OPINION: But … ‘ what IS a girl? ‘ ,
Baseball is underway for the 2025 season ( I’m a Phillies fan, for what it’s worth ), and a professor who researches the” critical sociocultural study of sport” is concerned about the participation of women in America’s pastime.
Miami University’s Callie Maddox let’s us know in a new article that about 40 percent of the supporters who attended Major League Baseball games last year were women, and that 30 percent of teams ‘ “central business professional workers” and 27 percent of “team senior leadership jobs” are women.
Not to mention, there were 43 people in training or managerial roles in the MLB and small teams as of 2023, a 95 percent increase in just the last two years!
Maddox goes through a brief history of people playing sports, including the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League which inspired the video” A League of Their Own“.
The critical scholar and professor of sport leadership and management says the female professional league “enforced rigid norms of femininity” ( players had to wear makeup and skirts ), and that black women were forbidden to participate — “teams were open only to white women and light-skinned Latinas”.
( Ironically, Prime’s short-lived series based on” A League of Their Own” featured a multiracial cast set in 1943, Jackie Robinson didn’t even break the MLB color barrier until 1947. )
As female participation in sports “dwindled”, girls were directed to ball which “eventually became the accepted sports for girls and women due to its smaller industry, larger basketball and underhand throwing design”.
Further: College football, media repeatedly beclown themselves over feminine kicker’s pitiful effort
Little League Baseball also created Little League Softball for girls which, according to Maddox, “reinforced the gendered department of each game and ‘ cemented the post-Title IX segregated manhood of baseball.'”
Maddox ( pictured ) notes how opportunities for women to play baseball since have expanded, including the Women’s Pro Baseball League slated to begin in 2026.
But overall, events like the Women’s Baseball World Cup get little media attention, and the U. S. has been “inconsistent” about the development of women’s baseball due to “lack of infrastructure, limited resources and persistent gendered assumptions”.
As a piece of pure trivia Maddox’s article in moderately interesting and entertaining. But it also (unintentionally? ) demonstrates the contradictions of contemporary critical theory.
Nobody but progressive bean counters care about the percentages of women in various MLB central staff and/or coaching positions. As sports ( so far ) remain one realm where pure merit is of primary import, one must assume the women in the latter know what they’re doing baseball-wise.
As for the former, the addition of women appear to be largely a function of the dissolution of the general societal “glass ceiling”. For example according to Google, among the “key milestones” of women’s involvement in the MLB are Karin Timpone as a” chief marketing officer” and Lara Pitaro Wisch, an attorney.
And while it does seem sort of silly to “rigidly enforce femininity” upon the women of the” League of Their Own” era (skirts and makeup ), if you watch” 42” or even” The Natural” you’ll notice everyone in the stands is garbed in suits, ties, and dresses. That’s what people did back then when they went out.
Lastly, the only “persistent gendered assumptions” come from those who still — correctly — believe there are actual differences between biological men and women. After all, how many women currently play in Major League Baseball? Zero? How come? It’s because of inherent biological differences, not stupid ( and racist ) rules that kept standouts Jackie Robinson and Satchel Paige from competing in the MLB until the late ‘ 40s.
( We haven’t even entertained the question which befuddles liberals:” What is a woman”? )
If women want to play baseball in events like the Women’s Baseball World Cup, etc., more power to them. But know that bean counters and critical theorists can’t force fans to watch these events, let alone like them … even if covered by sports media. Merely look at the WBNA, women’s hockey, and even men’s football leagues such as the XFL and USFL: Fans don’t much like an inferior product.  ,
Why watch second, third, and fourth stringers when fans can turn the channel and watch the starters? The bean counters and critical theorists will whine and complain about it, of course, because that’s what they do.
Everything is “oppression”, after all.
MORE: Prof: Sports responsible for’ belief’ that men are stronger and gender is binary
IMAGE CAPTION &, CREDIT: Geena Davis at bat in” A League of Their Own”, Museum of the Moving Image/X. INTERIOR IMAGE: Miami University
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