A great read about Mo'ne Davis, and another one about why she matters to girls in sport. While this story is a bit old, I think it's a great example of a change maker, a trendsetter. Do you think Mo'ne's performance is a sign of more girls and women playing baseball? Do you think this is just an anomaly? Share your thoughts.
I want to say that I recognize this might be a touchy subject. My intention is not to pit people against each other or set someone up to say "women don't belong." I do think accessibility at early ages is hugely important for girls, and I think this is a complicated issue.
While I do believe that Mo’ne’s talent is one that cannot easily be reproduced by other girls because she is one of the most spectacular kid athletes I have ever seen, and that talent is hard to come by, I do not think that this should dissuade girls from playing sports like baseball and basketball. I think that her talent is special and once in a generation, but I do not believe that in the future other girls can’t do the same. Mo’ne achieved her successes through hard work, just like all the other boys and I think that her rise to fame is a really good thing in motivating girls to play the sports they love, no matter of the “women don’t belong” attitude, because, as seen by Mo’ne, girls do belong in sports. Mo’ne has been a figure in sports for many years now and has continued to dominate in baseball and basketball, proving that women do belong in sports and shouldn’t stop playing due to social norms. Overall, I think that Mo’ne is a huge positive for young girls in sports and sports in general, because she has helped close the gap between men and women in historically male dominated sports like baseball and basketball.
ReplyDelete¬While I think Mo'ne Davis' clearly possess a unique skill set, throwing the ball an astounding 70 miles per hour, she may not be able to translate those skills to a professional level. As the author of one of the articles suggested Mo’ne might have already plateaued. Physically more developed than her male counter parts, it is exciting to see a girl take a traditionally boys sports by storm. However, I believe this level of dominance might only be temporary. It is difficult for me to believe that she will develop at the same rate of other boys, but it is apparent that she possesses an extraordinary talent and knowledge for game of baseball. I find it very doubtful that she in the future will be able to throw 90 miles per hour due to the fact that she has already hit her growth spurt. Athletes can train and practice as much and as long as they want but velocity is not necessarily teachable, no matter how much effort or work you put in you could still not be able to throw faster. With that being said it should be noted that her baseball ability is one to be admired.
ReplyDeleteIf girls were to play baseball they would be good when they are younger, when they have the physical advantage over the rest of the boys they are playing with. Girls, on average, hit puberty before boys, and in this short window, this gives girls like Mo'ne Davis an advantage over her teammates. The New York Times article mentioned that, "at 5 feet 4 inches, Davis is more than 3 inches taller than the average 12-year-old boy... Being tall and lean for her age allows her to generate additional velocity on her pitches." As soon as boys hit their growth spurt, a couple years later, they too will have the ideal body type that she has now. For this reason, I think it is possible for girls to play baseball when they are younger, but as soon as boys hit their growth spurts, I think girls will most likely fall to the back of the pack because boys will have much more testosterone to utilize when they play. Where I would think it would be cool to see a women in the major leagues, I think biology makes the chances of that happening very slim.
ReplyDeleteAs a female with a former tomboy phase who played on an all boys baseball team, getting to watch Mo'ne Davis compete at a high level is exciting. Mo'ne, who as a 13 yr old is a better athlete than I was, is a symbol of the phrase "girls can do anything guys can do." While I strongly believe that Mo'ne is an incredible athlete and baseball player, I think that calling her a trendsetter is not accurate. Just as the manager of the women's USA baseball team emphasized, there are so many more female baseball players in the US that don't get recognized or see the spotlight like Mo'ne. Additionally, Mo'ne seems to be a little ahead of herself in her prospects; it will be interesting to see if she can take it farther in baseball, a sport in which the boys will soon surpass her, or if she can play D1 basketball at a competitive school like Connecticut. While I have much respect for Mo'ne as a player, I don't think that she is a standalone female athlete who is breaking down barriers.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a difficult issue as nobody wants to reduce sports to mere genetics. Sports are supposed to be more than that, especially baseball. Baseball is meant to be everyman's game, America's game, a sport anyone can play with enough time and effort, but that is not the true reality. Mo'ne is an amazing athlete. To compete at the little league world series is a large accomplishment for anyone, but to do so with genetic and social barriers is more of an accomplishment still. However, the fact that Mo'ne was able to compete with boys at this age does not mean that she will continue to be able to compete with boys in the future, nor does it mean that other girls will be able to compete with boys in baseball. Mo'ne was able to excel at the little league world series because she has worked hard and has good genes, but also because she is playing at the ideal age of being able to compete with boys. As the article states the period around 12 or 13 years old is the last time where girls have close to the same muscle mass, are taller, and weigh more than boys. This is why although we have seen some girls compete at boys sports around this age, we don't really see any females dominating in college or professional sports. Women and men are genetically different and this isn't something worth trying to dispute, it's scientific fact. Men genetically are able to gain muscle more quickly, support more of it, and are taller and weigh more. So while it is fun and impressive to see women do well in men's sports, they will always be outliers.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this is anything but an anomaly. The truth is, Mo'ne Davis has talent, and that is why she has been able to achieve what she has achieved. This has nothing to do with her gender. The society we live in is what makes it about her gender which is why it is so unfortunate that that is what we pay attention to rather than just sheer skill. What is also recognized here is young talent and prodigies tend to receive the spotlight but that does't mean that there aren't plenty of other people with talented that should also be recognized such as Mo'ne Davis. What is most important is for people like Mo'ne to utilize her platform to speak out for women in sports and to advocate for a greater acceptance of female players in all sports. While I do see her as incredibly talented and motivated individual I do not see her as a rarity.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that Mo'ne's performance is a sign of more girls playing baseball. I think that her performance is a sign of her hard work, athletic build, support from her family, and the rise of women being heard, powerful, and in important positions in modern America. I think that more girls and women are playing baseball as a result of the slowly modernizing climate off the field, and voices readily and easily heard through social media. As Mo'ne mentioned in the interview, her instagram following shot up by nearly 13k in under two weeks; an increasing amount of people are wanting to hear about strong, successful women and confident girls. These shifting social climates have a direct impact on young girls, especially regarding sports.
ReplyDeleteChildren pick up most of their early beliefs and perspectives on issues in the world from their parents. If these parents have sexist, limited views, and a clear, sex-defined understanding of right and wrong, like "boys should be strong and girls should be pretty," then their children will have a much more difficult time becoming as open-minded and self-empowered as Mo'ne seems to be. The parents' comments in the first article also addressed shifting to softball once the kids were teenagers. Even the name, "soft-ball" is demeaning and infuriating. The sport that the boys play highlights a key component of the sport – the bases – while the girl's sport emphasizes the weaker, less-tough quality of the ball they have to use (and what many people think of women in comparison to men).
With a big enough shift in social climate, I think that this "anomaly" of Mo'ne and other girls like her could turn into a common appearance, and sports like baseball could become co-ed and defined by athletic ability, not sex. While that may not be likely to ever happen, as the entire country would need to stop raising their children with binary views/values and all men and women would need to be treated truly equally or without sex as an obvious influencer, I think that's a nice long-term goal.
I don't know if this is a sign that is saying that more girls and women are going to play the sport of baseball but it could be leading to that. In our own baseball league at school, more girls have become a part of that league as the option for softball is not there. But that leads to the question would girls choose to play baseball over softball given the option? At this point, baseball leagues are more competitive than softball leagues and most definitely more publicized. So many things are changing rapidly in our country at this point in time and at this rate ten years from now, a girl playing in the major leagues won't be such a huge phenomenon. It was also awesome to watch the video of Mo'ne and see her say that she doesn't like all the attention on her because she is nothing without her team. To have a mindset like that at 12 is amazing and now at 15 she has over 200k followers on social media and her fans are still growing the older she gets.
ReplyDeleteI believe Mo'ne is a great player and I hope the best for her future career, but her individual story of success does not mean all girls should pursue an athletic path in sports such as baseball. The fact is that, on average, the female body is less suitable for sports such as baseball that require a certain, often large and muscular, body type. That is not to say that girls should be barred from playing or trying baseball. On an individual level, there is enough examples of girls like Mo'ne with the genetic gifts that make her superior to many, if not all, of her male peers at her sport to warrant making sports like baseball genderless. However, there is far less females suitable for sports like baseball due mostly to genetics. Of course, there is a degree of sexism that exists that teaches girls to not even try physically intense sports. I am not convinced that if that sexism were not present, females would be proportionally represented in the current male-dominated leagues of sports simply due to inherent sexual differences. In sum, I think that there should be no barriers, implied or explicit, that bar any gender from currently male-dominated sports, but I do not believe that there would be proportional gender representation even if this occurred.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think that Mo’ne is a sign of more girls playing baseball, because one instance doesn’t make a pattern. However, I do think her hard work and her opposing the norm of baseball as a boys’ sport is extremely admirable and that she should continue with baseball for as long as she can, if she wants to. As the article discussed, she will likely not be able to pursue baseball in the long run because she will be physically disadvantaged by her height and less muscle mass than boys, since the vast majority of baseball players in high school and professional leagues are men. I think that her impact on other girls, though, is the most important thing. I don’t think that there should be divisions with sports like baseball purely based on gender and no other factors, and I hope that Mo’ne and other girls like her can start shifting the ideas around gender in sports. Even though many girls will be biologically disadvantaged, I think girls should know that they have the same opportunity as boys in sports, and when some girls come along who are tall and athletic and can hold their own in a boys’ league, they should be able to.
ReplyDeleteI think that Mo'ne is an anomaly and not a sign that more women are playing baseball, while she can clearly hold up just fine in her league of 10-13 year olds it is impossible for this success to cary on to later stages. Mo'ne looks much older than her age at age 13 and I initially thought she was 16 or 17, but when I saw her standing next to the boys on her team the reasons for her success seemed pretty apparent. She started at a young age, was very passionate about baseball and physically matured at a very young age. Despite the challenges of entering sports for girls I do not think this should dissuade them should they have the skill and they should fight for the right to play among the best if they can hold up. However, gender plays far too large a role in sports for me to see this is in the near future. At younger ages women develop faster than their male counterparts, but as time progresses it shifts completely in the favor men and it is not an easy barrier to overcome. For example, Katie Ledecky is the fastest female distance swimmer of all time and her records are miles ahead of her competition, her 1650 world record time of 15:03 is a full 19 seconds off of the men's NCAA cut showing just how large the gap is even when comparing the fastest female swimmer of all time. Despite this I don't think it should dissuade others from trying to do what Mo'ne has done and accomplish whatever they set out to do, no matter how impossible it may seem and I fullheartedly believe that if woman can hold up they should be allowed to play with men in any sport.
ReplyDeleteI think that Mo'ne is an outlier/anomaly, in that this kind of case is rare to achieve in the first place due to either physical, social, or personal emotional barriers that prevent this opportunity in the first place. These include not being as physically developed as Mo'ne, or not having the support/permission of her parents, or outright not being allowed to join the team based on her sex. However, I think that outliers in this sense are what we should all strive to be, to be better than the median. I think that it's irrelevant whether or not she uses this to begin a career in major league baseball or not, or even if she continues into collegiate or higher-level high school baseball, because the experience of being in baseball right now is what's important. This will have an impact on how the rest of her life plays out, a similar example to which can be found in One Shot at Forever. In this example, many of the boys stopped playing sports, and very very few of them continued playing to a professional level. However, the experience remained an important one for their development and creation of who they were. So I think that whether or not Mo'ne Davis is an outlier or not, or if she's going to be able to advance to a higher level, are unimportant questions. The question is "will this be an important experience for her?" I think that it is, and will be in her future, and the example she is showing and the trail she is blazing is an inspiration to young girls who could benefit greatly from this kind of activity.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I think Mo'ne's performance is an anomaly in the baseball world. Other girls lack the female role models when they're young to become infatuated with baseball from a young age as many boys do. Yes, girls can play baseball at the T-ball, Farm, and other levels of little league, seeing a girl play in middle school or high school is very rare. That time is usually when they crossover to softball, or are forced to. I also found that Alicia Hunolt's experience where the other team refused to play her was very similar that of Jackie Robinson's, as the first African-American player in the Major Leagues. There has yet to be a woman playing in the Major Leagues or even in AAA, and I think that when there is, the breakthrough will be endlessly compared to Robinson's.
ReplyDeleteI think that Mo'ne's performance definitely paves the way and makes playing baseball a more acceptable and accessible thing for girls. I do think that it is important to note that she is incredibly talented and not all girls will be able to play at the level that she does. She has worked hard and put in the work to be great at baseball. I think that she does posses a lot of natural talent that not all girls poses, that being said not every little boy possesses or will ever posses her talent. Even if Mo'ne is not the first woman to play in the NBL she is making the sport more accessible for girls. In time there will be a women who can excel in the MLB and whether that will be Mo'ne or another girl, Mo'ne's performance and dedication to the sport of baseball will help pave the way for little girls across america and help open people's eyes to the possibility of pro women players.
ReplyDeleteI have to say I agree with what some people have said above, which is that Mo'ne Davis being a superstar is no anomaly and is purely a result of her grit and talent. Anyone who has ever seen her play can attest to this. I will never forget when I first heard about Mo'ne on ESPN, and I thought nothing of it. Probably just another pitty case that they are doing for some kid who is handicapped in one way or another. But immediately after seeing some of her highlights on the same ESPN segment I saw that Mo'ne Davis was no charity case. She was on ESPN for the same reason as all the other professional athletes that are starred: for being an athletic specimen. It bums me out that her story is sometimes casted upon with pitty just because she's a girl. My hope for Mo'ne is that she will achieve so highly that it transcends her current identity of a female athlete, and solidifies are as just an athlete just like all the other legends.
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ReplyDeleteMo'ne Davis is an incredibly talented and inspirational athlete and human. Her widespread effect on young girls in sports is incredibly important, and will hopefully inspire more girls to play baseball. Before Davis, I had never heard of girls playing traditional "boys" sports, though more recently, I have heard of more girls playing sports such as football and baseball. Maybe I wasn't exposed to girls playing boys sports, but there are multiple girls on BCL League baseball teams, and the kicker on the St. Ignatious football team is actually a Burkes School alum.
Davis' talent alone sets her apart from all other athletes her age, however the attention she gets for her gender far outweighs the attention she gets for being an outstanding athlete in her field (literally). Its frustrating yet expected to see this happening in media. Davis would get a significant amount less press if her gender didn't set her apart from the other boys, however her story is one that will hopefully inspire many other girls to compete in ALL sports, not just the ones deemed by society as boys sports.