Comments (0)

By Dean Arrindell, May 16, 2012 4:56 pm

A Phoenix, AZ Catholic school forfeited a charter school baseball championship because their opponents have a girl on their team. Fifteen year-old Paige Sultzbach plays second base and is the only girl on the Mesa Preparatory Academy’s baseball team. Their would-be opponents in the state championship, Our Lady of Sorrows, declined to play Mesa Prep and forfeited the state championship. They said in a statement:

Our school aims to instill in our boys a profound respect for women and girls. Teaching our boys to treat ladies with deference, we choose not to place them in an athletic competition where proper boundaries can be respected with difficulty.

The school’s so-called “deference” to women sounds like the condescension that says women are inherently delicate and shouldn’t be allowed to do things like play sports. It’s the same attitude that makes it difficult for women to break into traditionally male spheres. It’s same men-only attitude that contributes to the low number of women as Fortune 500 CEO’s and members of Congress.

If Our Lady of Sorrows were indeed instilling in their students “a profound respect for women and girls,” they would view them as equals and play ball.

See Sultzbach’s interview on PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Follow me on Twitter and Like me on Facebook.

Comments (0)

By Dean Arrindell, January 20, 2012 4:15 pm

I haven’t done one of these general News & Opinion links in a while. I came across some interesting stories this week, so I thought I’d share them.

Mitt Romney debates Martin Luther King, Jr. Romney doesn’t fare too well.

Before he dropped out of the presidential race, Rick Perry said at a debate that South Carolina is at war with the federal government. [Huffington Post] Since that wasn’t the first time Perry alluded to secession (for those who forgot, South Carolina was the first to secede from the Union at the start the Civil War), shouldn’t he be considered un-American?

Whether or not Jay-Z will stop using the word bitch in his music, would he need to do more? [Guardian] By the way, will he stop using “nigger,” too?

Administrators at a Utah high school reject the use of a cougar as its mascot because of the word’s meaning. Not the mountain lion definition, but the other “derogatory” definition. [SportsGrid]

Connect with me on Twitter, follow my Tumblr and Like me on Facebook.