
The Necessary, Sweet Anger of Sisters Who Compete
From Dottie and Kit to my sister and I
It would be impossible to count how many times my sister and I played a game of one-on-one basketball, yet I can tell you exactly the number of times I beat her: zero. She was bigger and older than me, true, and her body seemingly came out of the womb outfitted with marble-slab muscle, but none of these are the reasons that she was so much better than me at sports. She was better because she was better, and any athlete knows what I mean by that. Her mind and body worked in near-mystical accord, propelled by willpower, horsepower, natural talent and preternatural agility that only super-players can harness.
Of course, I could not have been so generous in describing her while on the court. Our games always started with giggles, then morphed into fits of anger (on my part). No matter how hard I tried, she always outscored me and outplayed me. I can still remember driving into her and feeling completely overwhelmed by her unyielding strength, or going up for a layup that she swatted down unmercifully. She never let me win.
As my breathing and temper waxed, hers annoyingly remained as constant as a metronome, further exacerbating my seething (but momentary) resentment of her. After she’d beat me, I’d walk behind her on the way home instead of side-by-side, pouting and kicking rocks as I cursed her athletic frame and entertained thoughts of pantsing her to give her a dose of the humiliation I felt on the court. These are the images from most of my adolescence.
Then, just as I was becoming a teenager, A League of Their Own came out, and watching the baseball-playing sisters on screen was like watching a documentary of my family. Friends were quick to point out the resemblance. “Hey, Abbie, you are just like Kit! Have you seen that movie? The one with the other sister?” (Incidentally, this is when I learned how to answer people’s questions with only a scowl.)
The movie resonated for most all women athletes, but also sisters who compete. Dottie was the minor-league baseball version of Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman; her gait, her ideals, her gravitas and her life all flawless and floating. Kit, who like me, was a pair of bangs away from being a trash can to most folks, couldn’t seem to make anything work for her, no matter how she thrashed against her lot. But throughout the movie you see that the field is not where their love lives.
Being a generally beautiful but ultimately boring school marm, Dottie rounds up her sister and the other Rockford Peaches so they don’t get busted drinking at a roadhouse. Kit implores Dottie to keep playing baseball, frustrated that her sister — who has been given so many gifts — wants to throw it all away for a hum-drum life as a housewife. Throughout the film Dottie and Kit push and urge one another — and not through lovey-dovey, saccharine sister bullshit we see so often in the media — because ultimately what lies underneath their rivalry is a greater force: they want the best things for each other, and no one in the world but your sister will try harder to get you there.
Which brings us to the scene. The sisters are forced to play against one another in the World Series. Everything comes down to Kit rounding third and careening towards home, where her catcher-sister stands between her and glory. The two collide and fall to the ground above home plate in a slow-motion sequence that should go down in history as one of the tensest moments in sports-movie history. The camera pans to Dottie’s hand, which lets go of the ball, meaning her sister’s home run stands. The crowd erupts in shock. Kit jumps into the air, victorious, surrounded by congratulatory teammates. Dottie smiles, despite herself.
I was surprised to learn, after discussing the film many times with others, that everyone believes that Dottie let go of the ball on purpose, so that her little sister could thrive. I never even thought it was possible. Do you know why? Because my Dottie would never let go of the ball. She never let go of the ball. I only won when I was good enough. Which was never.
It was then that I reflected back on my lifetime, in times that my sister was tender to me, or at least understanding, when something in my tummy told me that in doing so I was the recipient of something. She might overlook an insult that was particularly harsh or act a bit too proud when I’d written something. She’d tell her friends about me, how smart I was, how funny, and how she was so happy for me. She might gloss over bad news while delivering it, or stay up late at night to hear me blather.
All my life, she was letting go of the ball for me so I could win. She just wasn’t doing it on the basketball court.
On the basketball court, she was teaching me about how to keep going in the face of near constant failure. She was instilling in me humility, and showing me what hard work looks like when applied. The necessary, sweet anger of the court kept all of the hard lessons so that my sister could just be my support where I really needed it most.
After the release of A League of Their Own, a male Entertainment Weekly critic had this to say: “ Near the end, when Davis resolves her relationship with her neurotically competitive younger sister (Lori Petty, in the film’s most vibrant performance), it’s a guaranteed heart-tugger. Except for the opening scene, though, virtually nothing has gone on between these two for the entire movie.”
Only a male critic could think that there was nothing happening between Dottie and Kit throughout the film, because female aggression and competition are not well understood. Male anger and its personality are the default. Competition among the guys is framed as boys-will-be-boys horseplay based in camaraderie or fierce, unflinching wills that clash violently. Women in the competitive sphere, if the Google image results are to be believed, act out like brats, pulling each other’s hair in our underwear or gossiping and excluding one another.
Because of this, all too often, women are discouraged from competing against one another, out of fear it isn’t feminist. While men can hammer our a row however they like, our vocabulary has been padded with words like “frenemy” and “catty,” a chiding lexicon women internalize and feel guilty about anytime any female human might be seen as the competition. This is understandable. Nasty, mean-spirited fights rooted in misogyny have separated us for too long. But in the right context, competition can pull something out of you that you never knew you had, whether that’s hitting a game-winning home-run or allowing yourself to lose.
For many women beyond Dottie and Kit or my sister and I, competition is as part of sisterhood as lifelong secrets and drunken tears. It is fierce and quiet, complex and thought-out. It is a vibrant act of love. But above all, it’s for your own good. It is something that comes to you, years after you’ve lost your last basketball game, when you realize you are where you are in life because someone beat you and let you win, exactly when both served you best.
