My seven year old daughter came home from school today extremely frustrated that she is the only girl who plays soccer at recess. She said it’s partly because the boys pick on any girls who do (including Camryn)— won’t pass to them, tell them their goals don’t count, and won’t let them be on the good team. Another reason, she explained, is that some of the girls wear sandals, dresses, or fancy shoes that they don’t want to ruin by running and kicking.
I asked what they do instead. She said all the other girls sit and “do their girly ways” —make secret handshakes, play princesses, swing on swings, play on the monkey bars, just walk around, or sit in the shade and watch the boys play soccer. “None of them run and move their bodies even though girls need to get energy out too” and Camryn can’t get any of them to play soccer.
She said once or twice she got other girls to join her, but they got discouraged and wouldn’t play anymore. “Once I was goalie and blocked a goal and kicked the ball way high into the air and right into the other goal. And I think maybe it made the girls watching feel like they didn’t want to play soccer because they wouldn’t ever be able to do that. The boys said it didn’t count though. That wasn’t fair. But some of the boys are nice and one of them always picks me because he wants me to be on his team.”
She asked me if we can make a poster that says “girls can do anything” with pictures of girls playing basketball and soccer and football “because I’ve never ever seen a girl play football and maybe I could be the very first one. I’ve watched football on tv with you and it’s only boys playing. I know that girls can play baseball because you’ve taken me to baseball games and even though it was all boys, you told me that girls can play baseball too. Do girls play basketball?”
She wanted to make the poster so that girls “can get confidence” and also a poster that says “boys can do anything” because “I think the boys think they can’t do ballet, even though I think it’s really cool if boys dance. Then we could hang them up in my school and then the boys and the girls would know they can do anything.” She said she wanted to get everyone to sign it if they agree with what it says.
Part of me is a little crushed. Feeling that it’s way too early for my seven year old to be told that there is anything she can’t do, shouldn’t do, or shouldn’t want to do because of her gender. Remembering my own elementary school self with the exact same frustration, mind blown that all the girls would rather stand around talking or playing with their gigapets (#90skid) than play soccer and run around. I’m exasperated that things haven’t changed and that she will likely face many scenarios where she is told in subtle and systematic ways that she is less capable, less valued. Part of me is afraid that she’ll eventually get tired of fighting a battle over a thing as seemingly simple as wanting to play a fun active game for the only 20 minutes of the day that she gets to run free outside.
But part of me is so damn proud that my kid knows deep in her bones that it is utter nonsense that girls don’t play soccer and that boys don’t dance. And that part of me is on my way to Hobby Lobby for some poster paint.
“When there are more girls playing soccer than boys, then I’ll be really proud of my posters.”
Maybe on that playground there will even be a few boys making secret handshakes and swinging on the money bars.
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