The Role of Gender in Sports
By Lara Schechter ’21, Hackley School
This essay is the summation of Lara Schechter’s independent study as a Hackley Junior in which she researched and evaluated the impact that gender roles play in society with relation to athletics.
My Experiences as an Athlete
Grit, determination and perseverance: three words that are necessary for any individual to compete successfully in sports. These same three words are my mantra, ones that I think about when competing in wrestling, a predominantly male sport.
In the seventh grade at Hackley, every student must choose three sports to play, one for each season. Growing up I could recognize the seasons by my sports equipment: soccer balls in the fall, lacrosse sticks in the spring, and the occasional tennis racket in the summer. Yet, the sports that I played in the winter weren’t offered as winter sports at school. So, when it came time to decide which of the offered sports I would play, wrestling caught my attention.
As an athletic person who doesn’t shy away from a challenge, I thought wrestling would be a good fit for me, and I prepared myself to speak with my parents about the prospect of joining the team. When my older sister Lexi asked my parents the same question three years earlier, my mom shrugged it off, explaining that wrestling was a “boy’s sport” and she should try out for winter track. Therefore, having known her views, it came as a surprise when my mom agreed to let me try out for the Boys Wrestling Team. Now, five years later, it seems shocking that my mom said “no” to my sister joining the team because it was deemed a “boys’ sport.” While it isn’t easy — and at times I feel like it’s even harder because I am a girl — wrestling is for anyone gritty enough to persevere through the obstacles that come along with the sport.
Given that hard work doesn’t discriminate based on gender, it is disappointing that society often does. Although she is incredibly supportive of her daughters, my mom let a predetermined stereotype make a decision for her. Sports, like a variety of other arenas, are typically divided based on an athlete’s gender: boys and girls playing on their respective soccer or tennis teams is a concept that is easy for individuals to grasp. A girl wrestling or playing baseball, however, similar to a boy playing field hockey or competing on a gymnastics team, defies typical gender norms and is more difficult for one to understand. Societal expectations typically encourage boys to model aggressive and domineering behaviors. In contrast, girls are expected to be more docile and are raised to believe that they are not built for highly physical contact sports.
By teaching children differently based on sex, we, as a society, create an environment that champions inequality based solely on gender. Echoing this gender divide, every year before wrestling season begins, all female athletes must complete a New York State physical fitness exam to assess their athletic ability when competing in a male-dominated sport. All male athletes, however, do not need to fulfill any prerequisites or pass any physical fitness exams in order to compete on the wrestling mat.
The Hackley Experience
Hackley began in 1899 as an all boys boarding school. Seven decades later, Hackley admitted its first female students in 1970. Many would say that the beginning of women’s sports in the United States started in 1972, with the passage of Title 9 for girls to finally get athletic scholarships. To celebrate 40 years of coeducation, Hackley published a magazine focusing on the experiences of female athletes during the early co-ed years. Although women now had the opportunity to compete in sports, all was not equal. In the issue, women recalled lacking basic necessities like proper locker room space, explaining that they “had to change in what looked like a closet” (Hackley Review, Summer 2011).
Current class dean and history teacher Melissa Stanek ’90 remembered her experiences as an athlete during the late 80’s: “Girls were treated like second class citizens in terms of everything from the uniforms that they wore, to the fields they played on and the locker rooms they changed in.” Ms. Stanek’s examples support the stereotype that Hackley maintained well into its move towards co-education. Although the administration made certain strides towards educational equality, Hackley sports were still segregated by gender. While Ms. Stanek acknowledges that progress has been made in the years since she has graduated, she also shares certain frustrations that she now has as a coach of the Varsity Girls Lacrosse Team. A prime example of her frustration has been demonstrated yearly through the annual NYSAIS championship. The NYSAIS league is responsible for establishing the program for the championship games and repeatedly schedules the girls’ game for the earlier slot while the night game is reserved for the boys. Although the schedule is not a Hackley decision, and one that Hackley’s athletic director is looking to change, the fact that the Independent School League’s management has yet to address this bias demonstrates where their priorities rest.
While there is still progress to be made, the steps initiated in 1970 and continuing through the decades have encouraged the growth of strong female athletes like Melissa Stanek and those who have followed her. A decade after Ms. Stanek, Hackley wrestler Cheryl Wong ’99 defied a number of norms when she joined the wrestling team. When I spoke to Ms. Wong about her wrestling experiences, she said that the backlash she faced as a female athlete in a male-dominated sport came not at Hackley, but rather at Boston University where she was degraded by her teammates, coaches, and even administrators who laughed in her face when she wanted to try out for the men’s wrestling team. At Hackley, Ms.Wong was supported by Coach Fran Stanek and by her teammates and always felt welcomed on the team. She was, however, disappointed to learn that although “Hackley may be progressive, it is also subject to historical gender roles as demonstrated by the fact that it took almost fourteen years for another female to join the Wrestling Team.”
In the winter of 2013, Demetra Yancopoulos ’18, now a sophomore on the Princeton Wrestling Team, decided to give wrestling a try and bring a female presence back to Hackley Wrestling. In discussing her experiences with this sport at both Hackley and outside of school, Ms. Yancopoulos explained, “Although biology indicates that a gender divide is present and unavoidable, its existence does not imply a superiority of one gender to another.” Echoing this same principle, Hackley’s athletic trainers Kayla Simpson and Katie Jenson both agreed that “although male athletes tend to be perceived as the dominating gender in athletics, every athlete has the opportunity to be a master of their own craft and it’s up to the individual to put in the work. An athlete that spends hours training, recovering, and channels 100% of their effort into their sport when it’s time to practice, deserves the right to prove their dominance.”
Highlights of Female Athletes in the 21st century
While Hackley may be a more progressive institution, unfortunately, it is not a microcosm for the rest of society and the treatment of female athletes. At the 2009 Berlin World Championships, for example, judges scrutinized South African runner Caster Semenya on account of her 800-meter race being “too fast to be female” (BBC). Ms. Semenya was forced under false pretenses to undergo testosterone testing. Ultimately, she was barred from further competition because authorities determined she was “too male” to compete, having been born with a higher testosterone level than most females. In contrast, when Usain Bolt, the first athlete to ever win three successive titles in the 100 meter event, ran his fastest 100 m dash in 9.58 seconds setting the world record, he wasn’t questioned for his performance times or his consecutive wins. Professor Tim Noakes, Sports Scientist, calls this discrepancy into question when he states,“What about a male with a biological advantage? We call him Usane Bolt. And even though he is genetically different, we say that he is the greatest athlete to ever live” (BBC). While men are praised for being exceptional athletes, females, like Ms.Semenya, are penalized for these differences, being told that something is wrong with them. Ms.Semenya is just one example of the many females who have been forced to change themselves in order to fit in with the societal structure of the physical attributes of a female.
Although Ms. Semenya’s example may seem out of date, this gender discrimination is still prevalent in sports today. One salient example of this inequality comes in the form of compensation and benefits for female athletes at the professional level: “Our World Champion women’s Soccer Team had to sue for equal pay, fields, travel and publicity and our Olympic gold medal winning women’s national hockey players are sitting out the season as part of their fight to get health insurance and a living wage” (NWLC). As Billie Jean King, a trail blazer for female equality in sports, so succinctly stated in an interview following Serena Williams’ contentious loss in the finals of the 2018 US Open, “When a woman is emotional, she’s ‘hysterical’ and she’s penalized for it. When a man does the same, he’s ‘outspoken’ and there are no repercussions.”
Looking forward
In many ways, wrestling is a sport that bridges the gap between genders, given that it is completely weight-class based. When an individual steps onto the mat, their gender becomes secondary to their skill level, training and grit. While progress for women’s equality in sports has been incremental, and the fight for equal rights is nowhere near complete, with steadfast determination, I am confident that in the decades to come, when someone says “you play like a girl,” the only way that expression will be interpreted is as a compliment!
