Throw Like a Girl, Cheer Like a Boy. Robyn Ryle

Hormone and Behavior 26, no. 4 (1992): 486–504; Tania Ferreira de Oliveria, Maria Gouveia, and Rui F. Oliveria, “Testosterone Responsiveness to Winning and Losing Experiences in Female Soccer Players,” Psychoneuroendocrinology 34, no. 7 (2009): 1056–64.

      30.

      Schultz, Qualifying Times, 107.

      31.

      Padawer, “The Humiliating Practice.”

      32.

      Nir Eynon et al., “Physiological Variables and Mitochondrial-Related Genotypes of an Athlete Who Excels in Both Short And Long-Distance Running,” Mitochondrian 11, no. 5 (2011): 774–77; Nir Eynon et al., “The Champions’ Mitochondria: Is It Genetically Determined? A review on mitochondrial DNA and elite athletic performance,” Physiological Genomics 43, no. 13 (2011), 789–98.

      33.

      Anna Katherine Clemmons, “7 Feet 7 and 360 Pounds with Bigger Feet Than Shaq’s,” New York Times, January 9, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/sports/ncaabasketball/09asheville.html (accessed February 17, 2019); Chris Mannix, “High Hopes: He’s Three Inches Taller Than Yao Ming, but Is Pro Hoops’ Biggest Player Ready for the NBA?” Sports Illustrated, February 12, 2007, https://www.si.com/vault/2007/02/12/8400340/high-hopes (accessed February 17, 2019).

      34.

      Daniel M. Laby et al., “The Visual Function of Professional Baseball Players,” American Journal of Opthalmology 122, no. 4 (1996): 476–85.

      35.

      Jessica Ryen Doyle, “Michael Phelps Unintentionally Raises Marfan Syndrome Awareness,” Foxnews.com, August 21, 2008, https://www.foxnews.com/story/michael-phelps-unintentionally-raises-marfan-syndrome-awareness (accessed February 17, 2019).

      36.

      Susan Ninan, “Dutee Chand: I Have Found Life and Can Run without Fear Now,” ESPN, April 28, 2018, http://www.espn.com/athletics/story/_/id/23336583/dutee-chand-found-life-run-fear-now (accessed February 18, 2019).

      37.

      Sean Ingle, “Caster Semenya Accuses IAAF of Using Her as a ‘Guinea Pig Experiment,’” Guardian, June 18, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jun/18/caster-semenya-iaaf-athletics-guinea-pig (accessed July 5, 2019).

      38.

      Ibid.

      39.

      Eric Niiler, “Testosterone Ruling for Athletes Fuels Debate over ‘Natural’ Ability,” Wired, May 1, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/testosterone-ruling-for-athletes-fuels-debate-over-natural-ability/ (accessed February 18, 2019).

      Chapter 3

      Throwing Like a Girl

      Are Men Really Better Athletes Than Women?

      Like many boys in the United States, actor John Goodman grew up playing football and baseball. He’s right-handed, so when he was cast to play Babe Ruth in a film about the famous lefty baseball player, Goodman had to learn how to throw with his left hand. It wasn’t easy, and Goodman practiced in private to hide his mechanics, which were embarrassing at first. Though Goodman could throw just fine with his right hand, as a lefty he “threw like a girl” until he mastered the motion with his nondominant hand. Goodman’s story demonstrates what it means to say someone “throws like a girl,” and it has nothing to do with underlying anatomical differences. When someone “throws like a girl, “they simply haven’t learned a certain type of throwing motion. The phrase, along with others such as “run like a girl,” reinforces ideas about inherent biological differences between the athletic abilities of women and men.

      As discussed in previous chapters, the world of sports has long been defined as a masculine domain. For much of the history of sports, women weren’t allowed to participate. Since the passage and implementation of Title IX in the United States, women have marched onto the playing field in impressive numbers. Still, it’s a widely accepted assumption that in most (if not all) sports, men perform better than women. If that’s true, how might we explain it? And could it be that the truth about the athletic abilities of women and men is more complicated than the simple statement that men are better athletes than women?

      Striking Out the Babe, and Throwing Like a Girl

      There’s one event that didn’t get portrayed in the movie about Babe Ruth in which John Goodman starred—the time the Babe got struck out by a woman. Seventeen-year-old pitcher Virne “Jackie” Mitchell became the second woman in history to sign a professional baseball contract in 1931. She was recruited to play for the men’s AA Chattanooga Lookouts, and on April 12, 1931, the Lookouts played an exhibition game against the New York Yankees. In front of a crowd of 4000, Mitchell struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Then she was pulled from the game. Just a few days later, the commissioner of baseball, Kennesaw Mountain Landis, voided Mitchell’s contract. Baseball, Landis said, was “too strenuous for a woman.”^[1]

      Maybe Landis really thought baseball was too strenuous for women, but it’s likely he was also a little disturbed by the idea that a 17-year-old woman could strike out two future Hall of Famers. Virne Mitchell certainly didn’t throw like a girl, or if she did, it didn’t keep her from being a great pitcher. What does it mean to throw like a girl, anyway? Is there something in the chromosomal makeup of girls that dictates their throwing motion? There are no structural differences in the makeup of women and men’s shoulders or arms. The case of Virne Mitchell and many other women demonstrate that not all women “throw like a girl.”

      As with many of the differences in men and women’s athletic abilities, the likely explanation for what people mean by the expression “to throw like a girl” has to do with social factors as much as biology. In this case, throwing like a girl is due to the way girls are socialized, or how they’re taught to be in their bodies. As Iris Marion Young notes,

      Not only is there a typical style of throwing like a girl, but there is a more or less typical style of running like a girl, climbing like a girl, swinging like a girl, hitting like a girl. They have in common first that the whole body is not put into fluid and directed motion, but rather . . . the motion is concentrated in one body part; and . . . tends not to reach, extend, lean, stretch, and follow through in the direction of her intention.^[2]

      In other words, Young is saying that girls and boys are taught to move differently. Girls are taught to be less intentional, and to take up less space with their movement.

      Can You Run and Jump in a Dress?

      Young’s observations are backed up by research on young children in a preschool setting, which revealed observable gender differences in body movement. Girls are first restricted in their movement by what they wear—namely, dresses. It’s not impossible to do things like run and throw and jump in a dress. In some sense, you could argue that dresses and skirts are less restrictive of body movement. The problem is that dresses come with their own set of rules about what should and shouldn’t be done when wearing them. Observations of preschool-age girls as young as five years old show that the girls are already patrolling themselves and each other about how to behave in a dress. Girls pull each other’s dresses down when they ride up as they crawl into and out