#championher

Encourage Young Girls to Stay in Sports with the Champions Fund! #ChampionHer

Encourage Young Girls to Stay in Sports! It is said that sports do not build character, they reveal it. There are so many benefits when young girls play sports like better physical and mental health, increased confidence, higher body esteem, better grades and leadership skills. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Canadian females abandon sports as young adults. As a child and into my teens, I was…

WARNING! This post contains my opinions on the feminist movement and human rights in general, particularly when it comes to sports. If you think you might be offended/upset by this type of post, you’re welcome to skip to the poem at the end. I’ll post the title in a heading font so it’s easier to spot should you wish to scroll through to the poem. Other than that, I hope to see you again next week, cheers! Now, time to get to the nitty-gritty!

Recently, I feel like I’ve seen a spike in ad campaigns promoting the idea of equality for women in sport. There’s the series of TV ads put out by the Canadian Dairy Farmers which highlight the fact that women’s sports receive only a very small portion of coverage, there’s this Time Magazine study which brought to light the lack of diversity in 2016 Super Bowl ads. Then than there’s the most recent of these (and possibly the most striking) the video put out by the Youtube channel: Just Not Sports which, at least for a while popularized the hashtag #MoreThanMean, which you can find here.

These examples, and the #MoreThanMean video particularly, bring to light a problem which has been facing women for centuries and expands far beyond the realm of sports . When it comes to selling things, and particularly promoting women in sports, sex sells, and the objectification is okay. Even it seems, when it’s a story about the sexist remarks of one of the most popular men in Canadian hockey, Don Cherry (Canadian Press, https://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/2013/04/29/coachs_corner_don_cherrys_remarks_on_cbc_that_women_shouldnt_be_in_male_dressing_room_continues_to_spark_controversy.html ). My own view on feminism has drastically changed for the better thanks in large part to a friend I met during my time at a summer job who I shall call Thea.

During one of our lunch breaks, I was expressing to Thea how difficult I found it to be recognized as someone who had something of value to contribute both in the working and academic world as a person with a disability. Thea replied by telling me she had often felt similarly as a women/feminist. I’m paraphrasing when I quote her, but she said something like this. “People put a lot of weight on how a person looks. When a boss asks me to change my clothes because it makes him uncomfortable  he’s really putting the blame on me for how he feels about how I look. And these sort of biases aren’t just faced by women but also: people of colour, people with disabilities, and even those of a lower socioeconomic class. Feminism isn’t just about women, it’s about equality!” This new viewpoint was so drastically broader than the narrow minded “women only” definition of feminism that I had held previously. Over the course of the ensuing weeks, and months I happily exposed myself to some of the posts my new friend made on social media. I even began subscribing to a podcast called Stuff Mom Mom Never Told You by some very clever ladies @stuffmomnevertoldyou and was exposed to a vast amount of incredible stories of women, and human rights.

Between the work of my friend Thea, who I want to thank truck loads for largely eliminating (I hope) my bigotry towards my fellow women, the vast resource of opinions known as the Internet, and Cristen and Caroline over at Stuff Mom Never Told You I now proudly consider myself a feminist! With regards to the positive attention I see women in sports getting currently I will continue to hold out hope that those of colour, of different sexual-orientation, age, place of origin, and the countless other minorities that make this world so beautiful can one day gain the equal respect and attention they deserve! Even if it is only a viral internet video. All things which force us to consider another’s perspective are of value.

We the Minority

By Melanie

We the Minority are few and far between

The rest of the world is kept bind

Our plights often unseen  

There are those who will merry the same gender despite all the fuss

Those of dark skin who rode the back of the bus

There are those who have little money with no place to rest their head

Then there’s women who were raped in some stranger’s bed

But there exist men who’ve endured raping too

An equally terrible thing to live through

Those who call themselves religious, Christian, Muslim, Hindu

There are women in sports

Men who are nurses

There are those with disabilities which some see as curses

There are women in business who reach very high

There are men who are manly enough to have a good cry

There’s the young, and the old

There’s the meek and the bold

But if we the minority seep into so many spaces

And we the minority are of so many faces

Then does the word minority even hold true?

Does it still speak to “them”  

Or does this new minority include you?