The Only Winning Move is Not to Play

An Iowa high-school girl becomes the first to win a state tournament wrestling match - by default:

DES MOINES, Iowa - After a standout season in which he went 35-4, Joel Northrup had every reason to dream of winning an Iowa wrestling championship this year, but he gave it all up before his first state tournament match Thursday.

Northrup, a home-schooled sophomore who competes for Linn-Mar High School, said his religious beliefs wouldn't allow him to wrestle Cassy Herkelman, a pony-tailed freshman from Cedar Falls who is one of the first two girls to qualify for the tournament in its 85-year history.

Northrup issued a statement [...] through his school expressing his "tremendous" respect for what Herkelman and Ottumwa sophomore Megan Black achieved this season, but he said didn't feel he had a choice.

"Wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times," Northrup said in a statement released by his high school. "As a matter of conscience and my faith I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most other high school sports in Iowa."

Sigh. What a waste.

This sure isn't about respect for women. In fact it is intensely disrespectful to this female wrestler, and to women in general, to screw her out of a competitive game that she chose to pursue, against massive cultural pressure, because in this guy's personal opinion - pardon me, his faith - they are too frail and dainty to be subjected to the indignity of participating in a 'combative' sport.

Personally, I think the kid was just scared shitless of getting beat by a girl and having all of his friends call him a fag; which perfectly highlights the misandry inherent in this particular bit of misogynist claptrap. Way to find a way to frame your threatened masculinity as a misogynist put-down disguised as 'concern for women'. I would almost be impressed, if I weren't busy laughing my ass off.

I mean, it really isn't fair; the guy was put in what he felt was an impossible situation by his own ingrained sexist attitude. This was the only way he could figure out of handling it gracefully; and that makes me so, so sad for him. Cassy gets cheated of what could have been her moment of glory, win or lose; and Joel comes out of it looking like a jerk and a coward - which he kind of is, but hell, as 16 I was kind of a jerk and a coward too. (Remind me to tell you some time about how I completely alienated every female friend I had in 10th grade with a single sentence.) It's hardly his fault that his asshole parents and his asshole religion and his asshole society have taught him such a warped way of looking at his fellow human beings. He probably didn't even think about how this choice reinforces the attitudes that women are inferior, and real men do not lower themselves to competing with them. I doubt the thought even occurred to him, despite its being implicit in practically every word he says.

And, as the perfect coda, this attached votey:

Should girls be allowed to wrestle boys?

Well that just about says it all, don't it?