The Truth Teller is where I try to discern what's true in the current cultural moment. If you like what you read here, I'd be honored if you share it with a friend.
Sophie Cunningham: Champion for Women or Champion Football Kicker? (Title IX - Part 1)
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WNBA player Sophie Cunningham made the news this summer, when she spoke out about men invading women’s sports in an ESPN interview: “I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that.’ I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” Conservatives latched onto her comment, blasting it from the news and social media. Cunningham’s comments were quite timely after the Supreme Court voted to protect women’s sports in two monumental Title IX cases this summer. In high school, Sophie was pulled onto the boys' football team as a kicker, when the regular kicker got hurt. She actually scored two points during playoff football. Of course, this was lauded at the time. A girl playing football with boys? How unorthodox and spectacular! This seems like an apt time to remind conservatives that praising women invading men’s spaces is what led to our current predicament. For decades, we encouraged women to join the military, the police academy, the Boy Scouts, to try out for men’s football, wrestling, and the list goes on and on. We loved all these stories of girls holding their own in male spaces. But if gender distinctions don’t matter, and girls should be able to play with the boys, we should not be surprised when the tables are turned and males want to invade female spaces. It’s wrong. But it should have been anticipated. I am not upset with what Sophie said, and I’m glad she didn’t back down from her comments. And as some people have suggested, maybe she now regrets her decision to play on the boys’ football team, or at least sees the irony in it. Even I probably would have cheered her on when I was eighteen. Praise God that he matures us beyond our teenage worldview. Many of us would do well to consider the ways our past or current beliefs have been entangled with feminism. If we truly believe that God created the sexes differently, with different strengths and callings, and that because of those differences, distinctions are needed in certain areas of life — sports, bathrooms, and church ministry roles to name a few — then we should confess and repent from the times we contradicted those beliefs, for the times we cheered girls on when they were undermining men, weakening them, or disrupting their sense of brotherhood. We should be willing to admit when we went astray in the past, and then speak boldly and work tirelessly to create safety and distinct spaces of flourishing for young men and young women moving forward. |
Hi! I'm Jen.
The Truth Teller is where I try to discern what's true in the current cultural moment. If you like what you read here, I'd be honored if you share it with a friend.
Title IX was enacted in 1972 as an effort to create more educational opportunities for women. The main text of Title IX, before decades of amendments, additions, and Supreme Court cases, simply says this: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." First of all, let's acknowledge that plenty of bad laws...
Yesterday, I wrote about how all of us need to examine our own hypocrisy when we cheer for girls invading men’s groups and spaces, while acting surprised and horrified when males do the same. So let’s talk for a moment about what really happens when women invade men’s sports. We’ll start with the example of Sophie Cunningham subbing as a kicker on the football team at her high school. Imagine Sophie steps up for an extra-point attempt, and the defense sees (or knows) that she is a girl. How...
One time we were sitting around the campfire with some of our friends discussing turning 40. A few of us had already passed the milestone and a few were anticipating the big birthday. One of our friends threw out a funny statistic to his wife about his upcoming 40th. It was something about how lucky she was that his salary was higher and his weight was lower than the average forty-year-old man. She quickly retorted, “Well, you’re lucky that I’m a white, millennial woman who isn’t a crazy...