Equality vs Inequality in Sports

Kia Castonguay and Delaney Whooley

    Nowadays everything is equal.  Everyone gets treated the same, and if you do not you get reprimanded for it.  Women and men are treated equal and have equal opportunities.  If boys play boy sports, and girls play girl sports. But the question is “should opposite genders be able to participate in sports with the other gender”?

  There is a large part of the population that wants to say yes.  Everything should be fair.  Everyone should be free to do whatever they want.  We interviewed a senior athlete from Ipswich High school by the name of Billy Koshivas. Billy said “You cannot assume what gender individuals identify by so not allowing a “girl” to play a guy sport or a “guy” to play a girls sport isn’t fair.” Billy has very straightforward views.  He believes that everything in life should be fair, so why wouldn’t it be fair for somebody to play the sport they love.  

   At the same time, there are issues with the genders playing against each other.  Boys playing girls sports obviously sounds a bit frightening, because they are so much bigger than girls.  The Boston Globe wrote an article about a particular boy who plays field hockey against girls.  “On a hormonal level, the argument against boys playing on girls’ teams is straightforward: When the average boy goes through puberty between 12 and 14 years old, increases in testosterone translate into more muscle mass and less fat. From 16 to 18, boys have testosterone levels 10 times higher than girls the same age.”  The Boston Globe proved that scientifically it is dangerous for boys to be playing sports against girls.  

   On the other side of things, you wouldn’t think there is an issue with girls playing on an all boys team, simply because they are not as strong or big.  There was a girl that played on the Concord-Carlisle football team.  She was one of the best on the team as the kicker.  “It’s not really all about the size, and about the girl thing; it’s really about how mentally tough you are. It’s not gender oriented I guess.”  An issue that a lot of boys have with girls playing is they don’t want to be the one to hit a girl; they think it would give them a bad look.  We interviewed a junior football player from Ipswich named Kieran Mccormack. When asked “What would you do if you played against a girl in football,” Kieran replied by saying “I’ve played girls in football before and I hit them, and if I played girls again I would still hit them. If they’re playing, I’m not going to go easy on them.” .

In conclusion there is an issue with gender equality in sports.  Everyone should be happy and be able to do what they love.  But at what point does it become too dangerous?