Five thoughts on wrestling and girls

Click below to read the original newspaper article for background and the blog post response I reference in my take.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/40691197.html

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1664_over_my_dead_body_son/

1. Honestly, I didn’t realize this was still an issue. It seems archaic to me. I remember it being a hot topic in my early adolescent days when I was still reading SI for Kids. I’ve never personally met any female wrestlers. I never wrestled, not even in junior high so all my opinions and thoughts are by a complete outsider and require an exercise in imagination to a certain degree. Good for Elissa Reinsma for being the first girl in Minnesota to compete in the state high school wrestling tournament. But the uproar (and it could be an isolated uproar from the minority, but it caught my eye nonetheless) around it seems misplaced or past its time. Isn’t this like being pissed at Willie Mays in 1957 because he’s black when the color barrier was broken a decade prior?

2. The blog I linked to is by a published author that I respect. I learned a lot from reading his book, Knowing God. Having said that, I completely disagree with his opinion on this matter. One of the biggest problems is his religious status within the American Christian community. He is looked to for guidance and information on spiritual issues. I mean the title of his blog is “Desiring God”. The problem is his opinion can be too easily associated with a perceived notion of God’s opinion. He doesn’t explicitly say, “God has told me that no man should wrestle a woman,” but it’s easy to make that assumption. And I don’t agree that Biblically, spiritually, or religiously there is something preventing a man from wrestling a woman in equal combat.

3. I have no qualms with Piper’s assertion that men should honor women and that generally as a society we fail at that. I agree it is a father’s responsibility to teach his son the proper way to behave toward and around girls. But the problem I have is that wrestling a girl somehow breaks the rule of what is considered appropriate behavior toward girls. There are rules we follow in everyday life that do not apply during athletic competition. You teach your children it is not okay to hit others. But in boxing and football intentional physical contact are foundational aspects of the competition; the rule against hitting isn’t applicable in those situations. The rule becomes modified to the situation – it is now not acceptable to hit someone after the bell or below the belt or with a purposeful intent to harm them. Thus while it is important to teach our kids rules, it is equally important to teach them how to analyze a situation and make adjustments. In everyday life it is important to honor women: to not physically harm them, to not inappropriately touch them, to be respectful of their space and their identity. But on an athletic field, when a woman has decided of her own free will to compete against men, those same rules should be modified. If you are wrestling a girl you must still honor and respect her, but the same touch prohibitions are out the window. It now becomes a matter of intent. Do not touch a girl during the course of a match in anyway that you wouldn’t touch a male opponent. It’s a simple adjustment to the rule, but it still honors the girl and what she is trying to accomplish.

4. Piper attempts to make refusing to wrestle girls not seem like a sexist act, but his argument backfires when he brings sexuality into it. This paragraph gives it away:

Get real, dads. You know exactly what almost every healthy boy is thinking. If a
jock from Northern Minnesota encircles her around the breasts and twists his leg
around her thighs, trust me, he will dream about that tonight. Only in his dream
she won’t have clothes on. And if he doesn’t dream it, half the boys in the
crowd will. Wake up dads. You know this.

All of a sudden wrestling is sexual in nature. Men shouldn’t wrestle women because they may or may not enjoy it in a sinfully sexual way or they might cause other men watching to do so. But whey does wrestling all of a sudden become a metaphor for man’s sexual desires when it involves a woman and not when it’s two dudes rolling around the mat, squeezing each other between their legs and pressing their genitalia against one another. If Piper’s argument is correct then the same wrestlers should refuse a match with a homosexual opponent because rules are rules regardless of the situation (see point # 3 above).

5. To me the whole article is insulting to me as a man, (pseudo)athlete, and father of a daughter. I know as much as anyone that sexual urges are hard to control. It’s easy to fantasize and lust after attractive members of the opposite sex. If anything we are over-stimulated, sexually, as a society. I could stand to see less skimpy-dressed models on TV cavorting around and using their sexuality to schill some product. But to assume that as a man I am a slave to those desires is wrong. It’s difficult, but give me some credit.

Especially if I am on the athletic field. I’ve played against numerous girls over the years. Being generally one of the shorter players on the court in basketball I’m more often than not matched up with the other team’s girl to play defense. It wouldn’t matter who it was once play starts because at that point all I’m concerned about is: a) not being humiliated by a girl, and b) not being freaking humiliated by a girl. Is that a sexist thought? Most definitely. But it’s not sexual. There is a difference.

As the father of a little girl I am most disappointed for the female wrestler. I doubt she wanted any controversy, she probably just wanted to compete. She is matched with wrestlers of similar weight. She practices and trains just like all the other boys. She wanted to wrestle. How is it honoring her by denying that wish? How is it respectful to her to tell her she can’t compete against you because she has breasts and a vagina? If my daughter someday wants to wrestle, play baseball, or football I hope the other schools see her not as a girl, but as an opponent, an adversary, one just as worthy of good sportsmanship and respect as a guy.