Right now, in Iraq there are American troops who are risking their lives for their country. In those lines of troops, men and women stand side by side, fighting and dying for this country. While this is going on, at home there are women who are unable to stand side by side with men and play a sport. This is unjust: women being allowed to die for their country side by side with men, but unable to play side by side with men in sports events. Having equal rights in selective places isn’t enough: everyone is supposed to have equal rights everywhere, so girls should be allowed to play on boy’s sports teams.

Some people do not want girls to play on boys sports teams, because they feel that if the girls play with the boys, they will get hurt. This hasn’t been proven, because girls have not been given the chance to play with boys. Also, girls get hurt anyway, even when they are playing with just girls. There have been studies conducted in military basic training, in one large study it was shown that, women are both more frequently injured, and are tougher. “It takes a bigger injury to knock them out of the service. The men, by comparison, are wimps; they leave with more minor ailments” (Sokolove 76), thus showing that the women won’t be afraid to go play with the boys, even if it means getting knocked around a bit.

There are also benefits to having girls and boys on the same team, besides the fun aspect. Both the girls and boys learn lessons from it. The girls learn to be more competitive, and the boys learn to be more cooperative (Tharp 52). Also, when girls play with boys, they usually learn a lot. Gen King, a college athlete, said that, “Playing seven years with boys ‘sharpened my skills’” (52). If she hadn’t played with the boys and improved her skills, she might not have gotten to the college level and it is probably the same for many other female athletes. At the moment boys and girls are playing sports on separate teams. One sports team is less expensive than two. Boys and girls playing together on teams would be less expensive, because it would be one coed team instead of two separate teams.

When girls go out for a girl’s team, they don’t get cut because of anything except for not having adequate skills. This should be the same when going out for a boy’s team.
The decision for teams shouldn’t be sex; it should be skill. Any girl should be allowed on any team if she has the necessary skills. There are girls at the moment who don’t find enough competition playing with girls, so they should have no problem transferring to a boy’s league. Also, if girls received the same training as boys, there would be no question of their capability in playing with the boys, because they would have the same skills, because they had the same training, because everyone is meant to have equal rights.

It isn’t right that girls aren’t allowed to play with boys; everyone is supposed to have equal rights. For years there were women who worked so hard to achieve equality, which we now supposedly have, yet we can’t even play on sports teams with men. What is going on is technically not even allowed in schools: “Title IX requires schools to take a series of steps to ensure equal opportunities for all student athletes” (Richey 2). After 36 years of being in action, you would think that by now there would be equality, but apparently not. And it definitely doesn’t have to do with a lack of interest from the girls, because when Title IX first came about, there were only about 300,000 girls participating in high-school sports, where as now there are about three million (Sokolove 60). So I’m sure that there would be even more willing to play if they could play with the boys.

Women have made so much progress in recent years. If women continue to progress, they could accomplish many more great things. Since they are supposed to have equal rights, this would be just another step to accomplish this so-called equality.