In which gender essentialism can DIAF

[mephisto5]

Nine-Year-Old Girl Plays Football, Kicks Ass and Maybe Changes the World

Few 9-year-old girls are described as a “young-very young-Walter Payton.” But that’s what people are calling Sam Gordon of South Jordan, Utah. Gordon has become an Internet sensation after the spread of viral videos showing her shredding Pee Wee football defenses with a series

Comments

[liret]

i feel that goes into the territory of 'girls are not weak, they are just different!' (i.e. let's just change the word here, but not the thinking) as well as still keeping up the mental thinking barriers that girls are just good at X, and boys at Z.

I know you aren't saying there are no physical differences, and it's a big problem when that argument is used to keep people out of certain sports - but it's also not really something that can be ignored in sports or solved by just saying girls can join whatever teams they want. From a training perspective, not recognizing the different strengths and weaknesses of female bodies and using a 'one size fits all' approach - which like most things that are supposed to apply to everyone was designed by generations of intensly studying the physical devolopment of men and boys - is part of what keeps girls from being as strong as they could, as well as putting them at a much greater risk for certain injuries.

Female athletes are as capable of adding muscle and strength as men, but because of hormone differences that usually will only happen if that's given more training/practice time. And sometimes girls aren't as good at certain sports at boys because they're being told to do things in a way that doesn't actually take advantage of their biomechanics. (For example, since someone else in the thread mentioned rowing and I'm a rower - male and female rowers have very close performance measurements at the same height and weight. But they train and practice in a way that more of the power from a female rower's stroke comes from her lower body. They wouldn't have equal performance if you threw them in men's programs and said 'do what the guys are doing.')

[mephisto5]

Thanks for articulating this better than I could.

And yes- look at clips of Romanian female vs Canadian male VIIIs (most iconic boats for each sex I could think of off the top of my head). The power distribution throughout the stroke is completely different.

[the_physicist]

ah right, yes, i didn't mean it like there are no differences. believe me, i know there are XD .

i see what what meant now by 'girls are better at some thing'. yes, definitely training would need to be targeted.