Why Is It So Bad to Be a Girl?

Now THESE are girl socks. (Image credit: D. Paul Allen)

“Okay, ladies, next game you have to wear mid-calf socks. I don’t want to see those ankles.”

This coach’s advice, if given to an actual girls’ team, would be appropriate and informative. He might have even thought it was respectful, since he used the word “ladies.” However, this line was spoken to a high school boys’ team right after a game in an off-season, casual league. And it bothered me.

Yeah, I’m a girl. Okay, at my age I think I’m considered a woman. And for some reason recently, my ears have been acutely attuned to sexist language, both in sports and in life.

Sports are critical opportunities for kids to become physically active, learn social skills, take responsibility, and achieve personal goals. For the most part, sports are a good thing. But one aspect of sports—the male-domination model—is not a good thing.

Sexist language, as part of that model, is obviously bad for females. Through repetition and exclusion, girls learn that they can't be as good as boys in the world of sports. As a 10 year-old girl, I remember worrying that my parents wouldn’t let me play softball. So, I sold it to them that my brother, who was seven, needed to start baseball and maybe it would be okay if I started a sport, too?

In that first 10 years, I’d already learned that girls playing sports was optional and that “play like a girl” wasn’t a good thing. A few years later I learned from my small world that girls who stayed with sports might like other girls, which was an interesting hypocrisy. For girls to be accepted in sports, they had to be as good as the guys. But, if they were, they weren’t feminine enough anymore. 

How’s that for teaching girls about independence and strength? Terrible, but it was really good at teaching girls that they were inferior if they weren't good at sports and something else if they were.

Most recently, a good friend of mine tried to describe me to a potential job opportunity. In his words: "I told him you were into sports, but you were still feminine. He was glad to hear that since he doesn't like women who are too butch." Honestly. I wasn't sure whether to be grateful or offended. I also didn't get the work.

Sexist language related to sports is damaging to young men, too. Not only does sexist language potentially minimize the males’ interest in intellectual relationships with females, it sets up their daughters for a continuation of the same stereotypes. Young men become so confident in their place in society that they sometimes forget that women are equals. Boys are conditioned from birth—through television, music, and family culture—what it means to be a man. Whether it's intentional or inadvertent, it happens. But that doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.

In fact, sports are a great opportunity for coaches to break that us-versus-them cycle. If the coach is willing.

If a coach tells boys that they are like girls, whether it’s because they didn’t play hard or they wear their socks too low, it’s reinforcing for them that they are superior and females are inferior. The cycle continues.

If I were asked straight up if women were inferior, I'd say no. Women are not inferior. Women are different and different does not mean worse or less or minor or weak. Different means that each group brings value to any situation. Let’s remind ourselves and our coaches of that…

...because I don’t know about you, but I sure don’t want my daughter and granddaughters-to-be to think it’s bad to be a girl who likes sports.