Girls playing boys sports

We discussed in class last week about girls and boys often times not being able to participate in the same kind of activities, whether these be athletics or dance or other "gender specific" activity.

Today there was an article on yahoo.com reporting on this exact issue. A 7 year old girl has played on her brothers baseball team for a few years, and now the coach wants to get into a more "competitive" league. There are several ridiculous points to this.

The fact that the team wants to be more competitive has nothing to do with a girl being on the team or not, if the coach was wise he would evaluate all of the players and find the best players for team (regardless of gender). If the young girl honestly didn't have whatever talent he was looking for than fine, cut her from the team. However, the article states that the coach told the mother that her daughter was better than her son... so what is the issue here? These kids are young and in today's society need to get used to boys and girls being equal, it is no longer like it was in the past where girls (women) were "lower" than men. I don't understand why people still have this thought process.  I believe that women are equal (if not better) than men, and I love when I hear of a woman beating the odds and proving that we are strong and we know how to handle situations. In fact, the CEO of the company I work for, Hewlett- Packard, is a woman - and already the moral of the company has changed. This woman knows what she is doing, and the results can be seen.
The article mentioned above also discussed how the brother (who is younger than the sister) likes having her on his team and is considering not playing anymore if she can't play either. It makes me wonder if there will be some kind of back-lash on the league or the coach for his actions. If this small act is on a mainstream news site, it has obviously already caught a lot of attention. It will be interesting to see if more information will come available in the coming days or weeks.

View the article

Keeping Gender a Secret

The other day I came across an article online about a couple who kept the gender of their child a secret for 5 years. The young boy, Sasha dresses in whatever he wants and plays with the toys he wants. The couple wanted to avoid stereotyping and give their child a chance to develop his own personal identity.

There are plenty of arguments that can be made about this parenting style (as they all can). Will the child grow up to be more confused with his or her own sexuality? Will they be treated differently because they choose to wear clothing that is "not normal" for their specific gender? Should a child really be making these kinds of decsions?

My thoughts on this are conflicting. I do believe that some people take gender roles and stereotypes too far. Children should be able to make decisions about what they want to wear or play with. However, I don't necessarily agree with the parents choice to hide the gender from everyone. It seems like kind of ridiculous and outlandish thing to do. The kid is 5, what difference does it really make what he wears? Why keep his gender a secret? He would still be able to make whatever choices he wants, yes he might be made fun of but that will happen in the future anyways and will most likely have more of an affect on him when he is in junior high or high school.

I think letting a kid have free-will and make decisions is great, just because you are a boy doesn't mean you have to do what boys are "supposed" to do. But I also think that the parents choice to keep the gender hidden from everyone seems just a little dramatic.

Here is the article about Sasha and his parents choice to keep his gender for 5 years:
 http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/couple-finally-reveals-childs-gender-five-years-birth-180300388.html