I Sport... Like a Girl

I sometimes wonder why I’m such a glutton for punishment. If experience has taught me anything, I should just stick clear of reading Margaret Wente’s opinion articles in the Globe and Mail. I rarely find myself agreeing with her and more often than not, I find myself enraged after digesting her superficial comments on the issue du jour. Case in point: This weekend, Ms. Wente wrote an article on watching men watching sports and her complete disconnect from the behaviour. 

A few of my favourite lines were:

"Women confirm their value by sharing the most intimate moments of their lives with other women. Men confirm their values by talking with other men about what happens on the field."

and

"And sure, female athletes should be honoured too. But we honour them not because they play like women but because they play like men. (Though not usually as well.)"

My first and most obvious reaction to the article was, "Are you f**cking serious?" As my friends and family can attest (both male and female) I can be ridiculously passionate about sports. I get fiercely defensive of the Edmonton Oilers, win or lose, and have extreme, unwavering opinions about booing the home team when they're playing less than stellar hockey (for the record, I'm against it). I’ve been known to stand on coffee tables screaming at the television set, believing they can hear me through it. I have watched only 5 minutes of the last hockey game Ryan Smyth will ever play (having PVR’ed it) because 5 minutes was enough to have me tearing up and hurting too much to continue.

This passion she describes of men watching sports, which she relegates to the realm of masculinity, is not owned or unique to the male population and assuming so simplifies the complex relationship individuals can have with sports.

But those were just my initial reactions. Having taken some time to think about it, I think I have a bigger problem with the argument.

A couple of weeks ago, Always released this #LikeAGirl commercial:

(Direct Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs)

At some point, we start to associate doing something “like a girl” as being inferior. Relegating the love and passion for sports (whether as a spectator or participant) to the realm of masculinity and men does injustice to the countless women who dedicate their lives to the sport of their choice. And the comparison based solely on gender seems at best, out of date, and at worst, actually harmful to the drive for equality between human beings.

Women can be passionate about sports, but not as passionate as men. Women can play and succeed in hockey, but not like a man can. I struggle with this comparison of men to women and women to men because as individuals, we should be judged on our abilities to strive for and achieve greatness. Women can be passionate about sports. Period. Women can play and succeed in hockey. Period. No qualifier required.

In other arenas we’re trying to build women up – putting more women in leadership roles in Fortune 500 companies, telling girls that they are just as capable of being scientists and video game programmers as boys, indicating that following your dreams, whatever they may be, is not just a masculine or feminine endeavour. Yet some of the language around sport is arguably opposite.

So, until the next time I’m looking for a little punishment…

It's a Just Farm

Last week The Globe and Mail published an article by a woman named Doris Von Tettenborn (found here) in which she describes the experience of packing up her parents farm, auctioning off the machinery, and moving them away from the home they'd lived in since 1958. By nature, I'm attracted to these types of stories, of nostalgia and farm life, but reading her article, I found myself reflecting on my experience on my parents' farm.

Sometime in the next year or so, my parents will be selling their farm. I wouldn't say we've outgrown the farm, but we've grown out of it. My parents no longer have the ability to maintain a farm of its magnitude and my brother and I don't have the desire to take on the task. I often wonder whether my dad wishes one of his children had contracted the farming bug from him, but I know in my heart, he's happy with whatever makes us happy. It's not that any of us dislike the farm; it's just that it doesn't fit our lives anymore. It's a home that has provided us with so much love and it's only fair that we try to find it a family that can provide it with as much love as we did during our time there.

It's a home with many memories and while we haven't had it for nearly as long as Doris' parents have had their farm, a good chunk of my formative adolescence and young adulthood years were spent there. My parents designed and built that home from the ground up, taking into account what they wanted, needed, and desired. Understanding they had two younger kids still to grow-up around them. Understanding some the potential medical realities they were facing. Understanding that this was meant to be a home. We moved in when I was in Grade 7, coming from a temporary house in a small town that was just a transition place from our previous farm.

I experienced Y2K there, just one month after moving in. I made friends there, the first being with the girl basically kitty corner to us (about a mile or so away). Puberty hit me there. I got my driver's license and first car there. I raised cattle there. Had pets come and go there. One of my first boyfriends asked me out in the sun-room of that farm on a cold winter night.

My brother and I grew-up, squabbled, loved each other, and became the man and woman we are today in that house. He fell in love living in that house and now shares its basement with the woman he fell in love with. In one of the scariest moments of my young life, my mother broke her leg on that farm, a field away from us. I found my passion for writing and reading in that house, often staying up all night on the longest night of the year, curled up in front of the fire in the living room, reading until the sun came up, just to say I did.

I started university there and even when I moved to Edmonton for two years of my first degree, I did many an economics assignment in the basement of that house with my math whiz of a father. I used it as a home base when I moved to Toronto for my second degree, literally crying as the plane landed for my first trip home thinking, "I'm so happy to see my family and be at the farm for Christmas." When I moved back from Toronto, I moved home, to the farm, because it was the place to get my bearings from. Even now that I'm living on my own, 40 km from that old farm, I still think of it as home.

But times change. You can't hold on to everything forever and soon, that farm will provide a home to someone else. To another family who may or may not have kids, but are still looking for someplace to make a home out of. It makes me sad gives me a great deal of nostalgia to think about not being able to go out there and listen to the type of silence you can't get in the city - the silence that isn't silent, but is absent of vehicles, sirens, tires on the blacktop and full of wind in the grass and trees, birds, cows, and the odd tractor tilling the earth.

Times of transition are always hard. And while I struggle with the fact that I won’t have a farm to go home to, the fact is that it’s not my life that will be changing dramatically, it’s my parents’. Sure, they don’t spend a ton of time there anymore. Between the house on Vancouver Island, close to their one and only grandson and my sister, and the cottage on Lake Superior near where my mom grew up and where her family still resides, they barely qualify as residents at the farm. Dad is done with winters and I know would happily move to the island for the rest of his retirement. Mom isn’t as sold on island life as he is, but sees the draw, particularly when the ice solidifies on the ground here in Alberta.

But I think between the two of them, there’s a draw, a pull from the farm that is hard to ignore. Dad doesn’t want to sell all of the farm – considering compromises to keep his shop and a couple acres as future prospects. Mom isn’t ready to give up entirely on Alberta with her babies (my brother and I) and a large part of her social network still here. And I get it. It’s home. It’s comfortable, just as homes should be. There’s that piece in my heart that wants them to keep it forever. To keep a sanctuary from the city that we can all go to when we just want to… need to… to be.

But the heart doesn’t understand logic, reality, and rationality. And it doesn’t care. I know in the next year or so that farm will no longer be a piece of the family, but it will always be a piece of the past and of my heart. 

A Beginning

This is the beginning.

It isn’t easy for me to talk about my weight or how I look, or what my internal image of my body is. It’s something I generally keep pretty close to the heart. Which is probably why I’ve struggled. A few years ago, Weight Watchers helped me lose almost 40 pounds and it was awesome. But I was working towards hitting a specific date, and two specific milestones. I was graduating university for the first time (I’ve done it twice now, with a Bachelors and a Master’s degree) and I wanted to look great at the year-end shin-dig. And I did. I look at those pictures and I feel confident. I was also one of the leads in my community’s musical and I wanted to look fantastic on stage. And I did. I look at those pictures and I feel confident.

Then I didn’t have a target. I just had life. I was supposed to create good habits while losing all that weight and it turned out that I hadn't made any good habits at all. I was just working to meet a goal of weight loss. And that’s what it was. Work.

Then I went back to school. Across the country from family and friends. It was the first time I lived with people I didn’t know. It was really the first time I was on my own, and it showed in the choices I made about my health. I gained all the weight I had lost back. I think I hold it better now. Pictures of me before I graduated with my Bachelors look worse than pictures of me now, even though I’m about the same weight. But I notice it. And it’s got to change.

So I’m going to push my comfort limits and talk about it. Make it something people know about so that there’s some sort of accountability to my actions. Make it something that I can reflect on, and remind myself that this isn’t about a specific date, or about a specific event. It’s about living healthy, and being able to run around with my nephew when he comes to visit. Being able to play games with my kids when I have them. Feel confident in whatever room I walk into and feel confident in whatever clothing I step into. Be alive and healthy. 

Specific weight info I’m going to keep to myself. While a part of my goal is weight loss, this isn’t about that. It’s about feeling. It’s about confidence. It’s about health. Also, that’s a super personal thing that I’m just not ready to be completely open about.

So here goes. And don't worry. This blog isn't going to be entirely about this transformation (as you can see from my first two posts). There'll be plenty of random thoughts about random things, from politics, to feminism, to hockey (though most of those updates will be happening on a different blog), to inspiration, to community develop, to pop culture, to whatever!