Showpa?

     In athletics, girls and boys sports are one in the same.  Everyone wants to win, everyone plays their hardest to beat their opponent.  Boys play against boys and girls against girls because if we all played together boys would have an unfair advantage. (if a girl and boy are both GREAT at soccer, the boy will beat the girl because of muscle mass and structure of the body).  That is just a fact I'm not admitting that boys are better than girls at everything because that is an unfair matchup.  However, if a girl is great at field hockey, and a boy has never played before the girl could probably beat the boy off of pure skill.  It is only if the match is equal that the boy will "win".
     One thing that differs between girls sports and boys sports is appearance.  Talking to one of my guy friends on the baseball team yesterday I found out about a whole new world of male grooming.  When boys are playing their sport they have something called "Showpa".  A boy's showpa is the most important  aspect he can prepare himself for on game day.  My friend told me that his showpa includes tape and pre wrap on both wrists with his socks pulled up and sunglasses on upside down on his hat.  This seems insane to me, I never thought boys got so "made up" for games like this.  Also eye-black is an important aspect of a boys showpa, they spend lots of time on this in the locker room.
     Let me just tell you.... When girls get ready for a game, all I do is put on my uniform and braid my hair in a way that it won't fall out during the game then I am set to go.  I know some girls who have certain rituals in the locker room but nothing as crazy as the showpa procedure.  Some people have certain braids they like or pre wrap they always use, but no unnecessary wrist taping or sunglass wearing.
     I'm sure not all sports do this and that the baseball example is an extreme of the normal boy sports team.  But I know for a fact that lacrosse boys have the "lax flow" meaning their hair is long enough that it has a flow to it coming from under their helmet.  Their are also many stereotypes to athletes like the "lax bro" and the softball "lesbian".  I don't mean to relate to any of these stereotypes at all because I believe even if you play a sport you are not only defined by that sport.

A League of Their Own

     In the movie, A League of Their Own, World War 2 is threatening to ruin America's favorite past time, baseball.  With all of the men overseas fighting, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League starts up to save the sport of baseball.  They recruit women from all over the U.S. and... let the games begin!  This real life historical event started out in CHicago because the Cubs manager wanted to make money even when the men were away at war.  The AAGPBL ran from 1943 to 1954.  The movie takes place in 1948 when the Rockford Peaches win the World Series.
     This movie is uplifting and inspiring to women like myself because it shows that even a manly sport like baseball can be played and  successfully held up by women in a professional setting.  The women in this time period were sassy and demanding, they knew what they wanted and fought for it.  This is about 20 years after women earned the right to vote so the fight they won was still fresh in their memories.  I feel like women nowadays have no recollection of the adversity we overcame to have the rights we have today.  Obviously, I believe we never should have had to earn the right to vote or be treated as equals, but since we did, we should never take it for granted.
      Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers fought for our futures when they refused to live in a man's world.  The women in the AAGPBL remembered this and when their husbands, fathers and brothers went into the war they paid their country back by playing in this baseball league.  Even learning about the Women's Rights Movement isn't enough for kids to realize the full extent of what women went through to have the rights we have today.  Even I can't fully understand it because I've never lived in a world where women didn't have the same rights as everyone else.

Gaming- An Addiction

Why are boys addicted to video games? I have asked myself this question hundreds of times, is it the escape into another reality...? The thrill of killing a German soldier in COD?  My brother, cousins, and countless ex-boyfriends have been addicted to the killing games like Halo and COD.  And don’t be fooled, because I’ve played my share of these games as well.  When your cousins are all boys and they come down to go to the beach and everyone’s tired afterwards, playing video games wasn’t a bad way to wind down the sunburned day.  I got pretty good too.

But once or twice a month was enough for me… so why do boys have to play every day/night?  Why, when a game comes out, do the boys have to get it at the midnight selling and play the entire night so that they show up to school as zombies?  And why do I only know of maybe one girl who would do this?  For one thing, the video game companies have never really made their addictive games appealing to women.  The games are usually degrading to women because they have no female avatars to choose from, they will have women in the games but almost always the women are hookers dressed scantily trying to sell themselves to the men. 

Now, I’m not going to lie to you guys… I have been addicted to a couple video games myself, I played dance dance revolution (DDR) and Mario Kart Wii everyday with my best friend for a couple months during my 8^th grade and high school years.  And I might be biased on this topic but I’m certain many people would agree with me that DDR and Mario Kart are not as bad as COD and Halo.  Am I right?  DDR at least offers some sort of exercise and Mario Kart got old after about an hour.  I guess I don’t really have any reasons for why boys are addicted to killing games other than they enjoy them, it just doesn’t seem like a good enough reason! 

Gender Texting

     In class this week we read an article about texting and technology and how it is affecting how kids grow up nowadays.  The issue of texting in girls vs. boys came up quite a few times and I wanted to address it in my blog.

     My own personal opinion and a few of my friends all agree that girls text more than boys.  Some reasons for this belief are that girls talk and have conversations with other girls over text messages.  Girls are able to carry on conversations over texting when boys usually text to each other when they have something to say, they wouldn't text to have a real conversation.  Now, I am not a boy so this is all from experience and from being friends with boys, but in general I think this is the way genders differ in their texting habits.

     An exception to this "rule" is when a boy has a girlfriend or is trying to woo a girl into liking him.  This will cause the boy to text more and be more into his text conversations with the girl.  I am now sitting with a boy in the Spa and he agrees that girls text more than boys.  He also says when boys text each other it is usually more of a "hey whats up?" followed by a "nothin much" then silence.....

     In the old days where people actually made calls to each other and talked on the phone, girls still called each other to talk about the drama of the day or if anything significant happened to them.  Boys would only call each other to ask if the other wanted to hang out and the conversation would be over in a matter of seconds.  It's in human nature for women to be more conversational and interested in everything that's going on.  Men tend to be less interested in gossip and drama between each other but they will listen if a girlfriend is texting them about it.

National Girls & Women in Sports Day

        National Girls and Women in Sports Day held its 26th annual celebration this Saturday all around the U.S.  Even at Skidmore we had a clinic for young girls to try out every sport offered here at Skidmore.  Every team ran its own station and the energy in the gym was tangible.  Girls from 3rd grade to high school were there to experience was it is like to be a woman athlete.  The girls participating all day long managed to enter every different sports' station with just as much excitement as the last.  Their willingness to learn new disciplines like how to hold a field hockey stick, versus how to spike a volleyball was outstanding and gave me a new hope for the future generations.

        All around the US, women celebrated this day by running all female road races, just working out and doing something you love with other women, or by running clinics like the one at Skidmore.  The theme this year is Title IX at 40: In it for the Long Run.  Title IX was introduced in 1972 stated that, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance...”.  This statement allowed women to start participating in sports at school just as much as men.  

       National Girls and Women in Sports Day is important to women around the nation because it represents the power of women in the world.  I believe that girls' sports are just as important as boys' sports for extracurricular activities.  It amazes me that a law had to be passed in order for girls to have the same opportunities in athletics as boys.  Though I am grateful to be living in a world where we can live in equality automatically.  Earlier, stronger generations of women made that possible for us.

Power to the She

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSJva2OgLOQ

This is what I'm talking about ladies!