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More Girls Take Part in High School Wrestling



Bill Weintraub

Bill Weintraub

More Girls Take Part in High School Wrestling

2-18-2007

"I think it's better if it's girl and girl," he said. "If boys and girls wrestle together, it's physically harder for the girl, but mentally harder for the boy."

"A boy who goes out on the mat against a girl doesn't win. If he beats her, he was supposed to, and if he doesn't, he's dead meat."

More Girls Take Part in High School Wrestling

By TAMAR LEWIN

Published: February 17, 2007

UNCASVILLE, Conn.

The takedown came after all of 12 seconds.

Jessica Bennett, Montville High School's 103-pound wrestler, waited until Rich Wood went down to try to grab her leg, then launched herself onto his back, and got him down to his knees. After a brief stalemate later in the match, Jessica, 15, lifted him off the ground and took him back to the mat, for more points.

At that, several of Rich's teammates, from St. Bernard High School here, looked down at their feet. There is still some pain in watching a teammate being beaten by a girl -- even a girl like Jessica, who has won 23 of her 35 matches this season.

Wrestling may be the ultimate contact sport, and it can be a startling sight, teenage boys grabbing girls' thighs, girls straddling boys, boys riding girls' backs and trying to flip them onto their backs. For the most part, girls who want to wrestle -- and they are slowly moving into the mainstream -- must practice with, and compete against, boys.

Nationwide, about 5,000 high school girls wrestled last year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, nearly five times as many as a decade earlier. Those numbers are no doubt low, since many states failed to report girls' wrestling participation, but whatever the full count, it is dwarfed by the quarter-million boys who wrestle.

Now that women's wrestling is an Olympic sport, and, on some campuses, a college sport, girls' wrestling is poised to take off. There is a Catch-22: Without many girls, there can't be girls' teams, and without girls' teams, wrestling can't attract all that many girls. The legal status of coed wrestling is not entirely clear, but in a few scattered cases, courts have ruled that if there is no girls' team for them, they should be able to join boys' teams.

In Texas and Hawaii, and in some California schools, girls have their own teams. Girls' invitational tournaments, where girls compete individually, are becoming more common. Just this month, for the first time, the New York Mayor's Cup competition had a girls' division, albeit with only nine participants.

"It would be nice if there were girls' teams," said Eleanor Lewis, a sophomore at Horace Mann, a private school in New York City, who wrestled two boys on the first day of the Mayor's Cup and two girls the second. "When you wrestle a girl, you're more equally matched, and feel like you're respected," she said.

Roger Shaw, women's director for USA Wrestling Connecticut, said the spread of girls' teams would help wrestling's popularity.

"I believe we'll go on at the low level we're at if women don't get their own teams," Mr. Shaw said.

While he is all for girls wrestling -- his daughter, Stefenie, started wrestling at 8 and now, at 20, is an Olympic hopeful -- Mr. Shaw said that for boys, coed wrestling can be disconcerting. "A boy who goes out on the mat against a girl doesn't win," he said. "If he beats her, he was supposed to, and if he doesn't, he's dead meat."

On the other side, mothers of girl wrestlers say they worry about the cauliflower ears, broken noses and concussions. One thing that coaches, parents and wrestlers -- both boys and girls -- agree on is that sex is the last thing on wrestlers' minds as they pull and push and turn their partners, same sex or opposite.

"They're so pumped up with adrenaline when they're out there on the mat, they're not thinking of anything but wrestling and winning," said Gary Wilcox, Jessica Bennett's coach.

Occasionally, boys choose to forfeit rather than wrestle a girl, as happened at a Dobbs Ferry High School exhibition match this season, leaving Sophia Veiras, a sophomore, with no one to fight.

"It's always a little intimidating for the boys at first," said Jamie Block, the coach at the school, in Westchester. "They're raised not to do this to a girl. And the thing about Sophia is, she's very good. If you don't really fight, she'll pummel you. The girls who come out for wrestling now, they go to wrestling camps in the summer. They're serious."

Girls' wrestling is not easy. The conditioning is grueling and intense, more so than for other sports. Since boys their age are usually stronger, only a few girls ever make varsity, let alone get to a state championship. And there is often parental resistance.

"I told her, it's all boys, you're going to get hurt," said Roseanna Di Benedetto, whose daughter, Lucy, a tiny 15-year-old at Francis Lewis High School in Queens, is determined to wrestle. "But Lucy's always loved a challenge."

Even her coach, Josue Herrera, has his doubts about coed wrestling. "I think it's better if it's girl and girl," he said. "If boys and girls wrestle together, it's physically harder for the girl, but mentally harder for the boy."

Lucy's school is still considering how to treat her. She has been training with the boys. Every afternoon, she flops to the floor, does her pushups, runs alongside them and goes through the neck stretches, crab walks and army crawls. Still, she has not been allowed to wrestle with the boys.

Her school's athletic director, Arnie Rosenbaum, will not let her do that unless she can pass a state test: among other things, she must run a mile and a half in 11 minutes and do a 7-foot standing long jump, which may not be possible for this 4-foot-11 ninth grader.

Mr. Rosenbaum said he was following state guidelines intended to ensure that girls who join boys' teams are solid athletes. "It's not up to me," he said. "I'm just following the guidelines." Other officials say Mr. Rosenbaum is going beyond state requirements.

According to the State Education Department, the guidelines for mixed competition require schools to consider the girl's medical history and physical abilities but do not require that they pass the test, which is intended for younger athletes who want to compete alongside older ones.

At other schools in New York where girls wrestle with boys, coaches say there has not been a problem.

"We've had at least one girl on our team since we started the program four years ago," said Scott DeBellis, at Herbert H. Lehman High School in the Bronx, which has two girls wrestling this year.

Another girl, he said, dropped away because her mother wanted her out.

Even the mother of Jessica Bennett, the Montville High wrestler, had her doubts.

"When she was little, I told Jess that it's a little bit of a man's world, but you should never let anyone say you can't do something because you're a girl," Kim Bennett said. "When she wanted to wrestle, I was very skeptical. But she reminded me of what I'd said, and told me that the first time she was hearing she shouldn't do something because she's a girl, she was getting it from me. And she was right."

Her coach, Mr. Wilcox, a former marine, also wondered how the boys would behave when Jessica first appeared at practice. "I told them, if anybody does or says anything, they'll pay me," he said. "So there was fear."

But Jessica and her teammates say coed wrestling seems perfectly natural. In fact, Jessica says, the boys who have known her since she followed her brother into a local youth wrestling program in fourth grade "kind of watch out for me."

Nick Perry, a senior who often wrestles Jessica at practice, said he never thought about her being a girl.

"I grew up wrestling with Jessica, in the youth program, so it's just how it is," he said. "She's good. She's the one on the team who makes the most kids cry."

Mr. Wilcox said Jessica was equally serious academically and athletically: she is at the top of her class and places among the fastest runners in the state. Last summer, she went to wrestling camp, where she was the only girl.

Jessica, a soft-spoken girl who braids and pins up her hair before each match, says wrestling has helped build her confidence, challenging both her body and her mind.

With the hairnet, the dark T-shirt under her singlet, and the headgear over her ears, there is something oddly demure about Jessica, even as she is on all fours with a boy riding her back. The onlookers yell, "Lock in that leg" and "Keep pushing," and her mother yells, "Come on, Jess, upsy-daisy."

When she gets on top, turns him and nearly pins him, the crowd explodes, stomping the bleachers. Her team cheers wildly. His team goes silent.

[emphases mine]

Bill Weintraub:

This article describes one of the fruits of advanced heterosexualization.

What's interesting is that virtually all of the people quoted recognize that the situation is pyschologically damaging for the boys.

"I think it's better if it's girl and girl," he said. "If boys and girls wrestle together, it's physically harder for the girl, but mentally harder for the boy."

"A boy who goes out on the mat against a girl doesn't win. If he beats her, he was supposed to, and if he doesn't, he's dead meat."

But no one dares do anything about it.

So: in the name of advancing equality for women -- which is a laudable goal -- the boys are being trampled.

And when that happens, they're viewed basically as collateral damage in the great struggle for equal rights.

Remember what my foreign friend said:

The heterosexual society cares only for women. It sees men only as a problematic group that comes in the way of what is called women's rights.

And that's what happens.

The focus in the article is on the girls.

The boys are seen as problematic.

Notice also that coercion is used to enforce the heterosexualization.

"I told them, if anybody does or says anything, they'll pay me," he said. "So there was fear."

This is precisely what my foreign friend described in his anecdote about the stallions.

He says that stallions bond -- naturally.

And that once they're bonded, they become extremely difficult to control.

So that the people who use horses in his country as working animals prevent such bonds from forming.

Instead, they pair male and female horses, and in effect force them to become a couple.

I have already mentioned that male-male bonds are considered a menace and the trainers prevent male horses from developing intimacy by not putting them together. Sex between males in horses is a well known fact (a horse breeding site also talks about this). But it is the way they are forced to bond with female horses which is more telling.

When they put the male horses for the first time with a female --- the horses react extremely negatively, even in an hostile manner. In the case I'm describing, the male horse had not eaten for a week when forced with the female. He must have been still young. I don't know if he had a male buddy before that. Then slowly he learned to adjust with the female. He had no other option, plus they trained him through rewards and punishments. And finally, he developed an intimacy with the female so much so that today he is inseparable with the female.

Isn't it how they treat humans? Does it tell us anything about human [exclusive] heterosexuality and how is it made possible? Doesn't the society use various mechanisms to psychologically keep men away from men sexually so as to keep them from forming intimacy?

Doesn't the society punish and reward men in order to train them to bond with women? And then claim that heterosexuality is natural / normal?

My foreign friend also talks about boys saying No to a boy and Yes to a girl -- when they'd rather do the opposite.

In the article, we're told that occasionally a boy will forfeit a match rather than wrestle a girl.

But clearly that's the exception -- most of the boys do what's expected of them.

Notice also that there's complete and 100% denial about the sexual component of wrestling:

"They're so pumped up with adrenaline when they're out there on the mat, they're not thinking of anything but wrestling and winning," said Gary Wilcox, Jessica Bennett's coach.

I see.

And adrenaline and body contact have nothing to do with sex.

Robert Loring has said that this country is PSYCHOTIC on sexual matters -- and that's the truth.

The country is insane.

Don't believe me?

Here's another NY Times article -- this one about a book aimed at children ages 9-12 which despite winning a prestigious award, has been banned all over the country because the word "scrotum" is on the first page.

"scrotum"

Should children not know that word at nine years of age?

Ten?

Eleven?

Is there something wrong about teaching kids about body parts?

Presumably the concern is about girls -- right?

But a few years later, the same girls are being encouraged to go out for a sport where they're likely to have contact, as NW has just described in great detail, with a boy's scrotum -- actually, many boys' scrotums.

Which we're then told, does not in any way evoke sex.

That's NUTS -- no pun intended.

Wrestling involves contact with body parts -- including sexual body parts.

But if anyone other than NW admitted that -- they'd have to talk about the sexual reality of wrestling -- whether's it's mixed sex or same sex.

And that no one wants to do.

They want to get the girls into wrestling -- without facing the sexual implications.

I found this article -- the one on wrestling but the one about the children's book too -- depressing.

No one doubts that girls should be able to wrestle.

No one questions that coed wrestling is hard on the boys.

And no one will do a thing about it -- except to call for all-girl teams -- which will apparently take many years to realize.

In the meantime, it's just hard cheese for the boys.

You have to wonder how much and what sort of damage is being done them.

I just did a post titled a sublime, beautiful act.

Which is about a male-fighting ritual among indigenous peoples in the Andes.

I know, I know, these are just some very marginalized and malnourished-looking people -- so who cares?

But tinku, as it's called, has been part of their lives for at least a millenium.

And they believe it keeps them sane.

MEN have wrestled MEN -- touching, feeling, and driven by their scrotums -- for thousands upon thousands of years.

Hundreds of thousands of years.

Almost certainly, before men were men -- when they were proto-men or proto-hominids or whatever -- they were wrestling each other.

MEN were wrestling MEN in ALL MALE environments.

Now, in the space of just a few years, that has all been ripped apart.

It's being done in the name of equality.

And equality is generally accounted a good thing.

But the Times article points out that "boys are usually stronger."

No kidding.

We're a sexually dimorphic species.

That means there are significant PHYSICAL differences between Men and Women.

All of a sudden those don't count and those don't matter -- unless of course someone's being asked to say the word "scrotum."

It's as though if we admitted that those physical differences exist -- the push for gender parity would collapse.

But the push for gender parity is not, ultimately, based on physical equality.

It's based on INTELLECTUAL equality.

Which no one any longer disputes.

Which means that men and women do NOT have to be the same and equal in every particular for gender equity to be a good idea.

Which is a good thing because men and women are not the same and equal in every particular.

They differ physically, they differ emotionally, and they have, as a consequence in certain areas of life, different needs.

Should those needs be recognized, will society collapse and Women be pushed back into the Dark Ages?

NO.

Should those needs NOT be recognized, will there be problems?

YES.

Massive problems.

Recently there've been a lot of discussion about kids and psychiatric drugs.

This is one article from a few days ago in the Times.

To someone of my generation, it's unreal how often kids are being diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and how heavily these psychiatric drugs are being prescribed.

The Times:

Some child psychiatrists say bipolar disorder has become an all-purpose label for aggression.

Aggression.

Males are aggressive.

Males need the freedom to be aggressive with other males in all-male spaces.

And society needs to recognize that there's a sexual element in that need.

Which is why the ALL-MALE environment is so important.

For a society which has trouble with the word "scrotum" these are tough issues.

But losing a generation of Men is even tougher.

We're the MAN2MAN Alliance.

We honor and respect both Men and Women.

We see both Masculinity and Femininity as Divine Principles.

Indeed, we say that Masculinity is a Divine Principle and Manhood a Divine Gift.

Which means that Manhood too must be respected.

And -- that that which is necessary for the boy to become a full and NATURALLY MASCULINE MAN must be available to him.

Look at the definition of Natural Masculinity:

The masculinity which develops naturally through the interaction of young males as they grow and mature in all-male spaces; and of which same-sex needs and desires are an integral and honored part.

All-male spaces and the recognition and honoring of same-sex needs are the basis of natural masculinity.

And those are being destroyed.

Even as women live increasingly on their own, homophobia and the heterosexualized society's inclination to force same-sex attraction into analist ghettos are destroying the ability of males -- to become Men.

Like I said, for a society which has trouble with the word "scrotum" these are tough issues.

But we're willing and able to talk about them -- and to genuinely face them.

We talk about sex, about aggression, and about Masculinity.

And we talk about a specific form of sex between men which respects and celebrates male aggression and which honors Masculinity:

FROT is a completely NATURAL MASCULINE behavior.

It doesn't effeminize.

Rather, it exalts Masculinity and Manhood.

What MAN doesn't want that?

What MAN doesn't want his Masculinity heightened and his Manhood honored?

ALL MEN seek an increase in Masculinity.

ALL MEN desire an honoring of Manhood.

These are UNIVERSALS among MEN.

Guys -- when you read articles like the wrestling article in the Times, the scrotum article in the Times, the medicating-of-aggression article in the Times -- you need to understand that these are trends and forces in the larger culture which have to be answered and opposed.

Help us do that.

HELP US.

FIGHT BACK.

DONATE.

Bill Weintraub

© All material Copyright 2007 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.


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