I’m going through my shelves and closets, getting ready to re-home what I don’t wear anymore. Well, I’m getting ready to re-home most of the clothes I don’t wear anymore. Some pieces I’m keeping for sentimental reasons.
Like a girls’ soccer T-shirt from a school where I used to teach. I’m keeping it to remember that school and that time in my life, not because I expect to wear it out and about now — especially not when I currently teach at one of their rival schools!
But I came across it. I looked at it. And I noticed something I’d noticed dozens of times before, something that had always needled me — something for which this recent post by Tracy at Fit, Feminist, and (almost) Fifty had started to give me words.
This school’s mascot was the Warriors, so the girls’ soccer shirt proclaimed the team the Lady Warriors. This has been the common theme throughout my school experiences: Lady Mustangs, Lady Lakers, Lady Reds, Lady Broncos, Lady Raiders, Lady Warriors, Lady Jaguars. Always the girls’ and women’s teams have used the “lady” signifier.
And always the unmodified mascot has been ascribed to the men’s and boys’ teams by default: Mustangs, Warriors, Jaguars. It’s never Gentlemen Lakers or Dude Broncos. Rather, when someone at school says “Raiders” without further specifying, the assumption is always, always, always that they’re talking about the boys.
I understand that the conscious intent is probably no more than to distinguish which team they’re talking about. But this way of going about it is problematic because it’s inequitable. It’s placing the boys’ and men’s teams as the default teams, default athletes, default students. In doing so, it relegates the girls’ and women’s sports to being “other,” extra, an afterthought.
But in a world where budget cuts are a constant threat and a usual reality, I can’t deny that a program’s quality and security both depend on its funding. Or that said funding — or the real-world purchasing power thereof — depend in no small part on the program’s reputation and prestige. Categorizing girls’ teams, even unintentionally, as different, less than — it hurts.
I want better for my kids — for the boys, the girls, the students who do not predominantly identify with either of those genders. Athletics programs shouldn’t privilege some teams and players over others, and schools should actively work toward creating climates where all students feel equally respected and included.
