Appalachian State's Intramural Sexism Problem

I feel obligated to start with a disclaimer: I do not nor have I ever played sports. Besides a brief stint in kindergarten where I "played soccer" with a bunch of other five year olds, I have gone my life without soccer, football, tennis, and everything in between. Maybe it's because of my sedentary lifestyle that I just don't get the decision to so heavily segregate the genders in sports. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind there being separate teams for separate people. With so many people on the planet Earth, there's bound to be a large variation of skill levels. My problem lies with the dividing line. Rather than being divided into groups based on skill, the line has been drawn between men and women, presumably for the same reason that any gender divide is created: ignorance and a stubborn adherence to archaic ideals.

Of course, Appalachian State is more progressive than that. Rather than give in to the outmoded idea that women and men need to play on separate teams, Appalachian State has a coed soccer team! Indeed, no matter what gender you are, you can play intramural soccer. And if you're a girl, you can score TWO points when you score a goal as opposed to just one!

That's right. According to the Soccer Rules for Intramural Sports, "a goal scored by a female counts 2 points" whereas a man's goal only counts one. This is what we in the industry call "bullshit sexist nonsense from the 1950s."

This issue was brought to my attention by Kate Rhudy, a sophomore at Appalachian State and a member of an intramural soccer team. Several days ago, Rhudy made a Facebook post, condemning the sexism of the rule. Since then, she has gone to the school's Title IX representative and is making a rather large effort to get this rule, among similarly sexist rules in other sports, changed.

I have enough faith in my audience (you are, after all, spending time reading something) to know that I don't need to hammer in the whole "sexism is bad" spiel for you to understand that this rule is really fucking stupid. That being said, I would still like to address a much less discussed (and possibly much worse) issue that continues to pervade society (and Appalachian State) today. When Rhudy took her issue to the Assistant Director of Intramural Sports, she was told rather dismissively that "there just simply has not been enough evidence in the past to support a rule change." This is a lovely example of what we like to call "institutionalized sexism." Fairly self-explanatory, this is when institutions (mainly made up of men) enact rules, regulations, and laws that discriminate against and limit women.

The whole song and dance of "well, it's just the way we've always done it" is a load of crap and it's a way for people to hide sexism in the guise of tradition. Just because something has been done for a really long time does not justify it. But this seems to always be the case for keeping women out of activities typically associated with masculinity. This, coupled with half-assed science about women being physically inferior to men. Certainly, a man at his physical peak and a woman at her physical peak will expose a disparity, but we are America and I would hazard a guess that there are very few men at their peak. 

This in mind, it's fair to assume that throwing women and men together into an activity could yield a lot of instances where the former out-performs the latter. Hell, let's stop assuming entirely. Just a couple of weeks ago, Sabine Lisicki set the record for fastest recorded serve in women's tennis. It also happened to be faster than any serve Roger Federer has hit all season. Admittedly, it still hasn't beaten the record for fastest serve overall, but that's not really the point. Two incredibly talented athletes were placed side by side and the female displayed the most physical prowess. 

I don't know if Roger Federer is any better than Sabine Lisicki at tennis and I don't really care. What I do care about is that this anecdote illustrates a fundamental point: That women and men can be competitive without giving the former some sort of edge. 

Why Appalachian State has not caught up to the 21st century is beyond me. We have a female chancellor, a fairly liberal student body, and a reputation for being a bunch of dirty communist hippies. And yet we still can't grasp the possibility that men and women can be evenly matched in a physical activity. Despite years of discussion on the issue. Despite women's dedication and sacrifice. Despite every show of female prowess in a physical setting. 

It's worth noting that, beyond logical fallacies, the continued portrayal of women as the "weaker sex" is causing a lot of harm. In a society that already erodes female confidence in the boardroom, telling women that they can't even kick a ball as well as men really can't be good for anything. Blatant sexism aside, it perpetuates that nasty whisper in every woman's ear that she's not as good as a man and that she never will be. It's that voice that oozes out of every condescending "honey," "sweetie," and "dear." It's not a subconscious voice but an amalgamation of external declarations that forms a message of inferiority and gnaws at the psyche.

Let's silence the voice. It won't be an easy battle and it certainly won't happen over night. But we can start with the little things. If men get 1 point per scored goal, so should women. It's as simple as that.

Please Stop Raping People

I'm fucking baffled that I even have to address this situation, but here it goes. After a string of reported sexual assaults on Appalachian State's campus over the course of just the past three weeks, it's becoming clear that people do not know the definition of the word "consent." This is strange to me considering the fact that it is so easily Googled and, thereby, defined.

But, I understand; we are a lazy culture after all. Let me relieve some of the burden and define it for you:

IT'S WHEN THEY SAY FUCKING YES.

I don't care if they are naked on your bed reciting Pablo Neruda to your crotch, if they say anything that contrasts with the word "yes," do not fucking touch them in a sexual manner. Don't fucking rape people. Goddamit, is this a hard fucking concept?

Look, I know people can be confusing. Guess what? Tough. Don't fucking rape people.

I know being drunk inhibits your decision making process. Don't fucking rape people.

I know people can occasionally wear incredibly revealing clothing. Don't fucking rape people.

If this whole idea was foreign to you and I've presented you with all new information, welcome to being a fucking decent human. If this all makes complete sense, congratulations on having a modicum of morality.

We need to stop trotting out the same bullshit about rape prevention every goddamn time some asshole gets handsy/rapey. Rape prevention should start with the rapist, not the victim. I know it seems much more appealing to just shrug and say "Well, it happens!" but I'd like to imagine we've evolved past the point of letting inevitability override our decisions.

Yes, you should still carry around self defense and be wary of strange people on the street, but you also shouldn't have to feel like you're walking through a fucking jungle of rapist assholes every time you go to the store. I apologize to everyone affected for our society's lack of competence in this matter. I'll try and do the job they should have been doing this whole time:

DON'T FUCKING RAPE PEOPLE.

The Nude Leak of 2014: Stop Calling the Pictures Scandalous

After a way-too-long summer hiatus, I'm happy to announce that The Daily Wit is back and ready to impart its infinite font of wisdom on the eager masses (you). And what better time to return to the blogging scene than now? What, with unrest in Ferguson, unrest in Ukraine, and, well, unrest in Iraq, it's almost too easy to be a blogger. I have so many outlets available for my educated (read: cursory) opinions. That said, I'm not going to talk about those issues today. This isn't because they aren't important or timely, or interesting. Mainly, it's just a lot of work that I don't want to do because other, more informed people than I have done it better. (see: above links)

No, instead I'm going to focus on something a little closer to home but no less worthy of discussion. I imagine, if you have a working internet connection, you've been made privy to the most recent celebrity nude leak. Naked pictures of our favorite tabloid sweethearts isn't exactly an unprecedented occurrence and typically these sorts of ordeals can be handled in an awkward thirty second CNN sound bite in which the hosts mispronounce some names and show a heavily blurred picture for God knows what reason. But this time was different. Set aside the fact that the leak contained some very high profile names (Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst). This leak exposed a complicated system of hackers who evidently run an underground nude picture trading ring and have done so for years.

While you're busy washing the ick off and plastering post-it notes on your webcam, allow me to get to heart of this issue. What makes this recent invasion of privacy so relevant is that it is exactly that: an invasion of privacy. This isn't a fucking scandal. (Looking at you, TMZ) It was a scandal when Anthony Weiner dangled his namesake in front of the camera for a woman who wasn't his wife. It was a scandal when we found out that the NSA was spying on us while we scrolled through pictures of our friend's hot sister on Facebook. It was a fucking scandal when Nixon sent his cronies to go snoop around Watergate. Those are scandals because all of the parties involved in them shouldn't have been doing what they were doing. Taking naked pictures of yourself for either a friend, significant other, or yourself (why) is not a goddamn scandal.

Look, I'm not going to tell you that baring your all for the camera connected to a fucking satellite is an intelligent move. Because, frankly, it's not. But I'm not going to tell you that doing so is disgusting and unbecoming of someone of your stature. We've been sending naked pictures for years. I'm sure Cleopatra was carving her lady bits into a stone for Mark Antony back in the day. Point being, instead of clutching our collective pearls and fanning ourselves over a couple pictures of boobs, maybe we should be focusing on the fact that there is a complicated system of hackers rifling through our shit and showing it to everyone. This was a violation of privacy for many people and boo-hooing the state of America and "oh lawdy the CHILDREN" is not helping anyone but the hackers.

I'm cynical enough to accept that there's no way we're going to stop this sort of behavior completely. I'm not expecting people to riot in the streets and call for these creepy guys to get strung up by their ankles. I do, however, expect a society that purports to be progressive to have a little more savoir faire in these instances and back off the victim blaming just a bit. We have a common enemy here and it is not boobs. Just something to think on.