In Which JT Deals Patriarchy a Blow

I was raised in a sports-viewing home and JT is suffering the same fate.  It started four years ago, when he was just 6 and became obsessed with the winter Olympics.  That year, he put on his sneakers and slid up and down the icy front side walk, pretending that Apollo Ono couldn't keep up with him.

Since then, we've marked the passage of time by the sports calendar.   January features football bowl games and playoffs and as those games wind down, the  basketball season cranks up.  March brings the madness and is followed by baseball's long summer season.  That yields to fall and football weekends.  And soon enough, it all starts again.

As it happens, I've long been a fan of women's basketball.  Though I got cut from the team in the 5th grade (true story), I still like to watch and when living in Nashville I taught myself how to shoot pretty reliably.  I've shared my enthusiasm for playing and watching with JT.  I've taken him to women's games at Rutgers University; we watch games on the television.  I'm a University of Tennessee fan and so is JT.  He remembers player names and stats with the relentless enthusiasm of a true fan.  He watches men's and women's basketball with equal enthusiasm, with no sense that the games or the players should be distinguished by gender.  I suppose this the is the result of growing up in the home of a feminist mama; to be honest, I've not given it much thought.  But last week I had cause to reflect.

Last Thursday evening, the UT Lady Vols were scheduled to play the University of Georgia.  Both teams were highly ranked and JT tuned in to watch the game.  But ESPN was showing men's games on both of their channels.  And as a simmering young man settled in to watch Indiana University play Seton Hall, he got worked up about the injustice of it all.

"UT is ranked #3," he exclaimed.  "And Georgia is #5.  Indiana and Seton Hall?  Whatever.  I have to watch this game instead of Pat Summit?  Ridiculous."  I expected that the ranting would wind down and I could return to grading exams while we watched the game that was available.

But I was wrong and the boy's indignation only grew.  Finally, I realized that it was time to explain the economics of sport and gender to JT.  So I broached a discussion about said issues.  I explained that the women's game isn't as popular as the men's game; that women's professional opportunities in sports aren't nearly the same as men's.  I even explained that some people think girls aren't as good as boys.  He greeted this news with fierce defense of the women's game and the smarts of girls.  "That's ridiculous, Mama," he announced.  "Girls can do anything boys can do."  And then he named a litany of the women he admired: Hillary Clinton, Candace Parker, Pat Summit, Vivian Stringer, the principal of his school and particularly feisty Junior basketball player also at our school.

They say that men become feminists when they become the father of a daughter.  I suppose that's often true.  But there's much to be said of little boys who are feminists from the outset, raised by hard-working, tough mamas who go out and do what needs to be done, in the process teaching their boys to respect the accomplishments of girls and women everywhere.