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Pom Poms, or Balls?
Nov. 2nd, 2011 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bookgazingIn October the Scholastic blog team created a fantasy American football team out of fictional characters. While I may not be a sporty girl right now, I love to watch games and read about sports. I was interested to see who they’d draft, because I’m a girl and I like sports.
Let’s see, there’s Peter Pevensie, Legolas, Oliver Wood, ooo Katniss...
...oh, that should be just Katniss, just the one female team member...
...oh.
I understand that the gender balance of Scholastic’s fictional sports team isn’t a huge deal. We have bigger things to talk about right? Still, weird feelings, I haz them. To me Katniss’ inclusion looks like tokenism to fend off calls that S&S think sports are just for boys. It’s equally possible that Katniss was put in to provide a pro-active example of mixed sports play, but that’s not how the team selection reads to me. Two or more female characters in that team would have looked like a statement on equality. Putting one female character in the team and including a cheer squad full of female characters, who aren’t given their individual names in this post, feels like a crappy approach frankly1.
It shouldn’t be hard to create a sports team, full of fictional YA characters, that contains more than one girl and I thought it would be really fun to prove just how easy it is by making my very own fictional fantasy sports team. I’m British and know nothing about American football, but I do follow a local team in an exciting sport called speedway. Speedway is the daring motor sport where two teams of seven riders ride motorbikes with no brakes, in a series of competitive heats! I’m pretty sure I know some fictional ladies who can handle that kind of excitement.
( Meet the Team )
I would absolutely love it if anyone else wanted to create their own female (or mixed)team for any sport, full of fictional characters and leave their team picks in the comments. You can even name your team. I think I'll call mine the Literary Legends (alliteration - key in sports team naming). What sport will your characters play?
1 And no I’m not hating on cheerleaders, I applaud anyone with that much gymnastic ability, but when all the cheerleaders are female and one of the football team is female it’s an unoriginal way of approaching the world we live in and does unfortunately reinforce stereotypes.
Let’s see, there’s Peter Pevensie, Legolas, Oliver Wood, ooo Katniss...
...oh, that should be just Katniss, just the one female team member...
...oh.
I understand that the gender balance of Scholastic’s fictional sports team isn’t a huge deal. We have bigger things to talk about right? Still, weird feelings, I haz them. To me Katniss’ inclusion looks like tokenism to fend off calls that S&S think sports are just for boys. It’s equally possible that Katniss was put in to provide a pro-active example of mixed sports play, but that’s not how the team selection reads to me. Two or more female characters in that team would have looked like a statement on equality. Putting one female character in the team and including a cheer squad full of female characters, who aren’t given their individual names in this post, feels like a crappy approach frankly1.
It shouldn’t be hard to create a sports team, full of fictional YA characters, that contains more than one girl and I thought it would be really fun to prove just how easy it is by making my very own fictional fantasy sports team. I’m British and know nothing about American football, but I do follow a local team in an exciting sport called speedway. Speedway is the daring motor sport where two teams of seven riders ride motorbikes with no brakes, in a series of competitive heats! I’m pretty sure I know some fictional ladies who can handle that kind of excitement.
( Meet the Team )
I would absolutely love it if anyone else wanted to create their own female (or mixed)team for any sport, full of fictional characters and leave their team picks in the comments. You can even name your team. I think I'll call mine the Literary Legends (alliteration - key in sports team naming). What sport will your characters play?
1 And no I’m not hating on cheerleaders, I applaud anyone with that much gymnastic ability, but when all the cheerleaders are female and one of the football team is female it’s an unoriginal way of approaching the world we live in and does unfortunately reinforce stereotypes.
