After Atalanta

I have had many moments of frustration playing USTA league tennis over the years, from head case partners who enjoy hitting opponents as an intimidation technique to snippy opponents who don't remember the score and so you have to go all the way back and replay the third set to dealing with stacked line-ups. But today was a refreshing change--and not just because I won and not just because I won by one point! Though that did feel nice. But my doubles partner and I played against a very nice team. Not overly sweet nice where they try to talk to you all the time--'cause that's annoying too. But fair. They never questioned any call and there were some close ones. (We were playing fair too, though; but that's not the way it always happens.) It was a really close match and no one lost it or got snippy or slammed a racket (not even me!). And we ended up having to play a tie break to decide the third and final set (we had ten minutes left). At 5-5 in the breaker (first to 7 b...

I think a lot about co-ed sports. Okay not a lot a lot--I do have a life. But I find them particularly interesting in all their various manifestations. I myself have played co-ed softball and mixed doubles. Quite different, of course, but definitely sharing some similarities. Because most co-ed sports share similarities and that is because they all adopt a similar paradigm: the need to make adjustments to accommodate the skills of women. And the implication, of course, is that those skills are inferior. And that paradigm manifests itself in more ways than just the gendered batting order or the mandate that women serve to women on the deciding point of a game. Jennifer Doyle, a rec soccer player, talks about her experiences playing with men at her blog From a Left Wing (another new blog to add to the list!) and the thoughts such experiences have created in her. Also, the UCLA student newspaper The Daily Bruin, has an article about co-rec sports on its campus. They are quite popular, acc...

Well I am. I played last night for the time in a couple of weeks. Not too badly considering. But according to a recent article in The Boston Globe , women over 30 are taking up in the game. Women, apparently, who are looking for a way to combat the ennui of stay-at-home momdom?? The article certainly makes that implication by highlighting a woman who took up the game decades ago when her kids went to school and her husband was at work. The heteronormativity just keeps on flowing throughout the whole thing. Writer Matt Porter does address though that not every woman playing tennis is a wife and mother who stays at home. He discusses working women's leagues. Of course the way he puts working women in quotation marks certainly has multiple connotations. Because it seems like women who work are always going to just a little less...something (moral, nice, sweet, feminine--pick an adjective) than women who stay at home meeting the needs of others without getting paid for it. What's ...

I have my second tennis match of the summer season tonight. (I won the first one, thanks for asking. But it was ugly, ugly tennis. I am hoping tonight's match looks a little more like real tennis.) Last time we were the away team. Tonight we are the home team. That means that we bring the snacks. I am an excellent snack bringer. Besides my wicked backhand return, I think my team keeps me around because I bake. And I never bring the same thing twice. (Though I did make excellent peanut butter fudge oatmeal bars last season that I may bring back for a repeat performance at some point.) But as I thought ahead to buying jam for oatmeal raspberry bars, I came across some information about women's sports--their origins and some of the continued practices. I was reading Playing with the Boys: Why Separate is Not Equal in Sport --because yes, I finally got past page 20.* And I read about how in the early days of competition in women's sports--mostly at women's colleges, the hom...

Laura Pappano and Eileen McDonough, authors of the recently released Playing with the Boys: Why Separate is Not Equal in Sports ,* have an editorial in the Christian Science Monitor this week. They are good writers and they make compelling arguments. But they also make generalizations followed by asterik-like comments that we have to take a little more seriously than they seem to. For example, they go through all the arguments and possibilities for co-ed sporting experiences. And they are right. Professional golf could have co-ed tournaments. It would be good sport and good entertainment to watch the top female and male players go against one another in a pairs competition. (Of course you might actually have to start paying the women similarly which is probably a larger impediment to that prospect than women's alleged physical inferiority.) And it's true that not every man can outperform every woman--no matter the skill in question. But their asterik--that it is likely that th...

1. A new study in Britain by the Women's Sports and Fitness Foundation has found that more women need to get active--now! In the US we like to talk about "progress" and the numbers of women participating in sports and other physical activities; especially using 1972 (the passage of Title IX) as a reference point (even though women did engage in sport before then--sometimes we forget that). But there is no Title IX in Britain and now it seems that more and more women are not engaged in any physical activity. The study estimates that if the current trend on non-activity continues, there will be 1.25 million fewer women engaging in the recommended amount of exercise just one decade from now. One of the obstacles: image. Apparently being sporty is not sexy and though women want to be thin, they do not want to be athletic-looking. Having an athletic body (well a cetain type of athletic body) is not as much a problem in the US and certainly athletic is not equivalent to un-sexi...

I just got back from USTA districts. It was my first districts experience and I have to say it was very interesting. First of all, it was very suburban hetero. Most of the teams had matching outfits down to their pink Under Armour wristbands. I saw a lot of Coach purses and flowery tennis bags. Our team is about half lesbian and we were the only queer women there. Someone from another team asked one of our non-gay, divorced players where we were from and when she found out we weren't local and had stayed 2 nights in a hotel she said, "God bless your husbands!" Team member replied, "I don't have a husband." Only two players on our team have husbands actually. Non-husbanded women must be an anomaly in the world of these women. So it was an interesting examination of middle-class white women (I saw maybe two women of color the whole weekend) and how they participate in recreational sport. But the big drama of the weekend happened when the captains of my team at...

This story has a little more inspiration in it than the previous post, I think. The new soccer mom (a term I actually abhor) actually plays soccer. This article about a group of adult women who started playing indoor soccer a few years and recently started playing outdoors in Kansas is cute. The team, called B4 Title IX , recently entered the Sunflower State Games . It inspired me to add some more adult rec opportunities to my sidebar.

Every month TENNIS magazine runs a column/feature called "The Tennis Life" that is usually written by a recreational player and highlights his/her history with the game--shining moments, embarrassing tales, etc. In general, I find it a good addition to the magazine, one that highlights the publication's commitment to promoting the game as one for everybody. You feel a little better about yourself as a player when reading the narratives, especially after being regaled for pages upon pages of the feats of Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, etc. This month's Tennis Life though is a little different and quite disturbing. The writer, Tom Stein, is a recreational player but he writes about a man named William Wu who captains USTA league teams in the San Francisco Bay area. He is a player as well but is well-known--infamous is more fitting as you will see--for his captaining tactics. For those unfamiliar with a captain's role, he or she is in charge of put...

A few weeks ago I came across an article that said women seeking recreational sporting opportunities can have quite a hard time with it. There are several reasons for this. Because women generally have less free time, often having to work outside the home and shoulder the majority of household responsibilities, there just are not enough interested women to comprise teams and leagues. Also, because women, as young girls, were less exposed to and encouraged to play sports, they often don't seek out something unfamiliar in adulthood. The growing number of girls whho play sports is most likely to effect change in the latter situation, hopefully bringing about more opportunities for adult women. Also, sometimes finding out about what's out there in terms of sports for adult women can be difficult. So I've added to the sidebar programs and teams for adult women that are either women-only (W) or co-ed (C). It's a work in progress and will be organized by state. If you know of...

Rene Portland is gone. Homophobia is not. John Smallwood's column on the Portland resignation in The Philadelphia Daily News is titled "Portland case revives unease over lesbians in sport." But the unease was always there. I worry now that with Portland gone there will be the collective sigh of relief: "phew, now that's over." The only thing that leaves with Portland is the blatant, public homophobia. Mechelle Voepel is right when she notes that the Portland saga is over. But negative recruiting still continues and often the tactics used are homophobic--sometimes subtle, and sometimes more obvious. Smallwood reports hearing negative references to lesbianism wherever he goes. And the presence of lesbianism is frequently trotted out as an excuse for why women's sports are less popular. And let's not forget that racism still permeates all sport--not just women's sport. Harris's lawsuit contained allegations of racism (and sexism) but the majori...

Because I might not be playing tennis right now. (Well in an hour actually.) A new study shows that only 19 percent of British women participate regularly in recreational physical activities. The study, conducted by the British Women's Sports Foundation, also shows that race is factor. Only 13 percent of Asian women say they participate in recreational sports. The link above does not provide many details however. But it seems that participation in recreational sports is not widespread in Great Britain. Because, according to the study, only 24 percent of men say they participate in sports three or more times a week. But when compared to the United States and Australia where about 50 percent of women take part in recreational sports, participation numbers for women are low. The plan is to work with 15 women in GB and develop them into leaders in women's sports over the next three years. It appears to be a trickle-down plan rather than something more grassroots. Though the British...

I witnessed a very strange hockey game last weekend. I went to a recreational women's league game and saw a level of aggression that I rarely see in women's hockey--I certainly didn't see it two nights prior at the Harvard-UNH match-up which, though they are not classic rivals, is certainly an anticipated match-up every season. Anyway, there was heavy shoving that fell just short of hitting and "dialogue" and flipping off the ref from the very first period. The ref, who admittedly was not that good, was giving out double penalties to members of both teams. It was bizarre and seemed to be a little contagious though certainly most of the women on the ice tried to stay out of the whole mess. Lest you think I am suggesting that women are not or should not be aggressive--I am not. But I was struggling, as I sat there watching this all, with the level of aggression that should be allowed or tolerated/condoned. This is an issue women's hockey has always had to negoti...