Post Title IX Musings - The You Throw Like a Girl Edition

I was jostled out of a happy place tonight watching Michigan's hockey team at Yost.  And it wasn't because we lost (rather messily) to Northeastern.  It was because of the jeering of the 30-something guy sitting behind me.  Let me explain.

At hockey games there are two intermissions.    A lot of times there is entertainment during the intermissions to keep the fans engaged - like games or "skill" competitions.  Fans are selected to compete in these games. One common event at Yost in an intermission is the tricycle race.  Two fans are selected to race tricycles to one end of the rink and back.  Tonight's competitors were students - a young man and woman who finished the race fairly closely, although the young man did prevail.  The crowd is usually fairly enthusiastic in cheering the participants on - how awkward it must be to try to propel a bicycle on the ice, after all.

The man behind me heckled the winner. "You beat a girl!"   More than once.  As in, your victory was meaningless because your competition was unworthy.

Seriously?  In 2011?   By a 30-something educated person?    In a for-fun competition with non-athletes?  Involving tricycles?  A girl is unworthy competition?  And it is acceptable to shout this in a crowd?   That the thought even occurred to the heckler in the first place is stunning.  

I'm not talking about weight lifting or professional or college sports, I'm  talking about a recreational game played for fun as an interlude at a sporting event.  And I'm speaking as someone who finished ahead of a heck of a lot of men at the 5K I ran Thursday morning.   Not that I'd thought about my recent race that way before tonight.

And silly me, for thinking in 2011, we had finally moved beyond "you throw like a girl" or "you run like a girl" and assuming that doing either of these two things "like a girl" was synonymous to doing them poorly.

My post-Title IX complacency was jostled tonight by someone younger than I.   And to the heckler in my section, I say  the following:  Please lace up your running shoes, sir, and let's go a few miles.  You can eat my dust.