Co-Ed Sports
By: Layla Briones
Athletics and the arts are two main misunderstood subjects by society. Society is limited with freedom to do as we
please without being judged. During WWI American Congress passed two acts banning the propaganda against our
war allies or the war, thus limits our freedom of speech to support war. Like the arts we are limited to express our
creativity because it's not within social norm. If a student was given detention for wearing " inappropriate clothing"
because it's "distracting"; that student is limited their creativity and education for expressing her creativity through her
clothes. Athletics is the same thing. There are sports being categorized by gender.
"I think people mostly view sports like football as a men's sport. Society's expectations have made us think that
men play football. It shouldn't be like that. If a girl has the heart and drive, she can be just as good as any guy in
football or any sport for that matter." said junior Kaylyn Smollock.
"Coed sports are good to promote difference rights in women's equality" said Patricia Fabila.
Society portrays women as weak, but there are many strong women figures out there such as, the Williams sisters,
Billie Jean King, Miesha Tate, and so on. These women participate in the same sports men do so why have separate
teams?
"Sex doesn't matter; People just "sexifies" sports to fit the gender roles society has set for the public." told by junior
Bria Gorman
Society has set their boundaries for sports that those of "not the right gender" would be timid to at least try to
participate in their favorite high school's sports team.
"If you like something you should pursue it, it helps find yourself especially during your adolescence." agreed both
Fabila and Gorman.
Some athletes already had a taste of a girl's wrath on the court or the mat.
Gerald Haris varsity wrestler said, "There's nothing wrong with coed sports, there should be more, as a wrestler
I've seen girls able to beat the guys on the team."
Although there are schools who allow coed volleyball or at least a guys volleyball team there are still rules and
other perspectives to consider the decision of our athletics program. As a school to fund a coed sport or at least a
single gendered sports team like girl's football or guy's volleyball, the school has to consider the amount of students
willing to join that specific team and those who would actually watch the games. Even though sports teams should be
for the experience we still need the money to keep it running. If there's not a crowd or at least a decent amount of
people attending the games there is no profit to continue supporting the games and the equipment. Another thing to
consider is who are we going to play against? Not a lot of schools would be open to the idea of coed sports or men's
volleyball or girl's football. What kind of league would it be if our only opponents were ourselves?
The athletics shouldn't be hold against society's limitations because you can't stop a child or an aspiring athlete to
play or not to play a sport because of their sex. We learn more about ourselves if the world and society were more
open minded about gender roles and stepping out of your comfort zone.