A new year is upon us. It’s a time for resolutions.
But instead of picking something like exercising more or eating more vegetables, how about something more attainable and meaningful this year.
I’ve got a suggestion — stop using “Lady” as a qualifier for the mascot of your girls athletic team.
It’s antiquated, belittling and completely superfluous.
And the odd thing about this is the term “Lady” is most often used by the girls teams themselves or their supporters.
They’ve been doing it so long I don’t think they realize how awful it is.
So let’s review.
Spin the clock back about 50-60 years. Back then, if you went on a high school campus, you’d likely just find boys athletic teams.
The schools adopted mascots for these boys teams. Usually, it was something fierce or intimidating, like Tigers or Wildcats.
But then girls teams began to form. But not everyone was comfortable with girls adopting a mascot that was so menacing.
You remember in the movie “A League of Their Own” when they made the women play baseball in skirts? It was that kind of thinking.
People wanted a nickname that was softer, more demure. So, Lady Tigers or Lady Wildcats felt like a better fit.
But those days are long over.
I’ve covering high school sports for nearly three decades, and I can personally attest that girls athletic teams are every bit as competitive, tenacious and athletic as the boys teams.
So there’s no need to soften up the nickname for them.
But, you say, using “Lady” helps to identify the girls team from the boys team.
OK fine. But then why do the boys get first rights to the nickname? Why do the boys get to be called the Bulldogs, while the girls are the Lady Bulldogs?
Why shouldn’t the girls be called the Bulldogs, and the boys called the Gentlemen Bulldogs?
Because “Gentlemen Bulldogs” sounds silly, you say? Guess what? So does “Lady Bulldogs.” We’ve just been saying it so long we’ve forgotten how silly it is.
And by attaching the “Lady” qualifier to the nickname, we are unwittingly relegating the girls teams to second-class status.
It also seems silly to have Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs when there are male and female bulldogs.
How do I know this? Because there are bulldogs. It’s a biological thing.
I’ve even seen “Lady” attached to nicknames that have no inherent gender, like Storm or Thunder. What exactly is a Lady Thunder?
But then there nicknames that are historically or inherently male. These nicknames generally have “man” or “boy” in them.
This is where things get tricky.
Last summer, the students at South Eugene High School decided to change its school’s nickname from the Axemen to just the Axe.
I thought that was a reasonable solution, and the nickname Axe sounded pretty cool to me.
But some alums were not so comfortable with discarding tradition. The Axemen, after all, had been the Axemen for a long time.
Some argued the Axemen moniker referred to the job, and not the guy, and that there could be female Axemen.
It’s like ninth graders, both male and female, are called freshmen. Or how male and female athletes can display sportsmanship, even though there’s that three-letter word in the middle.
It’s a solid argument. But then I thought about it more.
What if we spun the perspective a little bit.
Imagine there was an all-girls school established 100 years ago in our great state. And the school decided that its athlete teams would be called the Pinkladys as a salute to the state’s rich apple-growing industry and one particular type of apple.
After many years of success, the Pinkladys decided to open their enrollment to both genders.
Now, the boys teams would also be called the Pinkladys.
It would be easy to understand why the boys might advocate for a change to a more neutral-gendered mascot.
And even though it would pointed out that Pinklady doesn’t refer to a woman, but to an apple, it would be unlikely to dissuade the guys.
Now, you see what it’s like for girls teams to adopt a mascot that was established before there were any girls teams, like Axemen or Bowmen or Fishermen or Plainsmen.
I’m not advocating for a change of these nicknames. But it is a discussion worth having.
In the meantime, stop using “Lady” nicknames.
Tim Martinez is the assistant sports editor/prep editor for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4538, tim.martinez@columbian.com or follow his Twitter handle @360TMart.
