Anything you can do, I can do better; I can do anything better than you!
Jenna Carlson
Issue date: 2/23/10 Section: Opinion
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For centuries, women have been seen as the domestic gender that should only tend to the feminine arts such as cooking and cleaning. Some women have not agreed with this stereotypical view.
In 776 B.C.E. women were excluded from the Olympic games. Only men were allowed to compete and it was dishonorable for a woman to even be present to view the competition.
To find a loop hole in this rule, the Games of Hera were created to involve women and women only. There, females could break free of their domestic life which ruled over them.
This was a small step for women at the time but a huge step for women today.
Modern day Olympians are both male and female. But why do many spectators prefer to watch men?
Men are considered to be stronger, faster, and more athletic than women but that too can be debated.
However, at the St. Augustine Ripely's Believe or Not Museum, 15-year-old Shannon Pole Summers, has a picture displayed of her pulling her entire high school football team who sat in a pick up truck down a stretch of road, labeling her strongest female.
In 1885 Annie Oakley, 25, was considered the best sharp-shooter of her time hitting a moving target while on horseback during the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. She also preformed more gun slinging tricks such as shooting a cigarette out of her husband's mouth or a dime while it was thrown into the air.
How's that for female excellence? No man could compete with her seemingly innate sharp-shooting skills.
But can sports really keep women on a path to success? A recent study says that it can. Dr. Stevenson, an economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, concluded that women's education has increased by 20 percent and the employment rate for women has increased by 40 percent since 1972. This can be directly caused by the increase of young females participating in sports on the high school and college level. Once women have been exposed to the idea of scholarships due to their athletic ability they become more focused on that goal. They begin to stray away from drugs or sexual activity that could jeopardize their chances of achieving their ultimate dream.
The plan for that dream is simple. Athleticism may lead to higher education. Higher education could then lead to a well paying job. A well paying job ends in a hefty paycheck.
Money doesn't make the women though. Dr. Robert Kaestner, an economics professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, discovered that women before 1973 were at a greater risk of heart disease and diabetes than women today. Also, the obesity rate has declined about 7 percent.
A longer life and a nice paycheck is a very positive side to playing sports. Yet only 1 in 3 females play sports in high school today.
This statistic could change if more females saw the potential in themselves. So get up, get busy, and get motivated.
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