26 May, 2008

The One Where Sexist Bullshit Makes My Head Explode. Again.

This story makes my blood fucking boil. Twelve-year-old Jaime Nared has all of a sudden been banned from playing on the mixed-gender team she's been on since she was in the second grade. Why? Because she's a phenomenally talented GIRL.

Here's the money quote:

Neal Franzer, The Hoop's director of operations, said Thursday that parents were "adamant" that their complaints have nothing to do with Jaime's skills.

"They said the problem was the boys were playing differently against her because she was a girl," he said. "They'd been taught to not push a girl, so they weren't fouling her hard, and the focus had shifted from playing basketball to noticing a girl was on the floor with them."

Riiiiight. Because, you know, it's just so much easier to discriminate against a talented girl (or woman) than it is to teach boys that EVERYONE should be allowed the chance to compete and excel at the highest level they're capable of and that capability has nothing to do with being female or male. (For the record, the boys on her team seem to have no problem whatsoever with the fact that she's exceptionally talented--and already 6'1"--or that she's a girl. In this video, one of her teammates says that having her on the team makes them try harder and play better.

It saddens and sickens me that the lessons of teamwork and competing to their fullest potential have been interrupted (yet again) by the inappropriate interference from some of the so-called grown-ups who are teaching them, instead, that it's perfectly all right to discriminate against someone ought not to be able to compete with them because of their gender/race/sexual orientation/religion/economic class.

Full disclosure: That this story comes out of Beaverton, OR is 1) not a surprise to me at all and 2) a bit of a trigger because I dealt with this sexist bullshit when I went to high school (SHS, not BHS, if you're familiar with the area). I had hoped that the mentality there might have evolved a little bit in 25 years, but I guess not.

(Hat tip to Melissa at Shakesville and so on down the line...)