FitnessFixation.com

Nature intended her for team sports, yo.
So all day yesterday people talked to me about the NY Times magazine thang on girls and sports injuries. I wrote about it last night, but there’s oh so much more to be said, especially when you start to delve into the controversial responses to the article. One of the things I mentioned to a number of people was my distaste for the fact that some people interviewed for the piece said girls need to learn to “run like a boy.” ‘Kay, couldn’t we just say, “girls need to learn to run with different mechanics to protect their bodies”? Because naturally the article was used as fuel by some assholes to say that girls are not as suited for sports as boys.

Now here’s where we have to remember a few things. One: Dividing groups up by sex may be helpful for measuring some things, but it’s hardly helpful when examining individuals. I’ll give you a highly unscientific and anecdotal example. In my personal and un-researched experience, many women, when learning how to perform a squat, have their knees drop in the ‘knock-kneed’ position I mentioned yesterday. It might also be worth noting at this point that many men have great difficulty establishing the lumbar curve necessary for a proper squat. So I tend to look for those things. However, if I see a woman who doesn’t get the lumbar curve, or a man who drops his knees inward, it isn’t going to be especially helpful for me to coach them according to what most people of their sex do, is it? You don’t have to answer that. It’s rhetorical.

So right away we should note that sex divisions have limitations. But let’s go a little further. It is possible that some (not all!) girls have anatomical differences that mean they need to adjust their mechanics to reduce risk of injury. But here’s some other possible factors: What if there are just more boys than girls going out for team sports? That’s not unlikely, given the way we still socially view boys and girls and athletics. So isn’t it also possible that perhaps the mechanics problems we see in girls are not so much sex-based as the result of a smaller athlete pool? Maybe boys with different running mechanics get weeded off the teams early because there’s just more boys who want to play, and maybe those mechanics give you an edge or disadvantage. I don’t know, and it could be there’s a combination of factors here, anatomical and population. But obviously we have to be careful about what we attribute to sex right away.

Speaking of, this fool took the article and yapped about how women have less adrenaline and cortisol during competition, are less competitive, and really, biologically less suited for these man-invented sports. I love ding-dong shit like this. Some dumbass anthropologist also jumps in to say primitive women didn’t need sporty stuff, just cooperation and communication, while dudes were out fightin’ and huntin’. yeah, we should totally assume we know exactly how the sexes behaved waaaay back when, and it TOTALLY applies today—if you are completely stupid. Because it’s our biology, not anything social, of course.

Um, well, I suppose you could take some of these “biological facts” and come to the conclusion that men are in fact, ill-suited for team sports, given that they need to compete with each other for mates. Whereas we women, with our super-collaborative and cooperative innate natures, should take over the soccer teams and basketball teams and rugby teams and so on. Because we can work together, and men can’t. Hmmm, guess it was a lady who came up with the idea of “taking one for the team”. Oh, and our higher pain tolerance probably means we are better suited for contact sports, because we won’t quit despite pain. Ladies-only boxing. Sorry you man-types are only going to get to do stuff like singles tennis and running and golf now, but that’s NATURE for you.

Oh, I also love this quote from the dickwad who thinks it’s all biology: “post-collegiate women seem to exercise just as much — probably more, actually — than men do, but men are much more likely to stick with competitive team sports like basketball while women prefer activities like dance classes and gymnastics.” Um, gymnastics isn’t competitive? And excuse me, but dance classes? You think that’s all biology? Honey, I’ll give you a clue in your own assertion that more women exercise post-college. We get (newsflash) lots of social pressure to be thin. Not athletic, not muscular, but thin. Now, are women just less interested in team sports? Actually, I think this is a remnant of past discrimination, and I also think women face the dilemma of trying to stay active but contend with social pressure to have a particular kind of body. A dancer-ish body, not a soccer body. Oh, and don’t think female athletes get no mixed messages about what it means to even be competitive and fierce and driven. I also think women get less opportunities and encouragement in sporting arenas no matter what. Lemme tell you, we never had cheerleaders at the girls’ basketball games.

But this kinda leads to another sad part of the story. The original article author and others have pointed out that one factor in the girl injury rates may be that girls are trying to stay thin but not develop the “thick” muscular legs that could help them avoid injury. These female athletes face the simultaneous pressure to both do well on the field and meet a socially-constructed body type that isn’t real compatible at times with the athletic life. Add to that the fact that the guys’ coaches may be doing weight training while the womens’ aren’t (cuz girls can’t lift, y’all) and you have a problem.

Anyhow, some folks have called the whole shaky house of cards into question, and you can sift through this stuff and form your own opinions. And whatever they are, I’d love to hear ‘em.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 4:30 pm and is filed under body building, exercise, fads and facts, feelings, healthy crap, history, injuries, linkorama, new moves, news and research, one for the ladies, other mags, parents, reviews, running, sports, stress, weight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.