BY SABRINA VICTOR
Huge advances have been made in women’s sports since the first Olympics Games in ancient Greece, where women weren’t even allowed to watch the competitions. Few women competed in sports until the late 19th and early 20th centuries when social changes in Europe and North America occurred. Differences in physical strength and stamina led to the creation of female versions of male sports. These women’s’ rights were an important achievement because although women now can enjoy their freedom playing sports, back then women worked hard to gain that freedom. When women started being more active in sports the mentality that women were inferior to men started to decrease.
Erin Dimelgio, South Plantation High School’s 5 foot 5, 140 lb. third string quarterback became the first girl to ever play quarterback in a regular season high school football game in Florida. In a football game against Nova High School, with 1:40 left on the clock, South Plantation’s Coach Doug Gatewood decided to put Erin out on the field. As she jogged onto the field everyone wondered, “can this girl really play?” Can she even throw? Since that night Erin has proved she can play just as well as the boys, maybe even better, as she headlined the nation’s top newspapers including The New York Times and The Huffington Post. However, the question still remains: should we allow integration of sports? Two reasons we shouldn’t are that most women aren’t physically capable of playing with the boys, and this would hinder the girls’ teams.
Although women aren’t lesser athletes than men, it is crucial to keep in mind that men are bigger and stronger than women. This is why I believe sexes should remain separated, because female college athletes will never be physically capable of playing for a men’s professional team since the difference between their physical attributes will keep getting greater.
Even though some girls in middle school and high school are good enough to play with the boys, we still shouldn’t let them because these girls are the best players for girls sports programs. If we let the best girls play on the boys’ teams, then talent would be taken from girls sports programs and this would hinder female sports and cut funding. Hindering female sports would be a setback from the huge advances that have been made in women sports by advocates such as Senda Berenson, a gymnastics instructor and P.E. teacher at an all-girls school that created the first girls basketball team.
We have made a big leap forward from just a generation ago when girls sports weren’t funded, however, we simply can’t allow co-ed athletic competition because of the physical differences between male and females, especially in contact sports. Instead of the integration of females and males on athletic teams, we need to make sure women sports are provided training facilities, equipment, coaching staff, trainers, playing fields, recruitment for sports and adequate funding. Many people may call this unfair but it is a matter of safety. Not only is this a matter of safety, but moreover, we also want the best female players to be representing the girls instead of putting all of their talent on the boys teams.
