November 17, 2014 by Sean Childers in Livewire
Former Bent player Judy Jarvis wrote a thought-provocative post talking about, in part, the unique space Ultimate has provided her and her teammates over the years. Aside from the compilation of statistics about participation in college sports (great to have in one place), I found two parts of the post especially interesting (for two very different reasons):
The community of women this weekend brought me so much joy. To see all of us out there, with no men in charge, was glorious. Because, how often does that happen? In our workplaces? In our local and national government? In our schools’ senior leaders? Rarely, rarely, rarely. Yet there is so much value in complete self-determination for women, as when we are playing on a women’s sports team.
And, perhaps a bit more controversial, there is this parenthetical aside:
(And don’t even get me started on the impact of “professional” men’s frisbee teams having women cheerleaders at their games. No man playing on those teams with cheerleaders has any right to call himself a feminist, ever. All men should refuse to step on the field until their manager promises there will be no female cheerleaders at their all-male games.)
The well-written piece is worth a full read. I spent part of this past weekend at a local girls clinic (post and audio interview coming soon), and Jarvis’s discussion of complacency was also a theme echoed by GUM chair Zara Cadoux in our conversation together. Stay tuned for a bit more on this topic in the upcoming two weeks.
