So I've been playing rec league softball this summer. I play on a co-ed team which has a myriad of gender-based rules (batting order, % male/female fielders, ball size!) which I am going to refrain from analyzing in depth here. (A sports scholar has done an excellent piece of ethnographic research on co-ed softball though. It's printed in the anthology Athletic Intruders and I highly recommend the essay and the book.)
I have not quite decided how I feel about co-ed softball. And since the last time I played all-girls softball was when I was actually still a girl, I really have no basis for comparison. But I do have some brief observations based on this evening's game--which sadly we lost. [But on the bright side I had the lone RBI and there were some amazing catches in the outfield. Whoop-whoop!]
Observation 1: during our team's at-bat, one of our players hit a fairly decent fly ball out to right-centerish where a female player was standing--she barely had to move. Then along comes the centerfielder, a man, who just ran right in front of it and snagged it. He actually almost missed it because they were so close and there was a near collision. If you don't want to let the women play, then play in the men's league where there are no women. It was totally unnecessary in any situation--but they were leading by at least 10 runs at this point.
Observation 2: One of their female players had a Hooters shirt on. Why do girls do this? There are some words you just can't reclaim and hooters is one of them. I can't imagine that she was wearing the shirt to support the great food the establishment serves. I think we need to start a campaign (which includes writing to the ASA and telling them to drop Hooters as a corporate sponsor): Just say no to Hooters!
No comments:
Post a Comment