Women's Sports

Theater, arm wrestling, philanthropy—three things that don't often come to mind together. But in toto they do describe CLAW (Charlottesville Lady Arm Wrestlers, or more generally, Collective of Lady Arm Wrestlers), as seen in the group's About page:

About

CLAW is a loose (and we do mean loose) affiliation of superbad women arm wrestling each other to raise money for women-initiated causes. We used to hold tournaments once a month at Blue Moon Diner until we got too big. Now we’re aiming for every 2-3 months. We are committed to supporting our community in and around Charlottesville, Virginia.

We have a facebook page, where you can become a fan and get all the latest CLAW news and updates.

Our Official Mission

CLAW exists to empower all women and strengthen communities through theater, arm wrestling, and philanthropy.

I learned about CLAW from Brian Wimer, who is making a documentary about it ("the revolution currently happening in women's arm wrestling"). The project's Kickstarter video gives a sense of the fun and madness that takes place at a CLAW event:

This ably crafted tribute to female athletes was created by VashtisVoice. You might find it inspiring. I did—the music notwithstanding:

Watching the NCAA basketball tournament yesterday, I caught this segment from ESPN's Sport Science. Pretty cool! It is wonderful to see a female athlete spotlighted for her redoubtable athleticism; and thankfully, that happens much more often nowadays:

March is Women's History Month. Right in line, literally and figuratively, with this year's theme ("Our History is Our Strength") is David Chapman and Patricia Vertinsky's new book, Venus with Biceps: A Pictorial History of Muscular Women.

I can't review Venus with Biceps in this post, as I haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet (though it seems to get generally positive reviews—even the New Yorker). Its having been published alone warrants attention here—for books exploring this neglected and marginalized aspect of women's lives and history are few and far between. Put this special book in your to-read list.

Yesterday was the 25th annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day. To mark the occasion—better late than never!—I am sharing a nice little salute to women in sports put together by Pretty Tough:

Apparently, you do exactly what Laura Phelps Sweatt has been doing. Laura is the fourth woman to bench press 500 lb or more, and she is the lightest (181 lb) to do so. Here she is bench pressing 510 lb (yikes!):



So, you say, That's great, but what else can she do? How about a 40.5" box jump?—



See, women can build their bodies and become superlative athletes just like guys can. Only time and pure dedication are required.

The year that just ended was a busy one, too busy even to summarize in one short post. But here are a few of the many noteworthy items from 2010.

The University of Connecticut women's basketball team won 90 games straight, a new record for college basketball.

Kelly Kulick became the first female Professional Bowlers Association champion.

The IAAF, after demonstrating clearly how grotesque is the enterprise of gender testing, cleared track athlete Caster Semenya for return to competition. (Unfortunately, that still left us with some whining.)

Jordanian Farah Malhass became the first Arab woman to compete in an international bodybuilding competition.

Female athletes, not surprisingly, brought their A-game to the 2010 Winter Olympics, particularly Lindsey Vonn.

In entertainment news, Covert Affairs was, in my view, the best thing to come about in 2010; I can hardly wait for its return this summer.

I try to post little amusements throughout the year that perhaps elicit a chuckle while making a point. One from 2010 that I remember
fondly is the Knight and Day stunt rehearsal gone wrong, so good it is worth a repeat. Enjoy and have a Happy New Year!—

A splendid day to be a fan of women's sports. Last night UConn went to 89-0. Awesome!

I hadn't paid much attention to the Lingerie Football League before recently. I had seen just enough about it to know that I wasn't that interested. But over the last few weeks the controversy that it engenders has become increasingly difficult to avoid.

Most objections to the LFL center on the skimpy attire worn by the players (a strange mix of bras, panties, garters, pads, and helmets). This is to be expected, particularly here in the US where a marked remnant of Puritanism still colors things. (We live in a country that is at once uptight about sexuality and addicted to pornography—tells you something, doesn't it?) Knowing that sex is integral to life, which of course includes athletics, I typically abstain from criticism along those lines. I suspect that we would be better off, maybe not so schizophrenic, were we a little more comfortable with our bodies and our sexuality. Oh well, that's a topic for another time.

So the LFL is entertainment (titillation?) glossed as sport. There isn't anything inherently wrong with that. I will, however, submit one admonitory observation. That LFL players are rated by how they look—conventionally feminine with just a tinge of athletic—rather than by how they might play football or whether they have the size and body type advantageous to certain football positions possibly does send an unwanted message, one already repeated too often in our culture, to athletically inclined girls: to be an athletic woman is acceptable so long as one doesn't overdo it and stays within certain confines.

The LFL managed to get press again last night with its first "brawl." Some think it was staged. Either way, does it matter?

Last year I hinted that the Penn State volleyball dynasty maybe hadn't yet run its course. My intuition turns out to have been correct: the Nittany Lions won their fourth straight volleyball championship Saturday night.

Then, Sunday afternoon, the UConn women's basketball team won its 88th consecutive game, tying the NCAA basketball record held by the UCLA 1971-74 men's team. The Huskies will attempt to break the record Tuesday night, when they host Florida State.

Congratulations, Lions and Huskies!

The benefits that girls derive from playing sports are numerous and by now well-documented. It's likely you will see many of them articulated today, the National Women's Law Center's first-ever "Blog to Rally for Girls' Sports Day." But I'll briefly restate a few of them just in case:

Girls who participate in sports are more likely to go on to college, and more likely to graduate from college.

Girls who participate in sports are less likely to use tobacco, less likely to take drugs, and less likely to engage in risky sexual behavior.

Girls who participate in sports generally have higher self-esteem and a positive body image.

Benefits continue into adulthood too. Girls who plays sports tend to lead better and more productive lives.

On a personal note, I've seen first-hand the positive difference playing sports has made in the lives of little girls and the grown women they later became. I also know women from the generation before Title IX, and know then what they missed out on.

I'm not one who thinks Title IX sacrosanct, and my hope is that someday it will no longer be needed, that it become obsolete. Regardless, I'm thankful for it and what it made possible. The good it has done for girls and women, and for society as a whole, is incalculable.

Use the following links to further explore what girls win just by playing sports:

Girls in Sports - The Many Benefits of Team Sports For Young Women.

Facts and Findings: Sports and Physical Activity.

Raising Our Athletic Daughters.

As Girls Become Women, Sports Pay Dividends.

My week started with a guest appearance on Women Talk Sports Radio. I was invited on to talk about gender segregation in sports. The discussion centered on an article written by a promising high school journalist named Julia Friedman. I had been forewarned but didn't take heed: this week's theme would be: can girls compete with boys in sports?

This became evident Tuesday when I came across another article, which had been published in Washington Square News (the student newspaper for New York University). This second article can accurately be described as facile. Madeline Paumen, its author, thinks not only that women cannot hope to ever compete with men, but also that they shouldn't play sports rigorously as the men do, for they are too delicate. (Is this really the year 2010?)

Let's do away with a few myths here. Female athletes will invariably be compared with male athletes; neither wishful thinking nor complaining will change that. Moreover, how many honestly believe that for women to simply participate in sports, watered-down of course, without any hope of their being seen as truly elite athletes is satisfactory? I suspect not many in the general population think this way, certainly fewer still among female athletes.

I've pointed this out many times, and I apologize to frequent readers for doing so again, but human biology isn't fixed; it is in fact astonishingly plastic. The environment and societal forces have tremendous influence on our biology, including how testosterone and other muscle-building hormones are produced and utilized in our bodies. Therefore, whether or not X is the norm biologically now doesn't mean it will always hold true. There was a time, not long ago either, when it was said that women couldn't match the intellectual capacity of men because their brains are smaller than men's. We know this to be foolish today. While it is the case that women, on average, have smaller brain sizes, their brains are wired differently, more efficiently (e.g., more neuron fibers in the corpus callosum). That they were (and sometimes still are) denied access to learning and education probably had the say in any perceived differences in cognitive ability. The same, of course, could apply equally to athletics as well.

Despite their still being hampered by feminine ideals incompatible with athletic competition, female athletes have made remarkable gains (beyond those made by male athletes in the same period) during the little more than a generation that they have had genuine access to athletics. So already we can see changes afoot.

There has been much fuss lately over the "epidemic" of injuries experienced by female athletes. Certainly injuries are a very real issue for female athletes and those who care for them. Still, I can't help thinking that some people are using the subject for reactionary purposes.

Here is the difficulty. We know that early and frequent work in the weight room helps reduce injuries, in youth and later on. Moreover, strength training improves athletic performance overall, it even raises levels of muscle-building hormones naturally. Simple enough. But why aren't more girls and young women lifting heavy? Because they have to overcome the aesthetic aversion to women with big muscles, thick necks, etc. that our culture still clings to. Thus, the solution is within easy reach, yet seemingly invisible.

Often we are distracted by issues irrelevant to improving the lot of female athletes; for example, how much skin female athletes show, or whether they are being "objectified." But, as we've already seen, a broken aesthetic is their biggest obstacle. It must go before female athletes can realize their athletic potential, and someday perhaps rival their male colleagues.

I should add one more thing before ending. The Washington Square News article says in effect that female athletes should just give up—throw in the towel so to speak. Yet the request is illogical, it transgresses a known fact—strong women don't quit.

The Women's Sports Foundation held its 31st Annual Salute to Women in Sports gala in New York City last week (see video). Perhaps the most news-worthy item there was the announcement that WSF would be the "official charity" of espnW, a new brand for women to be launched soon by ESPN. On its surface ESPN's attempt to cater to women would seem a positive thing, but not everyone agrees. I too see a downside: espnW crystallizes gender segregation in sports further, taking us in the wrong direction good intentions notwithstanding.

Yes, we want to see women in sports getting more coverage. But this should be done via plain ol' ESPN (or its established sister networks, like ESPN2 and ESPNU). Segregation in sports perpetuates the second-class status, real or imagined, of female athletes. No amount of palaver or wishful thinking will materially change that.

Farah Malhass has faced numerous obstacles, including death threats, on her road to becoming a competitive bodybuilder on the international stage. Saturday, she competed at the 2010 World Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation World Championship, her first international competition, where at one point she posed in an outfit bedecked with medals—quite fitting, I think.

Under Armour deems athletic women crucial to its business model, attested by a new campaign that specifically targets female athletes. It's a smart move—or rather, a no-brainer—on UA's part because women have so thoroughly embraced the athletic lifestyle in recent years. Fittingly, UA shows us how great the transformation has become in one of the new ads: