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

[kyra_neko_rei]

This is interesting. I do wish there were more "ability" classifications for sorting out the formation of teams. It might break down at the upper extremes of performance, where the farthest reaches of deviation from average combines with the base-difference advantages to put one gender solidly ahead, but at most other levels of competition there's often going to be both men and women able to play at the same level, especially if they train to it.

At the same time it would eliminate the effects of discouragement as well as "dumbing down" the training to a "girls' level," to whatever extent that might occur. I remember when I was in high school there were two or three girls who always went to ask to join the football team, and I have no idea if they were serious under the "as a joke" manner in which they went about it, but each time they said the coaches would take them aside and tell them how grueling the training was, and they always listened and then went back to class and laughed about it---but a guy would get treated as a serious potential player even if he had shown up with that same "see what it's about" mindset. And I wonder what would've happened if the coaches had encouraged the girls to legit join the team and give the workouts a good solid go and then worked with them to make football players out of them the same way they did with the guys.