A high school boy forfeited a tournament match to a girl yesterday, claiming “As a matter of conscience and my faith, I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner.” This came in the form of a written statement from Joel Northrup in Marion, Iowa.
So much ground to cover here I don’t know where to start…
First of all, he has a right to his beliefs whether any of us agree or disagree with him. If his beliefs cause him to forfeit the tournament, so what? It’s his choice. Let him do it and leave him alone. He has to live with that choice. We don’t.
Most people probably think it’s a noble thing for him to refuse to “fight” a girl. I have to say I disagree. When you are in a sport, your opponent is your opponent. Their size, sex, religion, skin color, sexual orientation, favorite food, home town, parents, economic background or any other factor should not matter. Period. This is organized school sports with rules and standards, not some free-for-all street fight.
Joel’s claim is that the sport can be violent. Um yeah..it’s “wrestling”. Duh. Do you think the girls that sign up to wrestle show up dressed for a tea party? They know how this works. And guess what? They train and prepare for it just like the boys do. What I don’t understand is why it’s ok for boys to fight boys, but not for boys and girls to engage in combat that they are both voluntarily signing up for? I’m all for teaching boys to respect girls – and yeah, we don’t get enough respect and proper treatment as it is – but we’re talking about sports here.
And if you’re going to go for the “girls are the weaker sex” argument, let me remind you that wrestling is divided into classes based on body-size. No one has some unfair advantage due to body type. And in this particular case, the girl whom Joel was scheduled to wrestle has a very impressive record. She could beat him. So “fair fight”? Heck yeah! I want a front row seat!
Now lets put Joel’s belief system aside and look at it in light of any of the other factors mentioned above…
It’s wrestling. And because we don’t have girls wrestling teams at the high school (or any) level, girls are allowed to join boys teams. Girls know this and boys know this. They know going into this sport these days that they may at some point be wrestling someone of the opposite gender. And once again I must point out that an opponent is just that – an opponent. We don’t refer to our opponents as that “girl” or that “Muslim” or that “fill-in-the-blank-with-your-own-brand-of-discrimination”. When you sign up for sports, you accept that you will play against people from all types of backgrounds, religious beliefs, sexual orientations, sizes and skill levels…
Ah yes – skill level. This “girl” – Cassy Herkelman of Cedar Falls – is no slouch. It’s not like she’s wandering into the wrestling ring for the first time. She’s an experienced athlete and she has the potential to win. I’ve never seen a team refuse to play a game when their opponent is thought to be weaker and inexperienced.
So – does it have to do with her “girl parts”?
Wrestling is a physical sport. It’s hands-on. If you’re going to wrestle, you my find yourself in some rather awkward positions. If you can’t handle that, then stop wrestling. That’s part of the sport. It’s no different than a wrestler refusing to take on an opponent of the same gender because of the opponent’s sexual orientation. If you think wrestling (or any sport) is sexual, you may need therapy.
And how would this look if someone refused to wrestle their opponent because of his or her skin color or religious belief or nationality? It’s silly, no matter which way you look at it. Get in there and play the game. If you can’t do that because you have certain beliefs, that’s on you. Bow out and move on.
And now I’m going to go out on a limb here…By allowing boys to back out of competition with girls, what we are doing is reinforcing that girls are not as strong or somehow weaker and not as athletic as boys. I’m not saying that everyone is on equal footing all the time. But when it comes to sports, the females who are competing are very, very capable of taking on the challenges with their male counterparts.
They train.
They lift.
They work just as hard.
Let them play!
63 comments
bill
How long before some young woman claims that she was inappropriately grabbed?
Steven
Wow, and I didn’t think females who hate males could get any crazier lol.
But they have with this denying the existence of facts and claiming them fictitious and just theories comments, wow just how desperate and inferior and butt hurt is the female gender?
That they now have to start denying facts, biology, records, medical data and reality.
Richard Gozenya
In a world where men can have their reputations and careers ruined for something as little as going on a date where the other party (the girl) decides afterwards they were unsatisfied and goes public yet there is no investigation of the allegations before they are made public, no recourse for the man to defend himself, and no way for him to restore his tarnished reputation in the court of public opinion then I would say men and women should not be interacting in physical sports. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too.
Real rapists and abusers of women deserve to be caught and punished but when you (ladies/ feminists) want the power to label every perceived slight as some form of sexual assault and malign men for their ‘toxic masculinity’ for even very normal interactions then you are telling men that they need to be extra careful how they interact with you to avoid getting gas-lit and burned to the ground by the angry mob of jilted females.
Society has a lot to sort out with male/ female interactions before we can comfortably be rolling around the grappling mats, and that still doesn’t negate the fact that biology naturally gives men many significant physical advantages over women even if a woman spends years trying to alter her body chemistry with PEDs or hormones. Sometimes things are the way they are not the way we would like them to be. A male faces a lose-lose situation competing physically with a female and now on top of that faces a climate where you have to be very careful in how you look at, speak to, physically touch, or interact with members of the opposite sex. Maybe male scumbags, eye rapists, and gropers have ruined it for everybody (not what I believe but playing devil’s advocate) but any little thing can be misconstrued as sexual assault right now and the consequences for that are very real for the accused with little chance of finding a way to shed honest light on a misunderstanding due to the nature of the current landscape and the inability of society to have open and honest conversations about difficult subjects. As a man I would not encourage other men to engage in any physical form of one-on-one combat competition with other women unless they have expressed consent documented in triplicate and perhaps notarized as well.
Boys wrestling girls is stupid and doesn’t prove anything anyway.
CJ
The ACLU is apparently behind this entire push to force boys to wrestle girls. They are routinely sending sharply worded letters to various institutions, harassing them into forcing boys to engage in this perverted behavior.
fair rights for girls
I agree that girls should be able to wrestle boys we are just as strong as boys.
I want to have a world where gender,race,colour ect…. dose not disadvantage you.
We are equals girls rights and boys right. By the way “I am a man” not all girls like knitting boys can knitt 2 this is what I’m talking about saying these types of comments is not fair and not equal. I have very strong oppinons and I’m willing to address and express them.
Thankyou everyone and pls no sexist comments
gretchen
Go back and explain the concept of cars or computers to a Neandertal. They will tell you those things are impossible. Things we only dream about now can be possible in the future.
Evolution is a scientifically proven process and organisms evolve. Could woman eventually evolve to outperform men in sports? Absolutely. In the animal kingdom, the females are usually the strongest and more productive. Humans tend to be an exception to this, but that may be because gender roles assisted in their evolution. No one knows for sure.
As for your Eiffel tower comment… you must clarify. You could survive the jump. You would not survive the impact. Case in point… there is one survivor who jumped from the Empire State building which is 391 feet higher than the Eiffel tower. When she jumped, the force of the winds that day blew her back into a window on the next floor down and she lived. So you can survive a jump. Impact would be a different story.
And by the way, whenever I say that someday a woman could outperform a man in sports, it has always been a male who argues with me. So far no woman thinks it’s impossible.
Richard
cont.. a case in point, by way of an example: the chances of me surviving jumping of the top of the iffle tower (without safety tech) is very unlikley. This is proved by evidence of people over the years falling from very high buildings (including the twin towers) This tragic ‘fact’ becomes even more established as the years go by. If this obvious fact can change using your mantra of- ‘anything is possible’ I would be quite happy to witness you or anyone else jump of the iffle tower to prove me wrong! And this is were it’s at, the here and now. So as for the argument of some day women could outperform male athleats is irrelavant, as the overwelming proof of men outperforming women (olympic world records) clearly demonstate this ‘reality’. I could argue using the ‘anything is possible’ argument that men could further inrcease their olympic performance margin, while women will remain dormant. But I don’t think you like to hear that as you would quite rightfully point out it is speculation not a [fact].
Richard
ok gretchan can you provide evidence to how this is ‘possible’ ? for example- (it is possible for the world to change shape to a cube). Any established fact has to be backed up with evidence to make to valid, as it will only just remain a theory and not a fact. -Claims asserted without evidence can be dissmissed without evidence. Objective reality is based on facts, the ‘anything is possible’ is just science fiction hookum unless PROVED otherwise. If you don’t have established facts how can you measure or define reality? Facts can change subject to evidence, it is also fair to assume that certain established facts cannot change (and remain even more established as more evidence emerges.
gretchen
@Richard – Anything is possible.
Richard
@gretchen it is a fact the world is a sphere, using feminist logic one day the world will change shape to say perhaps a cube?