Throw like a girl?

As kids, my brother and I played cricket in the wide open space between the gate and home.  Three stumps with bails, a cricket bat, and a cricket ball--all kid size, of course.  One bowled while the other batted.  More time was spent searching for the ball and considerably less was the playing time itself.

Often, my sister's friends came visiting.  Sometimes, they wanted to play with us.  Looking back, I am not sure if they played cricket with us for a few minutes because they wanted to humor us or because they really were keen on playing the game.

Back then, in the school or in the public grounds, girls did not play cricket.  (Nor did they play football either.)  I recall my sister playing games like throwball (or was it volleyball?) and whatever the ring tossing game was called.  And, maybe badminton.

It was one hell of a sexist world.

And then one day I read in the newspaper that there was an all-women Indian cricket team.  All women?  I was impressed.  (Thankfully, Wikipedia gives me the particulars.)

It took me a while to shed my sexist skin.  After all, giving up the privileges of being a male isn't easy ;)

I moved to the US, which was only slightly better than India was when it came to gender issues.  I was shocked that "Trojans" referred by default only to the male sports players.  Otherwise, they were the "Women of Troy."

In Bakersfield, when I started writing commentaries, I sent the editor a piece about such gendered usage.  I remember arguing in that essay that "Americans" doesn't mean men by default.  It was one of the many commentaries that never made it past the editor.

Life in Eugene meant that I was bombarded all the time by the athletic activities at the local university. I wrote another commentary, again, on this topic and emailed that to the editor.  He too decided against publishing that.

In the summer of 2019, I blogged about the separate and unequal character of female sports.  Even when a female team is successful, as was the case with women's soccer, it gained neither respect nor the dollars that the losing men's team did.

I don't care for sports.  But, I do care for equal treatment.

The "March Madness" underway has brought the unequal treatment to the foreground, again. "Men’s sports, athletes, coaches and events have always been the association’s priority."

When college women basketball players began to post photos and videos of how they got less food, less accurate COVID-19 testing and less exercise equipment in the NCAA March Madness Tournament bubbles than their male counterparts, a sense of collective outrage ensued.

It is not new, but I am glad it made it to the news.  Let's see if this new outrage produces a different and better outcome.