalkeepers. However, I was sure-handed and I knew how to position myself and break up plays from having played fullback/defense for many years. Normally in this situation I would charge and slide-tackle the opposing forward and knock the ball away. This time I rushed out to do it and, as I was about to slide into her, my guy programming kicked in and instead I slid off to the side, allowing her to score.
We lost the game by a goal and had to endure a bunch of "girl power/we beat the boys"-type celebrating. I've always been a pretty good sport about losing, but I remember watching this and thinking "Are you kidding me? Didn't you see me give away that goal?" I thought about saying something but realized that it would immediately be seen as boy-as-sore-loser-to-girls type sour grapes.
Holly Bowne had a few other worthwhile points:
"After the soccer game, I asked a manager why this talented girls team didn't play up a few levels within the girls division instead of entering the boys' leagues. I was told that prohibiting them from playing in the boys division would be considered discrimination. Amazing. Women have fought a long, hard battle to earn equal rights. We now have clubs, sports, colleges and political organizations solely for women and the support of women's rights. But we're still not satisfied.
"We are raising our boys to be men in a world that increasingly disrespects men in a variety of venues. If we truly believe in equal rights, then we women need to speak up and stop allowing TV programs, clothing, and even children's sports to get away with the male bashing that is going on. We need to build up our boys instead of tearing them down. We need to teach them how to be men. Men who are intelligent, sensitive and strong.
Men who know how to treat a lady."
|
