NEWSWOMEN IN SPORTS

There is nothing pretty about boxing. It’s strenuous, fatiguing, and comes with its share of aches, pains, hits and unanticipated smacks. My body still refuses to forgive me for the aftermath of my first fight. The visceral pain in my joints made typing a four letter word on a keyboard so painful I cringed. As a grad student and self-proclaimed twitter addict, it was, to say the least, somewhat debilitating!

Nevertheless, there is a particular kind of beauty in roughness. Boxing invigorates and animates every muscle and fragment of flesh in my body. I still remember the astonishment of my coach in reaction to the amount of power I was able to harness in my first punch. What is it about the strength of women that still shocks us? What is so intolerable about a woman in control of her abilities that makes an organization like the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) want to confine her to a mini-skirt? If there is something menacing about a woman in shorts it suggests that there is still something menacing about a woman in full ability to thrive. While men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women are taught to apologize for their strengths.

In a way, boxing encapsulates everything that is regularly socially discouraged of women. However, in my opinion, there is nothing more satisfying than doing something that isn’t expected. When someone expects you to be weak, have the courage to be strong. When someone expects you to be compliant, have the bravery to resist. If women are told they must be seen not heard, then they must stand up and speak louder. Given that we are often encouraged not to fight back, it’s about time we enter the metaphorical rink and kick some serious figurative butt.

More than 35,000 people have joined a popular campaign on Change.org calling on the North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association (NCISAA) to allow girls to play football.

Members of the U.S. National Women’s Tackle Football Team launched the online petition on Change.org after they heard that starting linebacker Mina Johnson, a student at Southampton Academy in Virginia, was forced to sit on the sidelines when an opposing team threatened to forfeit rather than play against a girl. The opposing school was a member of the NCISAA, which prohibits girls from playing on boys’ varsity teams.

"The members of the U.S. national women's team and I felt it extremely important to support Mina in her desire to play football,” said Adrienne Smith, who launched the campaign on Change.org on behalf of her teammates. “At one time or another, everyone on the U.S. national team has faced similar discrimination. We wanted to show unanimous support for Mina and her teammates, as well as her coach and community, by speaking as one voice through our petition."

When female boxers enter the ring, the Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) would like them to be wearing skirts, according to a recommendation by the sport's governing organization. After all, nothing says pugilistic prowess like a good miniskirt.

The AIBA came up with this brilliant idea as a way to help distinguish female boxers from their male counterparts. Apparently, this has been a problem for some folks in the past, though I can't imagine who.

Female boxers have already had to fight long and hard outside the ring to get the respect they deserve inside of it. The 2012 London Games will mark the sport's Olympic debut, after having been previously rejected by the International Olympic Committee  in 2005 for not meeting safety and universality standards. AIBA's sartorial suggestion undermines that progress.

After AIBA issued this suggestion, only two nations had their female boxers wear skirts: Romanian and Polish fighters wore them in the the European Championships late last year. Most athletes seem to share the opinion of  Ireland's three-time world champion, Katie Taylor. "I don't even wear miniskirts on a night out," Taylor said. "So I definitely won't be wearing miniskirts in the ring."

The AIBA, responding to criticism, has said that, as of now, the skirts are merely a suggestion. Final uniform dress codes will not be decided until they meet this month from January 18-22. Until that time, the organization is asking for input from the wider boxing community and from the general public.

Change.org member Rachel Walden seized the opportunity to have her voice heard and created a petition asking the AIBA to rescind its recommendation that female boxers wear skirts. "The ideal result of this petition is to send the message that this sort of misogyny is intolerable, " says Walden. Join her in asking the AIBA to play and not require female boxers wear skirts.

Photo credit: babastever

Gooooooaaaaaaallllllll! When the U.S. Soccer Federation announced on November 20 that Women's Professional Soccer (WPS), the national league where World Cup stars like Hope Solo and Abby Wambach train up to rock it on the international field, risked losing sanctioning if it couldn't add a sixth team in two weeks, prospects looked dim. But a game-saving goal come in the form of outcry from players and fans determined to save WPS -- 50,000 of them.

Alex Sahlen, a player for the WPS Team the Western New York Flash, started a petition on Change.org asking U.S. Soccer to grant her beloved league a one-year waiver from the minimum team requirement. Her campaign attracted 48,000 signatures, while another petition started by Colleen Kelly, an ardent fan of the WPS Team the Philadelphia Independence, brought the number of supporters to just shy of 50,000. This week, U.S. Soccer announced that it will allow WPS to continue to develop and expand over the next year, recognizing that a sport with such devoted fans has an opportunity to thrive.

"I would like to thank all of the fans for their unwavering support throughout this difficult time and persisting with us to reach our ultimate goal of a 2012 WPS season," said Alex Sahlen after hearing the good cheer about WPS. "The support has been amazing and really touching and humbling for many of us. We are looking forward to another successful WPS season and will look to build upon this season to keep women's professional soccer around for many years to come."

Roseanna Smith is a member of the U.S. National Women's Tackle Football team. Roseanna, Adrienne Smith, and their teammates have launched a petition in support of girls' right to play football.

When I was 17, I joined my high school football team.

Even in 1999, it wasn’t very popular move, talent aside -- and I didn’t have much of it then. What I did have was a desire to test the limits of what I thought I could do. By lifting weights and training harder than I ever had before, I earned biceps, abs, and a spot on the team. I worked full-time in the summer between two-a-days and a part-time evening gig at the local newspaper. Every practice, my goal was to be a full participant in every drill, exercise, and conditioning session. I only finished last at the beginning.

I didn't understand the offense at first. Many days, I would draw up plays and ask questions in the coaches' office after practice. I made too many mistakes to count. Some of the most embarrassing were lining up in a three-point stance as a tailback in practice or forgetting the play on the way to the huddle during a game. But there were many positives, the two most important: I learned how to be a player by earning a role on the team, and the opportunity to play football changed my life.

I’m telling you part of my story because it’s vitally important to understanding why other girls need to play football.

Pool has gained popularity as a sport over the years, especially among women. With professional players Jeanette Lee -- more commonly known as “The Black Widow” -- and “The Duchess of Doom” Allison Fisher serving as role models to women worldwide, it is no wonder that more and more women pick up this sport every day. Yet one of the largest organizations for pool players in the world, the American Poolplayers Association (APA), won’t let women play at their potential.

The APA is not only one of the sponsors of the Women’s Professional Billiards Association, but also allows amateur men, women, and children around the country to compete in handicapped weekly league matches as a team sport in 8-ball and 9-ball. APA teams can have no more than eight players each; during a weekly team match, five of these players compete in individual matches. The number of games that any player, male or female, needs to win is based on their skill level assigned by the APA’s patented scoring system, The Equalizer®. In 8-ball, the APA assigns each player a skill level from 2 to 7, based on their performance.

In Ladies’ 8-ball, the skill levels of these five players can total no more than 19. However, in the male dominated co-ed division, the five players’ skill levels can add up to 23.

Silsbee Superintendent Richard Bain told H.S., a 16-year-old student cheerleader, that she would either cheer for her rapist or be kicked off the squad. When she was harassed by other students and called a "slut," school officials told her to avoid the cafeteria and lay low. This is clearly unacceptable and despicable treatment of a student rape victim -- but H.S. is the one stuck paying the school district tens of thousands of dollars. Where's the justice in that?

Earlier this month, H.S.’s final appeal of her First Amendment case was denied, letting the lower court ruling stand that cheerleaders are nothing but a “mouthpiece." (NFL cheerleaders have spoken out against this.) Student who pick up those pompoms lack any free speech rights, including the right to refuse to cheer for a player that has assaulted them. Furthermore, the courts decided that arguing a high school girl has the right to refuse to cheer for her rapist -- "Two, four, six, eight, ten! Go Rakheem. Put it in!" -- amounted to such a ridiculous claim, H.S. should have to pay the school district’s legal fees, to the tune of more than $35,000 (some media has reported a higher figure, but a Change.org investigation into the documents has revealed discrepancies and a filing error, which has yet to be officially resolved).

This is tens of thousands of dollars school officials are taking from a student rape victim they wronged.

Last year, I wrote about the the head of the International Ski Federation's ridiculous assertion that ski jumping could mess with a gal's child-bearing ladybits to justify barring female athletes from that Olympic event. Frustrated that ski jumping is the only Winter Olympic sport reserved for men only -- even though female ski jumper Lindsay Van set the record on the Olympic ramp during practice runs -- Change.org member Sarah Nelson launched a petition demanding that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) let women jump. And in 2014, they will.

That's right: after fretting over women's uteri being bounced around and then weakly protesting that there weren't enough elite female competitors (a poor argument in the face of Lindsay Van's achievement), the IOC caved and announced that women ski jumpers will take their rightful place in the upcoming Russia Olympics. And though Van herself, who fought for entry into the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and the future of her beloved sport, doesn't know whether she'll still be competing in three years, the event should still be exciting to watch.

Early in December, I wrote about the Belmont University women's soccer coach removed from her position after sharing the happy news with her players that she was expecting a baby — with the woman she loves.

Coach Lisa Howe's players were furious and rallied in her defense, but the Belmont University administration, which has also refused to recognize a student LGBT group on campus as going against their religious tradition, didn't budge. Well, that was 21,000 Change.org member emails and a lot of controversy ago. Michael Jones reports on Gay Rights that the Tennessee university has now announced that they will add sexual orientation to their non-discrimination policy. Goooooooooooal!

Though Belmont U President Bob Fisher has denied that Howe's firing related to her sexual orientation, soccer players reported that their discussions with administrators sounded a little different. Team captain Sari Lin said she was told by Belmont's Athletic Director that the school has "the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy and when she told us about the pregnancy, it violated that." But even if the University had admitted that Howe's sexual orientation got her the "resign or be fired" ultimatum, they wouldn't have been violating any of their own policies.

A student's sexuality should be nobody's business but her own, and the choice to come out hers to make. But softball coaches at a Texas school begged to differ. Brandon Miller writes on Gay Rights that they first cornered a female student in the locker room, accusing her of being gay, and threatening to tell her parents. Then they said she wouldn't be allowed on the field unless she outed herself. Finally, they called the student's mother, insisted she come down to the softball field, and tattled that her daughter was a lesbian, following this by kicking the girl off the team.

The one positive element of this story is the mother's reaction: pissed off. Not at her daughter for her sexual orientation, but at her coaches for making a decision about sharing private items without the girl's consent, and for kicking her off the team.

The school principal, district superintendent, and Board of Trustees have rejected the mother's complaint about the coaches' bullying of her daughter, defending all of their decisions as absolutely right. This stance by the Kilgore School District sets a precedent that jeopardizes the privacy of other LGBTQ students, and sanctions what is really bullying and harassment by an authority figure.

What if the student had not been lucky enough to have a mother more concerned with the violation of her daughter's civil rights than her sexual orientation? A teenager choosing not to reveal her sexuality might have strong reason for doing so, such as homophobic parents or a history of abuse. Softball coaches don't know what kind of harm they're opening up a student to by outing her against her wishes.