THE SPORTING LIFE
Playing hardball with softball
Baseball, America’s pastime. Everyone knows this saying all too well, but what about softball? While the male-dominated sport of baseball gets the spotlight, the less appreciated woman-dominated sport of softball is considered by many to be too girly for modern society, and is thrown to the side.
“Both are great sports,” says Kevin Vega, 16, from Roxbury. “But it seems like baseball is more famous than softball.”
The sad truth is that although women have been fighting for equality in sports for many years, we have not achieved this tremendous feat. I know it for a fact: I was one of those girls who started off with baseball, but society forced me into playing softball because of my gender.
A fellow softball player of mine, Jeanette Origel, 16, also dealt with this inequity. Origel played baseball for three years and switched to softball because she “got to high school and there’s only softball for girls.” It seems as though when females are young, it is acceptable for us to play either sport, but once girls come of age they are expected by society to play softball.
“It promotes sexism,” says Origel, of Roxbury.
When I was playing baseball, I had to deal with evil little snickers, rude comments, and crude actions from boys who believed that females shouldn’t be part of baseball. It is hard for those girls who push a little more and manage to play for older baseball divisions. I experienced this when I started playing baseball in the “pony” division in my league. The coordinator for my league strongly encouraged my father not to sign me up for baseball because softball was where I belonged. I fought for as long as I could to stay the baseball player I was, but now I am in softball, for I was defeated by the expectations society had.
Though there are no restrictions on young women playing baseball, there are a lot of other obstacles that literally stop them from trying. There is so much persecution from males. So many young men think women should not be in sports, and a lot of these baseball players voice these opinions through hurtful comments. I was constantly told by the boys I played with that I “belonged in the kitchen” because that was where females were expected to be.
“Women should be able to play baseball because it’s not fair that they get excluded,” says Origel.
So why does our society allow this to continue? The contrast does not seem as apparent to society, but, sadly, too many women have to face this on a daily basis. Though women try to fight this injustice, the paternalistic society we live in does not want us to overcome this blockade to equality for all sexes.
