Posted on 12/19/2004 12:59:24 AM PST by quietolong
Girl Wrestler
Texas teenager Tara Neal insists that girls and boys should be able to wrestle on the same mat.
Filmmaker Diane Zander follows Neal through the last year in which state guidelines allow her to wrestle boys.
It's a year filled with family conflict, pressure to cut weight and fierce policy debates over Title IX, which grants women's athletics proportionality in public schools
(Excerpt) Read more at pbs.org ...
Yeah. . .thanks. . .I see it has already happened.
You can stick to your car keys I guess, I will rely on my .357 snub nose.
My semi personal experience was similar. I was wrestling in junior high when a guy on my team was scheduled to go up against a girl. He ended up forfeiting, didn't hear the end of it and ended up quitting. You can argue that everyone involved should have been more mature about it, but these are teenagers we are talking about. Plus, as several posters have pointed out, in our litigation crazy society this just seems to be asking for trouble. Let them develop girls teams for girls who want to wrestle and maybe we can get enough interest in the sport to get in back on the major college radar (since no one seems willing get rid of Title IX).
Aw, bless your bleeding heart, Le Duc Soup.
So you think that a false sense of security will help a woman on the street.
Have you ever interviewed a sexual offender, Le Duc Soup? Did you ever ask him WHY he wouldn't bother a "confident" woman?
Did any sexual offender ever tell you (or anyone else), "Well, I'm a pussy, and a confident woman would kick my ass"?
It's not a new idea, but I don't think that there's the slightest basis in fact for the notion that a "confident" woman deters aggression by virtue of her "confidence". I think people who say that are starting with a PC conclusion and working backwards. I think that the idea is gender-melding anti-male PC crap.
Look how this story ended:
Filming on GIRL WRESTLER concluded in July 2001. After joining her high school wrestling team and still not being allowed to practice with or wrestle against boys, Tara decided to leave the team. In 2004, Tara and her boyfriend Andrew had a baby daughter. Tara will finish high school in fall 2004, at an alternative school in Austin. She is also taking college level courses at the local community college
"
Unfortunatly this will not be a problem for long.
Title IX is slowly eliminating the wrestling programs. Wrestling scholarships are dead in favor of women's rowing.
...and for the record a girl should not be wresling a boy and vice versa. (except in private an I don't want to know any more)
As you certainly saw in my reply I wrote also that carrying a piece is the gold standard. And if she is carrying, the head up striding look of confidence will make it much less likely that she will have to use her weapon. Where your bitterly curled lip originates I cannot guess unless you are a mugger/rapist/whatever who feels I am trying to make your career more difficult.
****A woman who is confident and looks confident is much less likely to be attacked on the street****
You have absolutely no evidence for this assertion. It's what you've read in hate-male "every man is a rapist" manuals that have political agendas.
****simply because the rapist/mugger/whatever is not in that business for the thrill of risk and danger.****
He is likely to come from the same class of people who join gangs/engage in gang warfare or who engage in games of "chicken" in their automobiles or take extraordinary amounts of illegal substances or engage in any number of dangerous pastimes for the "thrill of risk and danger" -- and in the context that we are talking about, he is just as likely to find the prospect of resistance titillating.
****Where your bitterly curled lip originates****
From the top of my mouth, of course, and it also originates in response to "hate male" propaganda.
**** I cannot guess unless you are a mugger/rapist****
I'm a criminal defense attorney who often interviews dangerous people in custody as part of my profession.
Where your own bitterly curled lip originates, I cannot guess unless it results from the application of too much lipstick.
Those rules applied to a genteel society where women were raised to be ladies, and would never raise a hand against you, either.
Obviously, some editing is required for today's world. ;)
Yes it is interesting that wrestling is somehow treated differently than say the martial arts, where no distinction is ever give to the sexes.
My son has been in Tang Soo Do now for nearly 3.5 years, his master is a 5th degree black belt with 25 years experience... there are numberous female EDan and SoDan's in his do jung, as well as students of both genders.
Now during sparring generally they are paired up by gender during testing and practice, there is no pity or issue when this is not done. Believe me there are women there that can kick 99% of men's arses without trying. There is a female 13 year old black belt that I wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.
Its all in how it is treated, if it is treated as a joke by fellow competitors and coaches it will be nothing but a joke. If its a serious competition, and she's less than serious about it, she'll wash out. If she is serious about it, she'll make those guys who want to just take a dive rue that decision if she is any good.
Stalker type rapists, those who attack lone women on the street, are not gang types. They are mostly loners. Gangsters tend to do their raping in bars or parties or in in groups. They are rather less dangerous to the woman on the street or in a parking lot than the lone vert looking for an easy one. I cannot fathom where your attitudes come from if you are not simply bitter at the idea of a woman making herself less of a target. And it has nothing to do with any malephobia. A couple of predatory verts in a city can scare the female population pretty seriously. You have some serious problems of your own to work out.
I'm curious - why does the girl in the initial post not have on headgear, but the boy does? In many states, headgear is mandatory.
Trust me . . . after half an hour of my taunting, you'd be able to try to hit me.
It's stage combat, of a more intense variety than we at TRF engage in. But it's the same idea . . . you choreograph a fight just like you block a dance.
There's a lot of skill involved in boxing as well, particularly at the lighter weight classes.
I have never understood this sort of thing. It makes me think I should have tried wrestling, since I have never met a woman who is anywhere nearly as strong as I am. I should add that I have two sisters who are the very soul of viciousness in a fight. Both of them have fought off male attackers in criminal situations.
But playing around I always had to be careful not to hurt them. A wrestling match with either one of them would have been a joke.
This is a title IX problem, in that schools can't sponsor the sports program that is right when they have to identify girls and boys sports. And fund them equally.
What should happen is there should be a girls vs girls team, a boys vs boys team and a coed team. At some age, boys v boys will become too competitive for the girls. If a girl wants to see how far she can get in the boys competition, she can enter coed and hope some of the competitive guys do so also. Wrestling could be more open to coed competition because they have weight classifications. But swimming and track and field can allow coed competition but what you find is that the competitors want to race/jump/throw against their own class if that is available. We have had girls compete against the boys to get stronger and better in high school. They end up winning scholarships to college in...girls sports. They want to compete in the boys sport because the competition they would like is not available to them in the girls level.
As far as this being potentially degrading to the boys, it is. I have seen coaches forfeit games when one side substituted girls onto the field. If coed competition is understood and accepted I would be for it. If it is some kind of "diversity" program then it should be scrapped.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.