Women's Sports

This clip is from an exhibition match between two experienced wrestlers: Lauren, aka roguexkitty6, then 18 years old and 115 lb, and a 140 lb 28-year-old male. It lasts about four minutes:



You'll notice that Lauren used not only skill to defeat her opponent, she outmuscled him as well. She was the better, stronger athlete that day. This is not something we're used to seeing. Of course, competition between male and female athletes is still rare, too rare according to Playing With the Boys: Why Separate is Not Equal in Sports.

Intra-gender athletic competition and strength training are making a huge difference: female athletes are getting bigger, faster, stronger by the day. Moreover, I see no reason right now to think there is an identifiable limit to what women can achieve relative to men. Eventually, though, inter-gender athletic competition will become necessary. Competition is a potent mechanism for development, one that can't be ignored.

More so now than at any other time in history, women are able to explore their physical potential unfettered by simplistic notions about gender roles. Thus, it's perfectly reasonable to expect that we'll soon be seeing even more instances of women competing successfully against men on the wrestling mat.

First, I'd like to call your attention to this review of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles posted over at Heroine Content. Grace seems to share the same generally favorable impression that I have after watching the first two episodes, along with my reservation about Lena Headey's Sarah not being physical enough (though she blames it on writing, not casting).

Now on to technical matters. You'll notice that the list of links on the left has changed a little. Women's Sports Today hasn't been updated in a while, so that link has been removed and replaced with a link to Women's Tennis Blog, which is a great place to keep up with athletes and tournament results if you like women's tennis.

Please contact me if you know of another blog covering women's sports that we should add to the list.