An Attack on American Tradition | Teen Ink

An Attack on American Tradition

April 20, 2015
By flubby48 BRONZE, Carmichael, California
flubby48 BRONZE, Carmichael, California
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Sports are a vital part of American Culture. To many, nothing beats sitting down on a weekend to watch the game-- drink in one hand, TV remote in the other. The “at home” sports mechanics are simple: watch the boys play, cheer for your team when they make a good play, boo when the other team does the same. It is something we have done for decades, but now our way of life is under attack by the very thing we would have least expected it to be from: women. Women, despite being inferior to men on the sports field are making moves to snatch power from the men who have worked to earn the playtime both on the field and on air. This assault cannot be stood for and must be changed as women, the inferior species, work to grab more power than is due to them.

Women’s incapability to play sports is evident, and clearly, being involved with a team is detrimental to female health everywhere. In addition to facing the occasional broken bone or concussion—as all athletes must do—these women are also subject to other health detriments such as reduced "cancer risk, [prevention of] muscle loss, and [reduced] stroke severity", and these are just examples of the physical dangers of sports (Putnal par. 5,8,10). It has also been observed that women and girls involved in sports can be subject to the mental dangers of "higher levels of confidence and self-esteem, [...] more positive body image[s], and [...] higher states of psychological well-being" than those who do not take part in sports ("Benefits - Why Sports Participation for Girls and Women" par. 3-4). This is alarming as I am sure all of us are aware there is nothing more dangerous than a woman with a positive body image. This is especially true for high school aged female athletes who are "more likely to graduate than girls who do not play sports" ("Benefits- Why Sports Participation for Women and Girls" par. 2). Very obviously, it is impossible to have a woman who is happy and playing sports at the same time. Having been a female athlete for the vast majority of my life, I can affirm that I do not continue participating in sports because I am happy but because I am caught in some strange mix of self-hatred and desire to oppress the male athletes. The only solution to this problem is to discourage female participation in sports via social stigma and ridicule. Rather than building women up, as many horribly misguided souls are doing today, it is better to force women to face the fact of their incapability. It is healthier to have women in roles we know they can thrive in without having to worry about something as trivial as concussions or reduced cancer risk.

Women's unwanted involvement in sports has extended beyond simply having young women in sports. Women have started to become more involved in competitive, college, and even professional sports leaving their male competitors in the dust searching for some way to get ahead. A perfect example of this gap between women and men in the sports world is the US women’s soccer team. Clearly defined from its male counterpart as stronger and more capable, the women’s team proved its worth by winning “its fourth gold medal in the five Olympic competitions featuring women’s soccer” in the 2012 London Olympics (“US Woman’s National Team…” par. 3). Meanwhile, the Men’s team was left searching for some way to get ahead as they failed to even qualify for the same event. This gap is outraging. Women, who have never had a place in sports, are starting to work toward not equality, but superiority over the men they claim to want equal opportunities from. To find an example of females athletes taking more power than is fair, one need look no further than the propaganda mass produced and distributed. I am sure we have all seen the shirts that read “Anything a boy can do a girl can do better”. Nowadays, it seems anyone who is anyone is wearing these shirts, but what they fail to understand is they are feeding into a system of hatred aimed at men in a field they clearly belong. Female athletes have been working to actively oppress men—drawing attention by winning games in a field women have always been inferior in. For men, limited to national success in basketball, baseball, football, and rugby, this is an unwelcome change and is something that must be remedied. We have given women more accessibility in sports than they deserve, and clearly this change has forced male athletes into a more subservient role that simply cannot be accepted.

Never fear, though. While women have started to snatch power most unjustly from their male counterparts, there is hope for the girls and men faced with this growing social problem: teenage girls are dropping out of sports at “two times the rate of boys” (“Factors Influencing Girls’ Participation in Sports” par. 1). Perpetuated by the social stigma and lack of opportunities women face with sports, it is only natural we continue this trend. Women, clearly suffering from all the negative side effects of sports, and men, suffering oppression through female success, both stand to gain from the diminishment of the female athlete. Rather than advocating for the success women have worked to achieve in soccer, it is vital we continue to solely pay attention to men’s sports so as not to force men to give up some of their hard-earned fame. Women, the weaker sex, does not belong in sports, and anything we can do to keep them from reaping the rewards of hard work, a team-atmosphere, and positive body images are to be rewarded.

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Works Cited
“Benefits-Why Sports Participation for Girls and Women: the Foundation Position.” Womenssportsfoundation.org. Women’s Sports Foundation, n.d. Web. 7 February 2015.
“Factors Influencing Girls’ Participation in Sports.” Womenssportsfoundation.org. Women’s Sports Foundation, n.d. Web. 7 February 2015.
Putnal, Olivia. “10 Surprising Benefits of Exercise.” womansday.com. n.d. Web. 8 February 2015.
“U.S. Women’s National Team Earns Fourth Olympic Gold Medal with 2-1 Victory Against Japan in Front of 80,203 at Wembley Stadium.” ussoccer.com. US Soccer, 9 August 2012. Web. 8 February 2015.



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