Girls Playing Sports: Crucibles for Conflicting Messages
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Debra Nussbaum Cohen October 22, 2010
Soccer season is in full swing, which means that on weekends Girlchik is out on the field, passing and handling the ball with impressive facility while I cheer her on from the sidelines, chat with other parents and enjoy the cool fall breezes.
It’s an interesting thing, cheering on girls this age to get in there and be more aggressive with the ball. Some girls have a tendency to be a bit — how can I say this nicely — wussy on the playing field. Girlchik is a good soccer player but some of the girls on her team seem afraid of the ball. And I realize, with a start, that my daughter and her teammates are at a moment of intersecting, and often conflicting, cultural messages.
The girls, all 11- and 12-years-old, are at that moment when they are not yet stork-legged teenagers, but neither are they little kids.
Their thinking and bodies are maturing, but they are also caught between worlds. They have a leg in the world of their childhood, in which they are free to run and jump and play, and one in the world which no American woman seems able to escape, in which they are painfully self-conscious about their physical selves.
Thankfully, none of Girlchik’s friends or teammates are over-sexualized, as so many girls their age seem to be because of ridiculously permissive parents, and a culture which surrounds them with everything from Bratz dolls to the purportedly teen characters of Glee (but just the girls, of course) who pose like prostitutes in the pages of a national magazine.
I’m eager for my daughter to learn to be assertive, as well as a good team player. I root for her to be more aggressive on the soccer field, to just get in there and take control of the ball, when in social situations I want her to be sensitive and kind.
Are these conflicting messages? Can one young girl integrate both, if each is for a different context?
It is wonderful to have a daughter who is body-smart and athletic in a way that I never, ever was (or will be). But being with Girlchik on the soccer field also makes me realize just how much of a crucible for conflicting messages it is to be female in America.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
