In a matter of weeks, boys will be cheering on the sidelines with the girls’ pom-poms as the annual Powder-puff Football game approaches.

Originally created in 1972 as a way to get girls more involved in team sports; powder-puff has been a tradition at Pentucket Regional High School for years.  It not only brings the senior girls together, but it also provides fun for the student body to come and view the girl-on-girl action.

Many view girls getting down and dirty on the football field a “good” thing, provoking enthusiasm, school spirit, and giving ladies an equal opportunity to show their football skills.  However, it is much different than that.

If one was to look up the definition of “powder-puff” they would find this: a soft pad for applying powder to the skin, especially the face.  This leaves only an impression of weakness or pettiness rather than fierceness and strength.  Wikipedia labels it: “stereotype image for soft femininity.” And even worse, Urban Dictionary defines it as “football played by a bunch of drunk, hot high school girls on school nights. Getting their clothes ripped off…”

It is entirely unsettling to believe that this is how people view women, trying to be strong and take part in sports, just like guys.  Instead we are looked at as promiscuous bimbos, trying to get “down and dirty” for the attention of horny guys.

Um, no.  Maybe girls just want a chance to have some fun and take part in something they typically can’t.

That in itself is sexist as well.  Although they provide an opportunity for women to play men’s sports, they truly just showcase the overwhelming inequality between the two genders.

The idea that girls are playing and boys are cheering and the strangeness in these swapped roles suggests them to be abnormal. Cheerleaders shouldn’t just be ‘girls’, just like athletes shouldn’t be synonymous for ‘boys’.

And why is it that powder-puff MUST be a non-contact sport?

There is not one powder-puff game that has been contact friendly at Pentucket, or for any other high school for that matter.  Online, Powder-Puff football rules are described as, “following the same set of rules as regular flag football. There is not intentional tackling in Powder Puff football, and any player who is being overly aggressive can be removed from the game.”

Women are perfectly able to tackle each other to the ground just like men.  And in some cases we even want to be able to attack that girl, who’s just looking at us the wrong way.

It is unfair to conclude that because I have estrogen, because I wear makeup, or have long hair, I am therefore considered weak, and incapable of being able to participate in a contact sport.

What is it about having testosterone that makes men somehow stronger than me? More able than me?

Well, girls, it is time to fight back.  Now, I’m not saying to abandon playing this traditional game of some all-American football.  I’m simply asking to raise the question on why it is, the way it is.  Try to push to get this game less sexist and make it contact friendly.

Fight for our right to demolish Triton!  (Mentally and physically)