Keeping Score: Playing like a guy

It's a good question. Something I haven't really thought about. That's where the problem lies – people don't think about these things enough to question them. They are just a set of assumptions passed down from one generation to the next.

All through primary school it was my aim to beat the boys at everything – school work, football, wrestling (!) – anything. Even at a very young age I felt the need to prove to everyone and the other girls at school that girls were just as good as boys, that girls could do anything a boy was capable of. The boys even liked it – they wanted me on the football team, but the school wouldn't let me because I was a GIRL.

Soul crushing.

By saying that Hannah played on the boy's team because "she's so much better than other girls her age" you are perpetuating it. I get that she should be allowed to play on the team because there is not a girl's team - but if there WAS a girl's team, she should not be allowed to or encouraged to play on the boy's team just because she is good. That implies again that the boy's team is the hard one, and the girl's team is the consolation prize for us weaker athletes.

Perhaps sports up to say, 10 yrs old should simply be the same. I was a swimmer, and they have these "motivational times" that range from B to AAAA (the best) for various age groups. I just checked, and for 10 and under, the times for boys and girls are essentially the same. They could pretty fairly compete together. I know there are co-ed soccer and baseball teams too.

To echo a previous poster, this type of thing makes me insane with rage as well. But alot of it, unfortunately, does come down to stereotypes. I remember playing sports with a friend (girl) on the boys' teams growing up, and when we got to 8th grade our coach pulled us aside and said "I'm really sorry, I know you guys are really good, but you can't play on the guys team anymore" and he treated us like playing on the girls team would be a punishment.

It's the same thing that bugs me in college, whenever I tell someone I played softball in high school the first response is always "ha, you must be a huge dyke", or when my mom makes comments about my sister being "too aggressive" and that she "acts too much like a boy" because she is into sports as well.

It does seem to upset alot of insecurities, and it always makes me wonder why it is that young men and boys are taught, directly and indirectly, from society to be threatened by and/or afraid of strong women. And it applies to all arenas, not just sports. Many of the boys I played alongside in grade school coudln't have cared less that I was a girl; to them I was just another competitor and I loved it. By the time I got to high school, things had changed, and there was a pressure to not be too good or too fast, else a boy might never like you. I thought the days of the corset were over, but on some levels it still seems to boil down to the same point: being able to do anything a boy can do, but not too well or strongly or with too much enthusiasm for fear of being seen as unattractive.

I think it's actually kind of understandable that men think that way (girls throw bad/punch bad/are bad at sports) because there are so many women who play right into it. I know that there are lots of women who work hard and can beat men, no problem. But there are just too many women who just want to do a sport to lose weight and don't put any effort into it. I have the same trouble with boxing and kickboxing. As of yet I've found one gym where there were 2 girls who actually put some effort into it and they were good too, but all the other girls that were there would be giggling the whole time and they'd start whining once I gave them one soft punch and they'd have to sit down. If you don't want to get hit, don't start boxing! Anyway, so obviously all the guys were surprised when I started sparring with them that I could actually throw a punch, because all they'd usually see is the giggling girls.

So it's not just the ignorant men and parents who keep this going, it's the bimbo's too, they should just stick with aerobics or put some damn effort into it.

Hello?  Didn't Billie Jean King dispel these boys are better than girls myths in the 70s?  I can't believe that such sexist notions are still being touted in the fields of sport.  Surely it should be about how you can excel as a person, and how you perform as a team?

You won't be surprised to hear that she left some sore losers in her wake — 16 losers out of 18 matches, to be exact

 This plus the subtext on the calling page tells me why they don't want to play girls, and why they believe they should always win in that case. I now that technically they are losers but we know the load  that word has.  (by the way before the grammar police run full speed I am from colombia, 9 yer living in Costa Rica).

I have always found this forum to be well balanced and this is the first instance I see something like this. So I am just shocked

be better, because they, boys/men, are structured to be the "best" in (if nothing else) sports. I know oldest, most played out argument in "it's a man's world" in sports argument, but women and men are not structured the same. In the physical sense, that we were structured to have babies and they weren't. Therefore it only makes sense that men are expected to be better at playing sports, because their structured to have an advantage over women in that aspect. So if anyone is to blame for this "myth" blame the creator(whoever that might be). lol I also think some of it has to do, well actually..a lot of it has to do with what some of the above posters mentioned. From day one girls are expected to walk, talk, dress, and play a certain way and it's not literal like the way my mom use to do with me, because I was the Hannah in the bunch, but it's a cunning, subtle, divisive method passed down from generation to generation to keep men and women separate, but equal, trapped in our tradiotional sense. I guess the only solution is to send Ru Paul and Candace Parker back in time, to make our current situation a virtual reality and nothing more? Yes? No? Maybe? lol jk. I'm glad I waited a day to reply otherwise it would've been just an "Because all men are douchebags" post. ahh you're welcome. 

Right now my high schoool doesn't have a male tennis team, but we've had some seriously talented kids. We're trying to get him to play on our team..

Imagine a world where a person just plays at their level. Sure at some point in some games at certain ages males may prevail. But it's still just a skill level.

A society of parents/teachers [modern life: TV, ads] perpetuates these views. Really, kids do not just make this up for themselves. It is similar to any types of differences amongst people. It does not matter to a child until an adult approves or disapproves. There is help from the adult world to be better than [fill in the blank].

i think that is the traditional perceptions that males and females have on one another. Also that society have stereotyped males to be stronger, faster, and more athletic. My opinion about the matter is that if a girl can take one the boys and is at or a better level than the boys than she has every right to be playing with them.

more power to the girls to take on the boys.