World middleweight boxing champion Laila Ali has more going for her than stellar athletic ability. As the youngest daughter of world-renowned boxing champ Muhammad Ali, she has some pretty big shoes to fill. But she proved her boxing worth right from the get-go when she knocked out her very first opponent without a hitch.

That was back in 99. Since then, Laila has kept rocking the ring and using her time in the spotlight to advocate for positive social change. Ali currently serves on the board of trustees for the Women’s Sports Foundation, a nonprofit that seeks to “advance the lives of girls and women through sport and physical activity.” She works for better health and fitness through her partnerships with the American Diabetes Alliance and the Nation’s Food Bank Network, which helps to alleviate hunger for low-income children in the United States. She has participated in fundraisers for ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History. She is an outspoken advocate of women and girls in sports, and also addresses the specific challenges faced by women of color and low-income women in sports. Rock on, Laila.

Watch this short video segment where Laila talks about how media representations affect young people, women, and people of color.

A recent study by the Women's Sports Foundation says that young girls residing in inner cities have less opportunity in sports.

I tackled a similar issue last week when I discussed the conundrum facing African American female athletes.  

Not surprising, we now have researched evidence that not only speaks to "race" identity politics, but also suggests that class (despite "race") is a contributing factors to inner city girls participating less in sports than inner city boys.

Besides the most obvious "gender" identity politic, the following contribute to such disparities:

• Race

• Economic inequality

• School location

According to a Houston Chronice article, when communities and schools lack funding, boys will come first and benefit from most from the money left to support sports activities.

But is this really "new knowledge"?  Honestly, I could've told you that minority and economically disadvantaged young female athletes have less opportunity in sports.  Other than gender, race, class, and geographic location, I also think that culturing has much to do with girls' lack of participation.

According to the study girls enter sports at approximately 10-years-old, whereas boys enter the sport at approximately 7-years-old.  Perhaps the fact that some young girls are more encouraged toward ballet shoes than basketball shoes has something to do with the delayed interest.

My above analysis is, of course, plauged with generalities.  While growing up I was actually encourage toward ballet shoes AND basketball shoes.  Yet at the same time media, my peers, and school had somehow conquered my subconscious and made me believe that it's better girls take a back seat to boys when it comes to opportunity through sports.  

So yeah, culture has lots to do with girls' participation in sports.

I came across this cool Nike ad, "Girls."  The ad really makes a subtle yet poignant point about girls and sports.  Afterall, shouldn't sports just as empowering for girls as it is for boys?

 

 

Kigali City rests on a span of hills, valleys, and ridges in the geographic center of Rwanda. With a population of about 8 million, Kigali serves as both the nation’s capital and the largest city in the country.

The women of Kigali City have seen a lot in the past 15 years. If you’ve watched Hotel Rwanda then you’ve gotten a small glimpse of the horrors of genocide that shook the country back in '94. Although no longer plagued with daily genocidal violence, women still tiptoe around social conventions that monitor their roles within a strong patriarchal tradition.

One arena of tiptoeing involves sports.

Dancing and singing are considered acceptable activities for Rwandan women, but football (a.k.a. soccer) is still a bit risky.

More and more women in Rwanda have been joining football teams since the formation of the Association of Kigali Women’s Footballers (AKWOF) in 2001, but many keep hush-hush about their participation. One football player commented, “[My husband] doesn’t know that I’m here. I come here by myself. But soon he’ll find out. I can’t just tell him because many men don’t like their wives playing football. So for the time being I’m doing this in secret. But I’m training to get better, and when I’m excellent, I’ll get his permission!”

In the past few years AKWOF registered 15 women’s soccer teams with over 400 girls, established a national women’s soccer league in Rwanda, trained professional female soccer coaches, and worked to gain greater government support for female sports programs.

Tiptoeing is losing ground to overhead kicks as women in Rwanda build quads that would put your big brother to shame.

Score.

By now, I’m sure many of you have already seen and/or heard about the latest WNBA brawl between L.A. Sparks, Candace Parker and Detroit Shock’s Plenette Pierson.  Richard originally posted about the incident a few days ago.



Well, now that the dust has settled – somewhat – folks in the media are actually arguing that the fight between Parker and Pierson helped bring more attention and people (namely men) to the WNBA.

Now I’m certainly down for bringing more attention to the WNBA – (a pro sport I’ve always aspired to participate in) - but at what cost? I personally don’t care how many people (women and/or men) become more “intrigued” by the sport, fighting to the point of an all-out brawl is simply not a good look.

Granted, I think a scuffle here and a scramble there is part of the game.  I remember when I was playing ball back in high school; I certainly contributed to a few scuffles (okay, maybe that's an understatement, they use to call me Charles Barkley). Admittedly, I was and have always been extremely competitive on the court.  However, I'm mostly concerned with why folks, who previously didn’t care much about the WNBA, are now tuning in.  Is it just to see, and I quote, “chicks fighting” or does this brawl enable folks to perpetuate horrible stereotypes about female athletes – namely, ‘black’ female athletes (the racial epithet “angry black female” comes to mind)?

To me, this situation speaks to a larger social calamity that concerns our perceptions of gender performance within sports.  That is, when we see male athletes fight, its just par for the course, because, well, that’s what guys do, right? (Obviously, SO wrong).  But when we see female athletes fight, this moment tends to get exploited, as in, ‘it’s good for business’ and satisfies some warped fantasy about women fighting.  On the flip side, female athletes who fight in a mainstream sport might be condemned by society for not acting “lady like.” (The adage of being “caught between a rock and a hard place” for female athletes never took on such a profound significance as it does in this case).

Some observers argue that this might be a moment where we consider women athletes developing their own feminine aesthetic, or style of play.  But why even entertain this idea of developing a feminine aesthetic in sports - what does that even mean??

For me, it all goes back to the way we think and understand competition and gender performance.  If we lived in a society where acting out in competition wasn’t deemed a “male thing” then perhaps we wouldn’t have to confront negative stereotypes about female athletes in the first place.  As a former athlete, I know fights can occur between components, and unfortunately these fights don’t always end up without someone getting seriously injured. (Incidentally, Cheryl Ford who was also involved in Tuesday night’s brawl is out for the season with a torn ACL).  I believe early on I was taught that, in order to win, I had to be tough and fight.  Arguably (and unfortunately), most athletes, female and male, are taught that competition means winning and defending our pride, by any means necessary - heck, that’s a culturally accepted ideal, just look at how our President deals with foreign policy! 

But I digress.

The fight between Parker and Pierson perhaps proves that the problem we confront culturally with sports lies in our understanding of competition and gender performance.  So if we begin to shift our ways of thinking about competition and gender performance in sports, maybe, just maybe, we won’t have to deal with headlines like "Women Who Can Dunk and Duel [like a man]" and “Bad Girls” - no, not the trainwreck of a reality show - the culturally accepted, and disturbing, idea.