There's a term that was in the vernacular back in the early days of feminism: Male Chauvinist Pig. Seems to me as though that label applies pretty aptly to the decision makers for the VCA football team, never mind a few others I'm sure we all could think of, given a minute or two.
The girls on the opposing teams doubtless understand the nature of the game they have chosen to involve themselves in, and they have certainly trained themselves for it. In addition, their teammates work with and support them, even as they do the same, I am certain. Meanwhile, the VCA wants to live in the age of Father Knows Best and Ozzie and Harriet, and are either unable or unwilling to extricate themselves from those bygone sensibilities.
It might just be time for that particular conference to tell the VCA that, until their attitude changes, they will no longer be welcome to compete, FULL STOP. Might just wake 'em up.
He added that they train their boys to “rigorously to admire and value women as precious and worthy of respect.”
_________
No, you don't. You might intend to do that. But what you're really teaching your boys is that girls are the Other. That girls are objects to be feared and prized. They can't be touched in any way because doing so might make you impure, so you associate them in the minds of the boys with both sex and sin. You don't emphasize their individuality. You don't emphasize their qualities. You just emphasize that they are objects of forbidden lust to be avoided or feared or desired like the forbidden fruit.
You churn out generation after generation of young men who objectify women and never truly see them as equal persons deserving of respect for their personhood and abilities.
I know this because it's taken me several years of my life to try to deprogram myself from the toxic teachings people like you passed on to me to see women first as equal individuals and not as objects of desire to be "cherished", used, and put on a shelf by their male "owners".
I can't believe that I'm going to write this sentence for the third time today, and I am only on my 1st cup of coffee
What delicate flowers both HETEROSEXUALITY and MASCULINITY are. so very, very delicate, that they must be preserved as in crystal but only the butchest kind of crystal. There are so many waving flags here, screaming LOOK AT ME!
Women can't play sports with the boys. The boys might be tempted, they might even get erections, or worse, if they are not kept strictly separated from the girls. Got to save those precious masculine bodily fluids. Women will drain them right out of you, leaving you, as a man, weak and, there we say it, feminized.
Women can't play sports with the boys. That's not respectful towards women. But that's not really what's going on, is it? The team with the women in it might win, and what does that say about the manhood of the boys? Not so manny and not so hoody after all, is it?
But then, there is all of the fuss that the Christian fright is making about the occasional transgender man playing on the women'steam. THEY HAVE AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE, or so goes the whining. But wait, there's more! FOOTBALL IS A VIOLENT GAME! and we can't have our girls exposed to violence, though it is perfectly fine to expose the boys to it, especially boys that are fervent members of the church of God who is peace and love, the Lamb of God, meek and mild, blah blah blah blah blah. Why are these good boys engaged in violence? They're not defending the homestead against the barbarians, are they? They are playing a goddamn game.
Although I was an athlete in high school in college, and a coach for many years, of all the games we had to play, football was the least attractive to me. Pointless violence and posturing, and for the bulk of the players, no great skill set involved except to be either a hammer or to be a nail. I was a wrestler, and believe it or not, 50 years ago, we were having the same debate about whether the girls could wrestle, and whether it was OK for them to wrestle against the boys. As a gay man, I was often asked if wrestling was sexually stimulating to me. once in a great while, there was a boy I really wanted to wrestle for the obvious reasons. But I always answered that question with what was really the truth: if you have time to think about sex while you're wrestling, you have time to lose. I didn't like losing.
If the so-called Christians are so afraid of sex, women, and losing precious bodily fluids, then they should form their own league. The rest of the team should not have to bend to their misogyny, or their idiotic faith's rules
They are obsessed with children’s genitalia. That’s it. And they don’t cherish women. They view them as broodmares who are meant to be ruled by men. They don’t know what “cherish” means.
I'm going to guess I'm not the only that hears 'separate but equal' when the superintendent says 'rigorously to admire and value women as precious and worthy of respect.'
Mr. Mikkelson: you can't respect women then say that the girls aren't allowed to play. That's not equal treatment, and it's obvious to most everyone else. Miss Reed and Miss Aguilar undoubtedly worked very hard to develop the skills to play, and now you're pretending they need protection from playing because they're female rather than honoring the work they put in to get there. That's not respect, it's condescension, and while it's exactly the sort of doublespeak I expect out of Christians these days, that does not make it acceptable on any level. It makes it clear that you expect women to be treated as some sort of more valuable property still rather than people who are perfectly capable of making their own decisions. In other phrasing, you're treating women as objects or pets to be controlled, not people who deserve respect; and no matter how you phrase it you deserve to be called out for that. You may not see it that way, but my response to that is that you have a blind spot your religion has been endorsing for at least two thousand years now, you don't get immunity from that. Respecting women means respecting their choices in life, not pretending to do what you think is best for them because you interpret it as 'respectful' in some way.
““In our handbook, one of our clearly defined boundaries is, ‘There is to be no physical contact between boys and girls at Valley Christian Academy.'””
Why? Is it because sex?
”He added that they train their boys to “rigorously to admire and value women as precious and worthy of respect.””
Things are precious, people are not. If you have to train boys to value women in ways that are different from how they value men, then you are not treating women with respect, or admiration, or value. This is not healthy and oceans of women’s blood have been spilled over this way of thinking.
““Football is a violent game, and we understand the value of such in training our young men within the boundaries of an organized sport,” [lead pastor and school superintendent for VCA Joel] Mikkelson wrote.”
What, pray tell, is the value of this violent training in men? What is it that is more valuable to young men that young women couldn’t gain from it? Why is a violent sport that has caused a great deal of harm to the players themselves and the community surrounding it so important? Surely we can find a more effective process to teach the values football supposedly imbues these children, like teamwork, determination, discipline, and responsibility. One that doesn’t cause brain damage.
““However, because of the nature of its contact, we will not play a team that has a female as part of its football team.”“
Is it that you equate violence with sex? I mean, Christians have always been prudish about sex but quite open and free with violence. The censors in our media rarely restrict violent imagery but have aneurisms over the slightest inference of anything that could be construed as sex. And if it is anything outside the cis-het bubble all bets are off.
I notice, and not for the first time, nor do I think I’m unique in noticing it, that Christians are far more focused on approving acts of violence (yesterday’s guest star is a prime example) than the love they claim their god embodies. To them sex is violence and violence is required.
FWIW not all Christians and blah blah blah. Sure some are focused on caring but when the religion condemns folks for who they love and celebrated folks who are violent, ya gotta wonder if the whole thing is rotten.
To quote Florence King: "Any job not specifically requiring a penis or a vagina should be open to anyone." That being said, I do not think girls or boys should be playing American Football at all until the game is dramatically revamped so that it becomes a non-contact sport! This is not because I don't want kids of either sex touching each other - nonviolently - but because of the risk of injury. Besides all the injuries below the neck, the risk of serious and lasting brain injury (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) is unacceptable.
Not only should every school VCA plays against roster girls on the football team, they should make sure every cheerleading squad has boys.
The fact that girls can demonstrably compete against boys in such a male dominated sport shows how ridiculous the arguments against trans girls in girls sports is. Why are we continuing to segregate most sports now anyway?
"It’s so on-point for a conservative Christian school to act like a contact sport is equivalent to something sexual."
This is the same bunch of people who will excuse rape and likely think society went downhill the day rape within a marriage became illegal. They can't think in terms of anything except controlling the world through violence in all its forms.
Knowing conservative culture, high school football and sports in general are probably a big deal at CVA. Just look at Liberty University. They have been dumping millions into their football program to make it respectable. Academically, they will never compete with an actually university, but if they have a good football team they can feel like a good university without being a good university. The same is probably true for VCA. There is no way that they are good academically. So, I say for all boys team sports, every team playing CVA should have a least 1 girl. Let's see what the good book says after they go 0-5.
I would say do the same for the girls' sports, but what are the chances that VCA gives two shits about the girls sports. I am just picturing the girls basketball time playing in full length Victorian dresses behind a screen so that the men in the audience can't leer at their elbows. Also they wouldn't be allowed to touch the basketballs. Balls are for boys as the good lord intended.
Don't these girls know they're supposed to be modestly dressed cheerleaders, who open each game with a prayer? /S Conservative Christians do love their stereotypes, and do their best to hammer everyone into those molds whether they fit or not.
' “In our handbook, one of our clearly defined boundaries is, ‘There is to be no physical contact between boys and girls at Valley Christian Academy.'” '
-- Because girls are icky?!
'He added that they train their boys to “rigorously to admire and value women as precious and worthy of respect.” '
-- So long as they keep their place!
' “Football is a violent game, and we understand the value of such in training our young men within the boundaries of an organized sport,” ... Mikkelson wrote. “However, because of the nature of its contact, we will not play a team that has a female as part of its football team.” '
-- Because girls are all petite little things and don't know what they're doing!
Frankly, I know middle school students with better reasoning skills! - KC
So what happens if a boy and a girl accidentally make contact at that school? Let’s say papers are being passed forward to the front row for the teacher to collect and hands or fingers brush each other.
There's a reason female warriors have been marginalized in today's world. The boys don't want to get their asses beat by a woman. In hang gliding, some guys would get really pissed off when a woman outperformed them. It never occurred to them that we weigh less, and thus can outfly them. That always amused me. Them boys think they're all that and a bag of chips! (and along comes Barbie to kick their asses)
There's a term that was in the vernacular back in the early days of feminism: Male Chauvinist Pig. Seems to me as though that label applies pretty aptly to the decision makers for the VCA football team, never mind a few others I'm sure we all could think of, given a minute or two.
The girls on the opposing teams doubtless understand the nature of the game they have chosen to involve themselves in, and they have certainly trained themselves for it. In addition, their teammates work with and support them, even as they do the same, I am certain. Meanwhile, the VCA wants to live in the age of Father Knows Best and Ozzie and Harriet, and are either unable or unwilling to extricate themselves from those bygone sensibilities.
It might just be time for that particular conference to tell the VCA that, until their attitude changes, they will no longer be welcome to compete, FULL STOP. Might just wake 'em up.
He added that they train their boys to “rigorously to admire and value women as precious and worthy of respect.”
_________
No, you don't. You might intend to do that. But what you're really teaching your boys is that girls are the Other. That girls are objects to be feared and prized. They can't be touched in any way because doing so might make you impure, so you associate them in the minds of the boys with both sex and sin. You don't emphasize their individuality. You don't emphasize their qualities. You just emphasize that they are objects of forbidden lust to be avoided or feared or desired like the forbidden fruit.
You churn out generation after generation of young men who objectify women and never truly see them as equal persons deserving of respect for their personhood and abilities.
I know this because it's taken me several years of my life to try to deprogram myself from the toxic teachings people like you passed on to me to see women first as equal individuals and not as objects of desire to be "cherished", used, and put on a shelf by their male "owners".
I can't believe that I'm going to write this sentence for the third time today, and I am only on my 1st cup of coffee
What delicate flowers both HETEROSEXUALITY and MASCULINITY are. so very, very delicate, that they must be preserved as in crystal but only the butchest kind of crystal. There are so many waving flags here, screaming LOOK AT ME!
Women can't play sports with the boys. The boys might be tempted, they might even get erections, or worse, if they are not kept strictly separated from the girls. Got to save those precious masculine bodily fluids. Women will drain them right out of you, leaving you, as a man, weak and, there we say it, feminized.
Women can't play sports with the boys. That's not respectful towards women. But that's not really what's going on, is it? The team with the women in it might win, and what does that say about the manhood of the boys? Not so manny and not so hoody after all, is it?
But then, there is all of the fuss that the Christian fright is making about the occasional transgender man playing on the women'steam. THEY HAVE AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE, or so goes the whining. But wait, there's more! FOOTBALL IS A VIOLENT GAME! and we can't have our girls exposed to violence, though it is perfectly fine to expose the boys to it, especially boys that are fervent members of the church of God who is peace and love, the Lamb of God, meek and mild, blah blah blah blah blah. Why are these good boys engaged in violence? They're not defending the homestead against the barbarians, are they? They are playing a goddamn game.
Although I was an athlete in high school in college, and a coach for many years, of all the games we had to play, football was the least attractive to me. Pointless violence and posturing, and for the bulk of the players, no great skill set involved except to be either a hammer or to be a nail. I was a wrestler, and believe it or not, 50 years ago, we were having the same debate about whether the girls could wrestle, and whether it was OK for them to wrestle against the boys. As a gay man, I was often asked if wrestling was sexually stimulating to me. once in a great while, there was a boy I really wanted to wrestle for the obvious reasons. But I always answered that question with what was really the truth: if you have time to think about sex while you're wrestling, you have time to lose. I didn't like losing.
If the so-called Christians are so afraid of sex, women, and losing precious bodily fluids, then they should form their own league. The rest of the team should not have to bend to their misogyny, or their idiotic faith's rules
They are obsessed with children’s genitalia. That’s it. And they don’t cherish women. They view them as broodmares who are meant to be ruled by men. They don’t know what “cherish” means.
I'm going to guess I'm not the only that hears 'separate but equal' when the superintendent says 'rigorously to admire and value women as precious and worthy of respect.'
Mr. Mikkelson: you can't respect women then say that the girls aren't allowed to play. That's not equal treatment, and it's obvious to most everyone else. Miss Reed and Miss Aguilar undoubtedly worked very hard to develop the skills to play, and now you're pretending they need protection from playing because they're female rather than honoring the work they put in to get there. That's not respect, it's condescension, and while it's exactly the sort of doublespeak I expect out of Christians these days, that does not make it acceptable on any level. It makes it clear that you expect women to be treated as some sort of more valuable property still rather than people who are perfectly capable of making their own decisions. In other phrasing, you're treating women as objects or pets to be controlled, not people who deserve respect; and no matter how you phrase it you deserve to be called out for that. You may not see it that way, but my response to that is that you have a blind spot your religion has been endorsing for at least two thousand years now, you don't get immunity from that. Respecting women means respecting their choices in life, not pretending to do what you think is best for them because you interpret it as 'respectful' in some way.
““In our handbook, one of our clearly defined boundaries is, ‘There is to be no physical contact between boys and girls at Valley Christian Academy.'””
Why? Is it because sex?
”He added that they train their boys to “rigorously to admire and value women as precious and worthy of respect.””
Things are precious, people are not. If you have to train boys to value women in ways that are different from how they value men, then you are not treating women with respect, or admiration, or value. This is not healthy and oceans of women’s blood have been spilled over this way of thinking.
““Football is a violent game, and we understand the value of such in training our young men within the boundaries of an organized sport,” [lead pastor and school superintendent for VCA Joel] Mikkelson wrote.”
What, pray tell, is the value of this violent training in men? What is it that is more valuable to young men that young women couldn’t gain from it? Why is a violent sport that has caused a great deal of harm to the players themselves and the community surrounding it so important? Surely we can find a more effective process to teach the values football supposedly imbues these children, like teamwork, determination, discipline, and responsibility. One that doesn’t cause brain damage.
““However, because of the nature of its contact, we will not play a team that has a female as part of its football team.”“
Is it that you equate violence with sex? I mean, Christians have always been prudish about sex but quite open and free with violence. The censors in our media rarely restrict violent imagery but have aneurisms over the slightest inference of anything that could be construed as sex. And if it is anything outside the cis-het bubble all bets are off.
I notice, and not for the first time, nor do I think I’m unique in noticing it, that Christians are far more focused on approving acts of violence (yesterday’s guest star is a prime example) than the love they claim their god embodies. To them sex is violence and violence is required.
FWIW not all Christians and blah blah blah. Sure some are focused on caring but when the religion condemns folks for who they love and celebrated folks who are violent, ya gotta wonder if the whole thing is rotten.
To quote Florence King: "Any job not specifically requiring a penis or a vagina should be open to anyone." That being said, I do not think girls or boys should be playing American Football at all until the game is dramatically revamped so that it becomes a non-contact sport! This is not because I don't want kids of either sex touching each other - nonviolently - but because of the risk of injury. Besides all the injuries below the neck, the risk of serious and lasting brain injury (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) is unacceptable.
Yet another group of adults uncertain of how to interact with a teenager without knowing what's between their legs.
If your religion mandates that, it might be a bad thing.
Not only should every school VCA plays against roster girls on the football team, they should make sure every cheerleading squad has boys.
The fact that girls can demonstrably compete against boys in such a male dominated sport shows how ridiculous the arguments against trans girls in girls sports is. Why are we continuing to segregate most sports now anyway?
"It’s so on-point for a conservative Christian school to act like a contact sport is equivalent to something sexual."
This is the same bunch of people who will excuse rape and likely think society went downhill the day rape within a marriage became illegal. They can't think in terms of anything except controlling the world through violence in all its forms.
Knowing conservative culture, high school football and sports in general are probably a big deal at CVA. Just look at Liberty University. They have been dumping millions into their football program to make it respectable. Academically, they will never compete with an actually university, but if they have a good football team they can feel like a good university without being a good university. The same is probably true for VCA. There is no way that they are good academically. So, I say for all boys team sports, every team playing CVA should have a least 1 girl. Let's see what the good book says after they go 0-5.
I would say do the same for the girls' sports, but what are the chances that VCA gives two shits about the girls sports. I am just picturing the girls basketball time playing in full length Victorian dresses behind a screen so that the men in the audience can't leer at their elbows. Also they wouldn't be allowed to touch the basketballs. Balls are for boys as the good lord intended.
Don't these girls know they're supposed to be modestly dressed cheerleaders, who open each game with a prayer? /S Conservative Christians do love their stereotypes, and do their best to hammer everyone into those molds whether they fit or not.
' “In our handbook, one of our clearly defined boundaries is, ‘There is to be no physical contact between boys and girls at Valley Christian Academy.'” '
-- Because girls are icky?!
'He added that they train their boys to “rigorously to admire and value women as precious and worthy of respect.” '
-- So long as they keep their place!
' “Football is a violent game, and we understand the value of such in training our young men within the boundaries of an organized sport,” ... Mikkelson wrote. “However, because of the nature of its contact, we will not play a team that has a female as part of its football team.” '
-- Because girls are all petite little things and don't know what they're doing!
Frankly, I know middle school students with better reasoning skills! - KC
"Football is a violent game."
Why are they whining? The Christian book and religion love violence against women.
So what happens if a boy and a girl accidentally make contact at that school? Let’s say papers are being passed forward to the front row for the teacher to collect and hands or fingers brush each other.
There's a reason female warriors have been marginalized in today's world. The boys don't want to get their asses beat by a woman. In hang gliding, some guys would get really pissed off when a woman outperformed them. It never occurred to them that we weigh less, and thus can outfly them. That always amused me. Them boys think they're all that and a bag of chips! (and along comes Barbie to kick their asses)