{"id":6704,"date":"2013-10-17T20:50:32","date_gmt":"2013-10-18T01:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/?p=6704"},"modified":"2013-10-18T12:45:40","modified_gmt":"2013-10-18T17:45:40","slug":"girls-sports-and-other-dilemmas-of-work-unfinished","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2013\/10\/17\/girls-sports-and-other-dilemmas-of-work-unfinished\/","title":{"rendered":"Girls, Sports and other Dilemmas of Work Unfinished"},"content":{"rendered":"

The past few weeks have been particularly discouraging for anyone who follows politics and believes in reasoned discourse. Hoping the local news here in town might be more to my liking, I sat down to read The Wellesley Townsman <\/i>for the first time in months.\u00a0 The International Day of the Girl was coming up on the 11th<\/sup> of October; maybe there\u2019d be interesting coverage of girls in the area.\u00a0There was.\u00a0 But whether the front-page story on the girls\u2019 softball team was encouraging or not remains a dilemma.<\/p>\n

The headline read, \u201cA Level Playing Field\u201d, followed by the subhead, \u201cSixth grader\u2019s frustrated letter lands her in influential company.\u201d \u00a0The story went on to recount how, as a fifth grader, Emily Willrich had written to the Townsman <\/i>about her frustrations with the differences between town sports\u2019 opportunities for girls and boys. There were excellent facilities available to the boys\u2019 baseball team–a well maintained field complete with brick dugouts, night-lights, a scoreboard, and even an announcer. The girls\u2019 softball team was relegated to a scruffy field where the lights didn\u2019t work and at times umpires never showed up.\u00a0 Emily\u2019s letter reached the President of nearby Simmons College, who invited her to be a special guest at a college=sponsored event, \u201cHow Women Become Political\u201d. Emily, now in sixth grade, had a chance to meet and talk with Gloria Steinem and several prominent female politicians, including Massachusetts\u2019 gubernatorial candidate, Martha Coakley.<\/p>\n

My first reaction was, \u201cWow, what a great example of \u00a0feminist progress and \u2018girl power!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Forty years ago girls weren\u2019t allowed to play Little League, and there certainly weren\u2019t \u00a0any town wide girls\u2019 softball teams when I was growing up in Mystic, Connecticut. \u00a0The closest I managed to get to a town playing field was as the semi-official score keeper for the boys\u2019 baseball team my father coached.\u00a0 I learned to be a baseball watcher, not a baseball player. \u2018Everyone knew\u2019 sports were more important for boys.<\/p>\n

Reading the article a second time, I questioned my initial response. A 5th<\/sup> grader had to raise the issue? \u00a0In the second decade of the 21st<\/sup> century? \u00a0Where were the adults?\u00a0 What about Title IX and the guarantee of equality?\u00a0 But Title IX covers only programs sponsored by educational institutions receiving federal funds. It doesn\u2019t address town teams.\u00a0 Maybe my delight was misplaced, maybe being appalled was more on target.\u00a0 A young girl challenging unfairness with confidence is wonderful; it might not have happened in the years before feminism\u2019s empowering messages took hold. But old gendered assumptions remaining so deeply embedded that no one in this upscale \u00a0town seemed concerned about the inequitable sports facilities \u00a0is, indeed, appalling. \u00a0The news story presented the proverbial half-full\/half-empty glass: \u2018how far we\u2019ve come; but how far we have to go\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Townsmen<\/i> article concluded by reporting that Emily\u2019s mother didn\u2019t know if her daughter\u2019s passion for fairness might lead to a career in politics. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to find out. Nothing she does would surprise us.\u201d<\/p>\n

I, for one, hope Emily will pour at least some of her passion into politics. We need her. These discouraging weeks of Congressional malfunction have highlighted the critical importance of women in political office, not simply for women, but for the entire nation. \u00a0Women in the U.S. Senate have authored most of the major bills passed this session.\u00a0 Female Senators are credited with the initial steps resulting in the compromise that has finally reopened the government. \u00a0Women are consistently more bipartisan than their male counterparts in their approach to legislation. \u00a0And studies repeatedly indicate that women\u2014regardless of their political affiliation–tend to sponsor and vote for laws that support families in larger percentages than do their male colleagues.<\/p>\n

So, we come to another half-full\/ half-empty dilemma. Currently only 20 of the 100 members of the U.S. Senate are women–an all time high. As far as progress for women and girls goes, it will be a long \u00a0time before we can discard the metaphor of \u00a0the half-full\/ half-empty glass . Personally, I prefer the energizing half-full perspective; but I never forget the empty half of the glass. It\u2019s a constant reminder of \u00a0work unfinished.<\/p>\n

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The past few weeks have been particularly discouraging for anyone who follows politics and believes in reasoned discourse. Hoping the local news here in town might be more to my liking, I sat down to read The Wellesley Townsman for the first time in months.\u00a0 The International Day of the Girl was coming up on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1924,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21114,1],"tags":[46,245,21395,3722,21929],"class_list":["post-6704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-second-look","category-uncategorized","tag-activism","tag-feminism","tag-girls","tag-women-in-politics","tag-womens-leadership"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1924"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6704"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6707,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6704\/revisions\/6707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}