Fighting Masculinity Fighters

In class, we have talked a lot about feminism and masculinity. The number of stereotypes for feminism and masculinity can make a list longer than Santa's naughty and nice list. And as long as there are stereotypes, there will be people determined to fight them. I have an awesome example of this. When I was in 8th grade, about to be a freshman in high school, I was informed of a meeting for the freshman high school football team. I was ecstatic. When i got to the cafeteria (the place we were all to meet), i noticed something that I wasn't expecting. Two girls were at the meeting. Even being as young as I was, I could tell what the girls were doing there. They wanted so bad for the football coach to tell them they couldn't play because of their gender. They asked questions that almost forced the coaches to address gender, but somehow they diverted them all. The coaches did not care whether or not they were girls, he just wanted players. No matter how bad these girls searched for sexism to fight against in this football meeting, they couldn't find any. They never showed up to a practice.

This act of tolerance definitely gave me hope for humanity in one way, yet in another way, it made me wince. The coaches were so accepting of everyone there that it made almost all of us comfortable. They made us feel welcome, including the females, no matter how much they were expecting otherwise. What brings my optimism down about this story is the fact that the two extreme feminists that barged in there expecting to make some sort of scene. They wanted a "victory" against men, in which they didn't receive. The world is moving forward in my opinion, I think people's expectations need to reflect that a little more.