The Record

True gender equality in sports?

By: Adam Pribyl

Like most of us, I have spent the last week attempting to study. I have locked myself in the library, my room, a broom closet; yet I always end up in front of my television with my eyes glued to the Winter Olympics.

The Olympics give us something to cheer for, and for some strange reason they inspire us. The dedication and emotion that is so apparent in these athletes is fascinating to watch unfold. And so, I found myself watching the U.S. Womens hockey team cream Russia 13-0.

The whole while I couldn’t help but think why women aren’t allowed to check in hockey. The same is true for the girl’s lacrosse team here at St. Ben’s. They have much stricter rules than boys, where they are limited to very little contact. It just doesn’t seem right to me. I suppose I am somewhat of a feminist. I think that we all should be equal, men and women alike.

Title IX was a piece of legislation in 1972 that agreed with this notion. Title IX essentially gave women the opportunity to equally participate in all sports activities. This meant that women could now play sports such as hockey and lacrosse. But to me it doesn’t exactly seem equal that the rules of the sport were changed for women. The physicality of both hockey and lacrosse seem to be critical components of both games, and also makes them very exciting and entertaining.

At the same time, I recognize my weaknesses when writing on this subject. I have never played hockey or lacrosse, and I am not a girl. So I talked to a couple female athletes who could give me some perspective on this very issue. Andrea Dean is a junior at St. Ben’s who has played hockey for most of her life. Kim D’Aloia plays lacrosse here St. Ben’s; she is a junior captain. I asked both girls what they thought about rules.

D’Aloia told me that women have been conditioned growing up to not be rough.

“We’ve been conditioned almost to not be rough or hit or any of that while growing up. We sometimes apologize to people we had pushed or hit harder than we meant to during a game,” says the junior captain.

D’Aloia also remarked how she will end up apologizing to the girl even though it was just part of the game. Even though girl’s lacrosse is less physical, D’Aloia was adamant that didn’t make the game dull. “We can still be intense and aggressive just not by pushing and tripping and hitting.”

Dean has this to say about girls not being able to check: “As a girl hockey player, I have always hated not being able to check. Over the years, I have found that the more aggressive the competition was the more intense the games were. When you increase the level of physical aggressiveness, you force players to push themselves to also increase their skill level, which creates not only a better competition to play in, but to watch as well (you have no idea how many people have told me they would actually watch girls hockey if we could check).”

You know this writer’s opinion. Girls being allowed equal access to all sporting events should play them with the same rules as the boys. Even so, it is definitely worth noting that just because the rules are the way they are, it doesn’t make girls sports any less exciting.

This is the opinion of Adam Pribyl, an SJU senior

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