Cammy Houser '03

Are boys' and girls' sports treated equally at Deerfield? There are only two more boys' varsity sports offered than girls', and the facilities are fairly evenly matched (if not better for the girls), so why is there sometimes some bitterness about the boys vs. girls in Deerfield athletics? Or does this reach beyond the celebrated teams of the Academy to something bigger...

Case 1: Every Wednesday, the Boston Globe's Sports section features a page or two with the headline "SportsWomen," highlighting what has happened in the world of female athletics that week. Every day throughout the rest of the pages of the Globe's Sports section, there are articles on the latest men's stats, scores, and standings in every professional, college and high school league in season. Somehow, the entire "world" of women's sports and features for that week can fit onto one, maybe two pages of paper. Let's say that each day there are an average of nine pages of sports news in the Globe. Each month, these numbers give us four or six pages of women's coverage for every (plus or minus) 270 pages of men's news, and that's not even counting the NFL writeups on Monday mornings or the massive college coverage that inevitably ensues in December and March. 6 to 270. Now, you tell me, does that score strike you as a bit lopsided?

Rhetorical question. But still, from the optimist's point of view, at least the "SportsWomen" section is featured. This page certainly hasn't always been in the Globe. However, one might argue--well sure it's nice of a big paper like the Globe to include the women, but why just one or two pages, one day a week? Why single the women out and make them seem like they are something different from the men, an entity all their own who don't deserve to be mentioned in their own sections of the sports pages daily as the other half of the world's athletes are?

Case 2: Last spring I was proud of the Deerfield girls' tennis team for posting their undefeated record and bringing home their New England championship, while also nominating Autumn Learned '04 to compete in a prestigious tournament over the summer and having two players go undefeated in their own season of matches.

I was also proud as the boys' lacrosse team brought home their New England Championship on the heels of an undefeated season, some All-League picks, and an All-American. They played a ridiculously strong sixteen games.

As an athlete at Deerfield, I respect any other athlete unconditionally, and take pride in any team's ability to compete at the highest level, posting the undefeated W for the season. The root of my respect is the work any championship team has been required to put in to earn the ever-sought-after "ring" at the end of their season, BUT, I ask you this: Which team did you hear more about, the BOYS' lacrosse team or the GIRLS' tennis team?

The boys' team absolutely deserved the amount of praise they received, but didn't the girls' team deserve the same? This is not to say that there exists a bias only at Deerfield that showcases or at least elevates our men's sports to another level. Not at all. As the example of the Boston Globe sports section points out, there is a fundamental issue that exists in the way women's athletics are viewed in comparison to the giant world that is men's sports. Luckily at Deerfield, a school that has prided itself on its ability to prosper equally across the board since coeducation, this bias appears inadvertently, though it is still evident if one searches for it.

On an international level, men's sports have simply been more watched, better promoted, and more financially lucrative, as well as more popular than women's sports for a long time. Though today the western world boasts the WNBA and the LPGA, along with a few other women's leagues which have been popping up, these clubs don't receive nearly the same amount of funding, advertising, or star power that so permeates the world of professional men's athletics.

Deerfield athletics and their tradition of excellence are not so different from the larger worldwide perspective on women's athletics. Never overlooked though never over-celebrated either, girls' sports at Deerfield have been exceedingly strong since their establishment with coeducation, thus following Helen Boyden's legacy as a strong female presence here. Deerfield girls have had numerous New England Championship teams, along with countless All-Stars and All Americans as well as many women who go on as collegiate athletes. Don't get me wrong, I watch as much football and hockey as the next person, but I do find the entire enigma surrounding the development or more accurately, stunted development, of respect given to women's sports a bit puzzling. There is nothing that can be done about this until the national popularity and financial backing of women's sports picks up and attains the status of the men's sports that we, as fans, writers, annalists, gurus, and others, so worship. Only then will the same level of admiration seep downward through the varying levels of women's competition.

The issue of men's superiority over women has long been argued in every possible aspect in which males and females coexist, and in sports, most of the rows remain the same. Until the day comes when there are sell-outs at a WNBA game, or the WNHL (and a weekly primetime Monday night NWFL game, just to make John Madden roll in his grave!) is established, we aren't quite "there"yet as a gender equality-based sports viewing public. Forget spectating and sports in general and move to the big picture-we haven't quite made it to that place where we can honestly say that men and women are on equal ground, and that is the issue, in Deerfield sports or any place else.