We live in a small town. News travels fast. Gossip travels faster. Sometimes it’s hard to the tell the difference between the two. I am grateful I raised my kids in the Ohio heartland with a school that has a graduating class average of 120-130 kids. Everyone pretty much knows everyone. You can’t grocery shop without three head nods and a couple “how ya doin?” side bar conversations in the dairy section. If you walk out of the IGA without saying a word to anyone, get the hell out of dodge because you’re doing it all wrong. We don’t live here to be strangers. We live here to be connected.
Speaking of connections, nothing connects us more than Friday night football. It’s where every fall a new group of junior and senior boys get to live out their glory days on the turf, under the Friday night lights, to the cheer and roar of the crowd yelling “Go Blue.” It’s where we high five our neighbors, boo a bad call and cringe when we hear the sound of the helmets clashing during a hard tackle. It’s where we whisper “is he going to be okay?” when a man is down. We cheer when he is up! It’s a battle between our community and others just like us. It’s really a modern-day gladiator event that brings out the best and worst in us.
My son’s class achieved the small-town football dream which they will surely talk about when they are old men. They broke a school record with the most wins in school history, going undefeated 13-0 – losing only to the state champs. A few were offered scholarships to div 2 and 3 schools, my son included, but they soon learned that small town college football doesn’t come with the same glory that high school football does. Playing on Friday night, being cheered on by those who love and know you, is more cathartic, powerful and rewarding than getting your body bruised and damaged on a Saturday morning to an empty stadium, all so you can take a “free” biology course yet still owe 40K upon graduating. It’s a tough transition to the real world where no one knows your name, no one cheers you on (except your parents of course) and no one cares how many yards you rushed for. The reality is that you must start over, find your own way but with strong roots and powerful memories anchoring you from the storms of life, which will surely come your way.
But this story isn’t about football. Really it isn’t. It isn’t even about small towns. It is about the girls who grow up in these small towns – cheering on these boys from the stadium steps. You know these sweet, senior girls. Every year while the September weather is still warm, they dress in white tank tops and paint their stomachs blue with the numbers of our players on their belly. Their shorts might be a little short but clearly not showing any butt…just showing their athletic, youthful legs. Their bellies are exposed with blue and white paint but there is nothing overtly sexual or inappropriate about it. Or is there?
For the past 15 years –this tradition of the girls painting their stomach blue has continued and no one bats an eye. Until now. Until 2019 when the new, middle aged, male Taliban staff come to town. Staff who are telling these small-town girls that it is inappropriate to show their painted bellies. The girls leave the stadium on Friday night feeling less beautiful, less cheerful and feeling like they don’t really belong here after all.
So how do you fight small town, male Taliban attitudes? With a small group of fearless mothers and a blog of course.
Body shaming and double standards towards young females is on the rise. While I am not sure why this is, I first observed it when my daughter was a junior in high school. She wore a skirt that met the dress code standard of hands at your side and skirt touching the fingertips. Yet she was still sent home because a teacher, not the principal, felt it was inappropriate. Interestingly enough, this teacher was a female. Yes, some women really do body shame other women. I am sure you know a few.
My daughter’s legs are long with a short torso, making outfits difficult to fit. They are either viewed as “too short” or down to her knees. I remember feeling disgusted when she was sent home. Not at my daughter, but at the powers to be for lacking common sense and good judgment and for pacifying an older teacher living in a time warp that the majority of us don’t want to live in anymore. The skirt was beautiful, tasteful and cute. She dressed well that morning. She walked out confident but came home with slouched shoulders and an attitude, all while spewing out conspiracy theories about why she was sent home but the daughter of a board member wearing the same skirt two weeks ago was not. The girls re-tested their theory a couple of times and eventually I too became a believer that some kids enjoyed more power and benefits based upon who their daddy was.
My kid had power as well, with a liberal, vocal mother who was one harper valley PTA meeting away from a showdown. But my daughter isn’t a liberal. She isn’t vocal. She isn’t a fighter. Confrontation makes her uneasy. It is not in her nature to ever push back, question or ask why. Instead, she conforms, as kids are taught to do and she stopped wearing beautiful skirts that showed off her athletic, long legs. I doubt she will ever be a tiger for women or minority rights. It’s either in you or it isn’t, and that is okay – because I love her just the way she is. Some of us came out kicking and screaming just by nature. Our differences make the world go around.
We all have things we believe in and fight for but wearing a certain skirt to school wasn’t a battle my daughter wanted to take on. Yet she repeated this phrase often; “I can’t wait to get out of this small town” and part of that came from the backwards, Taliban attitudes that taught our girls – you don’t have the same rights the boys do. Having raised both a boy and a girl – the double standards became very obvious to me. Girls are judged more harshly than boys – everything from their weight, clothes, make-up and friendships. My son’s senior prank was standing naked – from the waist down – facing the school – with his butt exposed – side by side with his buddy. It went viral. We didn’t approve. We can laugh about it now but I was certain he would be expelled and his diploma denied. He got to walk. I am grateful for the grace that was extended to him and his best friend.
Imagine now if one of our daughters tried to pull off that same senior prank. Just imagine the backlash of their bare ass on the front lawn of the school. It wouldn’t be “oh it’s just boys being boys.”
In our district, boys can wear tank tops. Girls cannot. Boys can wear shorts that expose their underwear and hang off their ass. Girls cannot. Our boys can go 13-0 and take a victory picture with their stomachs exposed at the field goal – but the girls in the bleachers in 2019 can no longer paint their stomachs or show any belly as they cheer for their team. The boys can take off their shirts, in the gym, during basketball season, and paint their entire front side but the girls cannot.
“What year is this Marty?”
“I don’t know Doc. I don’t know.”
Listen up rebels…the Taliban double standard will only survive if you let it. It’s time to spill some tea in the harbor. Some battles often seem unimportant at the time but even Marty McFly knew that little changes can make a big difference for the future….
“wait, you don’t understand. If you don’t play, there’s no music. If there’s no music, they don’t dance. If they don’t dance, they don’t kiss and fall in love and I’m history.” – Marty McFly
What advice do I give to the girls of 2019?
Come Friday night, paint your stomach bright blue, wear your tank tops high, wear your shorts and skirts at the length you choose, expose your youthful long legs and your beautiful, blue belly because these days will come and go in a blink. No generation made any progress without a little rebellion once in awhile.
The small-town Taliban will not survive or thrive but you will. In the not so distant future, your body will age, your belly will bulge and the cheers of the crowd will fade but you’ll cherish the year you stood together, youthful, colorful stomachs exposed and fought one small fight for your future daughters. The fight to just show a little bit of school spirit without being demonized and degraded for simply being a beautiful, spirited woman.
“hey doc, you’d better back up, we don’t have enough road to get up to 88 mph.”
“Roads? Where we are going, we don’t need roads!”
And we certainly don’t need small town, body shaming Taliban telling us we don’t matter. Because we do. Go Blue!
By Teresa McIntosh-Hall
@copyright
Teresa McIntosh-Hall is a writer, blogger, social worker and political activist who painted her pregnant belly bright orange, like a pumpkin, in 1995, and went to work that way. The Taliban didn’t say a word. Body shaming isn’t cool. Live and let live.
Here is an update…apparently these young ladies were told that girls are held to a different standard and that’s just the way the world works. They were also told that their outfits had to be approved by the athletic director and principal the day before a game.
Rebecca, I am proud of the girls and parents for speaking up. Sometimes you have to speak up no matter how uncomfortable it might be. Good luck!