What’s In A Name?
I just watched the USWNT’s 4th World Cup victory. The Netherlands Team was no slouch, having made some quality runs during the match but in the end it wasn’t enough. It was a great victory for the US Women, the sport of soccer and the USA. There have been many discussions about the players as they’ve advanced through the tournament. Celebrations, individual comments about politics and equal pay. Opinions rained down from all sides. Many in support, but many not: “Who do these women think they are? Just play the game, act like you’ve been here before, you can’t compare women’s and men’s soccer as equal.”
This is nothing new. These opinions have run rampant since Title IX was signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1972. Title IX of the Education Amendments Act states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” It was a true game changer, no pun intended. Schools across the nation were forced to make changes in order to comply with the law. Some did it willingly; others, like with all change, resisted until they had no other choice.
Who benefited from Title IX? Only millions of little girls over the last 47 years. Some of whom grew into the women who just won back to back World Cup Titles, that’s who. Some of them used sports to get to college and move on to even greater things that they may not have had an opportunity to attain without the benefits of Title IX.
There’s still a ways to go when it comes to equality in the sporting world pertaining to women and men. While I understand there are differences between the two and always will be there are things that need to change. Right off the bat, something as subtle as referring to women’s teams as the “Lady” version of a sport when girls and boys are just getting started. Having 2 daughters who played and excelled in multiple sports growing up and all through high school, I found it very annoying that their teams were always tagged with the “Lady” name (as I’m sure they did too). Many times, their teams were better than the “Gentleman” teams in record and appearances in tournament play. Not that it mattered because either way, they were representing their school not as “ladies” but as student athletes, just like their male counterparts. When they played in recreational league sports it was mostly coed. There was no issue with that. The girls and boys played for the team. Gender-neutral.
Maybe the equality starts with something as small as that. A simple fix. Stop tagging their teams with the “Lady” moniker. There’s absolutely no good reason why in today’s age (or any age for that matter) that the distinction needs to be made. The girls know they are girls, the boys know they are boys. Both are playing for the same school. Student Athletes. Learning about teamwork, sacrifice, winning and losing together as a team.
Perhaps the time has finally come for schools to recognize that they don’t need to distinguish between “ladies and gentlemen” when it comes to what team is taking the field, pitch or court. It’s pretty simple. The school’s job is to afford equal opportunity for girls and boys or ladies and gentlemen to compete in sports and educational activities. Not stereotype.
At the end of the day, the solution to many problems are achieved by dealing with smaller, simpler issues that end up being pigeonholed as one. When the simple solutions are ignored it becomes that much more difficult to solve the complexities of any issue.
Start with the mindset. In this subject, the identity of a team. Call it what it is, not what it looks like. They say there’s no “I” in team. Well, there’s no he or she either.
Congrats to the “ladies” who proved themselves on the World Stage today. Back to back. Hold your head high. You earned it.
Obviously the people playing know what team they’re on. The point is so fans know who they’re going (and at the collegiate level paying) to see.Report
I think it’s more likely done to accommodate some PTA person who wanted the opportunity to jazz up a uniform. Consider that the actual sport that is being played is usually far more important than the gender of the players, but we almost never see that added to the team name. The team names are not the Basketball Eagles and the Lady Basketball Eagles.Report
I didn’t really understand the call to action in this post. Most sports simply just say, for example, Men’s Basketball or Women’s Basketball. In disc golf they use MPO (Male Pro Open) and FPO (Female Pro Open). Usually in college Lady is now primarily reserved for dance squads that support the athletic teams. Is this actually a problem anymore?
I know there has been some chatter about the woefully unequal pay for the women’s soccer team and while I agree it sucks, it’s just unfortunately the economics of women’s athletics. Personally, I love watching them play, but they just don’t get as much attention, which I think is a shame. Oftentimes their technique in their given sport is better because they can’t just muscle things.Report
I hear you Mike. As I mentioned, its a mindset thing. At the middle school/high school level, where it all begins most of the time, the schools attach LADY to the girl’s teams. As in Lady Hawks instead of just Hawks. They don’t make that distinction for the boys by calling them Gentleman Hawks. They are just Hawks. Yes, in college they list sports as women’s or men’s for the paying public to know who they are going to see, just like they list boys and girls at the middle school/high school level (right InMD?) but to affix “lady” to the actual name of the team above the fact that they are already listed as a women’s/girl’s team is what I’m talking about here. A small issue I know, but ask any female athlete what they think about this and I’m sure they will tell you they would rather be referred to as a Hawk, not a Lady Hawk on their uniforms or by an announcer. Its an example of something that’s easily rectified that eliminates an old, tired and useless stereotype. A very small step in the right direction in the quest for equality.Report
I’m not a fan of it at any level of school. If they are doing it somewhere for male/female teams I’m good with them fixing it.Report
I concur, thanks for reading..Report
I find the call to action clear. Don’t have team names that are of the form: Eagles (for the boys) and then Lady Eagles (for the girls).
And I find myself agreeing. Lady Eagles seems a bit lame to me. And not to get too bent out of shape about it, but it does seem like the wrong kind of mindset for naming things. “Men’s basketball” or “Women’s basketball” works just fine, and I hope I don’t have to explain why that is different than sticking “Lady” in front of a specific team’s name while the boys team does not get a modifier.Report
From what I recall from High School back a jillion years ago, we had One Name for the teams.
It was Fox Lane, and the team name was the Fox Lane Foxes. Football? The Foxes. Girls’ Basketball? The Foxes. Volleyball? The Foxes.
And now I realize that I make distinctions between “Basketball” and “Girls’ Basketball”.
I’ve seen the argument that, now, we should make distinctions between “Soccer” and “Mens’ Soccer”, now that we have a World Championship Team in the one and, yeah, the guys in the other.Report
I agree with the sentiment here, but wonder what the young women think. I wasn’t sure whether the “Lady” preface was even used at our kids’ high school, but my daughter says it is for some sports (basketball, soccer and volleyball). (*) That sort of feeds into an intuition that playing for a girl’s team may be about playing with somewhat of a chip on one’s shoulder, perceiving that girl’s sports are not as valued, fomenting a girl power dynamic that demands attention to gender. There may be solidarity in the “Lady” moniker, that’s not as useful in more individualistic endeavors (track, cross-country, swimming, golf, tennis). My point being, I would like to see such changes made by the affected athletes.
(*) I’m not sure they use the “Lady” moniker in newspaper coverage, but that might simply be that hard times requires conserving ink.Report
My older son (age 6) is a sports nut. He has recently gotten very into watching soccer and tennis, often opting/asking for the women’s events explicitly; he’ll watch men’s Wimbledon but never asks for it.
Only, he often says “Girls”. This is a bit of a mental/verbal tic of his going back to when he first learned to talk… which was rather delayed and remains an area of occasional struggle. I make a point to correct him… they are women, not girls. I’m glad he is interested in all competitors and try to nurture this, though it isn’t always easy. Even our local high school teams give better time slots (for our viewing purposes, at least) to the male teams. And aside from a few sports, mens teams tend to dominate the airwaves.Report