Girl flower

I had an unusual experience with sports this weekend. I watched a lot of different things I don't normally watch. I checked out some rugby, a little soccer, even some softball. Something else I watched, a little bit by accident, was women's college lacrosse.
I tuned in thinking it was men's lacrosse, but it turned out to be a women's game. The equipment is different in the women's game, so it was pretty easy to note the difference. Male lacrosse players, for instance, don't wear skirts.
Skirts? Seriously?
Some other women's sports are like this, too. Women wear skirts in field hockey and tennis, among other things. Surely I'm not the only person who thinks this is stupid.
I mean, what year is it? Haven't we gotten past this ridiculousness?
It's bad enough that so many women's sports are "girled" up, with softball using a gigantic bat and super-sized ball, or women's basketball utilizing a smaller ball, as if to suggest women can't play the sport the same way men do.
Certainly some sports aren't that way. Swimmers swim in the same pool or sprinters run around the same track. But women haven't broken free from it completely.
There is a big push in this country for things like pay equality for women, along with other ways for women to be viewed the same as men. But that push has to start with women universally. They have to stop accepting this as OK. Nope, skirts are impractical. They serve no purpose in sports, so we won't wear them. We're not going to use different equipment or have our sport altered in other ways as to make it something women can actually do.
Women can run and jump and compete. Period. The size of the stupid ball shouldn't matter. Wearing a damn skirt should definitely not matter.
And here's why: It's OK to be one thing as a woman for one moment and then be something different. That's generally what men like about women, that they can adapt and change.
Take Ronda Rousey, for example. Most men I know think she's attractive...or hot or sexy or however you want to express it. She's pretty, she looks nice in a dress and she turns more than a few heads when she's looking her best.
Men I know that like her as a fighter like her without qualification. There is no "throws like a girl" with her. We appreciate the fact that she can flat out fight. Not for a girl, for a fighter. In fact, many MMA fans I know like women's fights more because women fight each other with greater intensity than men often do.
And when Ronda is fighting, I enjoy the fight. Whatever it is I enjoy about my favorite male fighters - they're strong, great grapplers, solid strikers, they're aggressive during the fight, they go all in and leave nothing back- that's what I like about Ronda, as well.
And she's intense, focused, fights with some animosity and her work ethic is clear. And that's what I want as a sports fan. I want to enjoy those things about other competitors, that they care, they have will and drive and that I can clearly see their effort.
I get that with Ronda Rousey. I get that with Sue Bird, with Abby Wambach, with Lindsey Vonn. They compete with a relentlessness that I can appreciate and the fact that they are women doesn't alter my perception of what I'm seeing.
Most importantly, while Ronda or any of the others are attractive when not competing, there's no need for them to try to be while they are.
I'm a man. If you're a woman and you want what I have, then you need to start treating yourself the way I do. I don't wear a skirt when I compete and I don't play a sissied-up version of the sports I love.
If you wear a skirt off the field, fine. If you wear one on it, you're allowing yourself to settle for your position in second place. And what kind of competitor would do that?