Girlfight!

Evidently a short, harmless clip of female fisticuffs has everyone up in arms! No, not the Michelle Rodriguez movie (which I had no clue existed until this very post). Some 8 year old Sheila from Down Under who followed her kickboxing parents footsteps into a ring against a similarly trained 7 year old opponent. The fight was featured on a Today show clip which decried the danger of letting girls play contact sports.

As Mike Adamick writes in Jezebel, it is particularly ironic that this piece which panders to the Victorian "sugar & spice and everything nice" notion of girls is sharing airtime with the US Women's Soccer team's impressive run to its 3rd Women's World Cup Final (this being the 6th overall final in history). How belittling? Especially, considering the Women's Team has never placed lower than 3rd place, while the US Men's team has never placed higher than 3rd in any of their Cups.

I can understand why Matt Lauer and Ann Curry would not want to put their children (not just their daughters) into a boxing ring at such a young age. I myself cringe any time my wife goes to a non-competitive kickboxing-based workout class. I'm no fighter. From the looks and sounds of them, neither are Lauer or Curry. But that aversion need not, and specifically from high profile public figures should not be, directed only at girls.