Growing up was hard for me, in fact, I still am. My parents were always busy, so naturally they never really had any time for me. So, I decided that I would have to take it up on my own to learn things. Blossoming as a child, I didn't really have any female role models. What I had was a neighborhood full of boys! Out of forty houses in the development, about three of them had daughters my age or above. So, I watched the boys do their thing and learned on my own.
They played basketball and ran a lot! Naturally, I became interested in both of the sports. Growing up was even harder because I was a girl who liked sports. Studies show when over two thousand citizens took a vote to see if girls should play with boys, forty-five percent said no. They said no because of injuries and the fact that girls apparently can't play. Another answer was that girls shouldn't be playing sports, and guess what? People chose that answer too! Yet, boys and girls do gym together. So why does it change when it comes to sports?
Am I the only one who believes that isn't fair? Sure there are injuries, but you can get injured doing nearly anything. Tripping over animals can cause an injury. Want proof, over 87,000 people a year go to the emergency room because they tripped over their pet. On a different subject, boys almost always believe that girls should be on the sidelines cheering and stunting. The truth is cheerleading is more dangerous than football! Approximately 5,300 cheerleaders visit the emergency room during an average football season. I'm not saying that people shouldn't be able to cheer. What I'm trying to say is that people shouldn't be worried about girls doing other sports and getting injured because of those sports.
During my seventh grade year, I discovered something. When three other girls and I would go play basketball with the boys, they acted as if we were nothing. They would hurt us just so we couldn't play with them. They would ignore us and say horrible things to us. I asked around other schools, and they said they had a similar issue. It was the same with other sports, the boys would not be fair. In all honesty, there was only a handful of boys who were being a gentleman. They would treat you as their equal, which I thought was amazing! They would pass the ball to you and congratulate you for trying! In my opinion, we need more people like them in this world.
A fair amount of young men will have at least one impure thought about the opposite sex. That was the case for one girl who loved tackle football. A 12-year old girl played defensive lineman for her team. This girl was Maddy Paige, and this is part of her story.
Paige wasn't allowed to play football after a couple of boys had impure thoughts about her. Which is crazy because she even had a separate locker room from the boys. The separate locker room allowed her to play on the team. But the thoughts only got worse from there, eventually, she had to leave the team. Each day of the season she would come home with a smile up to that point. Since then, Paige and her mother have started a Facebook page called "Let her play". It is a campaign about gender equality. I for one believe that was an amazing idea!
There should be gender equality in everything we as humans do. Anyone and everyone can get hurt it is a natural thing. If girls and/or boys want to play, let them! If they get hurt they get hurt doing what they want to do. Girls also shouldn't be held back by what boys think. Boys shouldn't be held back by girls either.
My point is boy or girl should be able to play whatever sport they want to play. The Equal Rights Amendment states, " Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.". Yet, people out there still judge one another by their sex. I believe if girl or boy would like to play a certain sport, let them! If they get hurt then they get hurt. It happens in normal, everyday life!
Let's stop being sexist, and let everyone do what they want to do. We all have our own rights, so stop trying to break them down one by one. I'm going to end this article with a quote I love. It summarizes part of what I wrote.
"Every man, woman, and child should deserve equal rights. Equal opportunities. Equal dignity, without discrimination."
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Hi! So this has been on my review list for a while and it's about time I got round to it...
This is quite long/ bulky and I think it would work better if you cut out some of the extra words and made it one sentence. Maybe: 'My parents were always busy, so they never had any time for me and I realised if I wanted to learn things, I would have to do it on my own.'Specifics
1.
2. You make some strong points about girls playing sports and the facts about the emergency room are very compelling. It might be even better if you could find a fact about what percentage of injuries are sport related versus something else, such as work.
3. Maybe rather than saying 'were being gentlemen' here it would flow better to say 'were acting like gentlemen'?
4. This line will be more powerful and punchy if you drop the 'in my opinion' from the start and make it a statement: We need more people like them in this world.
5. I think returning to the point about being injured here isn't necessary because actually you've introduced a stronger argument now and I'd like to see you finish that off. It is unfair that a girl should be stopped playing because of something a boy did. What else can you say to show this? Perhaps you can give a parallel example to show how silly it is - something like 'If a thief takes a man's car, we don't tell him he can't drive any more. We put the thief in jail and prevent him from taking that car so if it's so important that boys don't have impure thoughts, why aren't we taking the boy off the field who made an issue of this? Of course, that wouldn't be fair either because as long as the boy didn't act on those impure thoughts then nobody was hurt and nobody should be stopped from playing.'
Overall
This is a great start but I'd love to see you five even further into the argument because this is still an issue. What about all girl's teams which is one solution to the problem - is that the right way to go? Or is that still sexist? What are your thoughts? I was on a girl's rugby team at university and most of the girls loved that we had our own team and weren't competing with or against the boys but some felt it wasn't fair. Some of the girls felt they could play just as well as the boys ad should be allowed to play professionally in an all sex team - that there should still be girls and boys teams but also mixed ones as well.
Anyway just a few things for you to think about. All the best with this!
~Heather
Hi there!
I don't have much to add to this, since I think Dracula, Steggy, and SofieR covered most of my thoughts on this - structure, using your personal experience mostly in the intro to draw us in and facts more in the body, citing your sources in the paper.
I just wanted to bring up another point. You don't have to discuss this, obviously, but given that your whole essay is about inequality in sports, I wanted to mention it.
Your essay focuses on girls not being allowed to play sports or not being allowed to play sports with boys because they might get hurt. Which is a great point, especially since you bring up the fact that merely living with pets can get you hurt, even if your pets never bite or claw you! But what about beyond childhood sports?
There's the obvious tie-in to your point about girls not being allowed to play with boys in that men's and women's collegiate and professional leagues are almost strictly separate. But did you know professional female athletes get paid significantly less than their male counterparts in the same sport? Female sports also typically have significantly less viewership, because of the attitudes you mention in this paper carry over from childhood - "girls shouldn't play sports," "girls will get hurt," as well as things like "it's not as interesting to watch women play sports" or "female athletes aren't as talented."
Now, if your whole point is about childhood sports, feel free to ignore this. However, bringing up some of these points can show this issue extends into adulthood. Plus it gives you more points to discuss as to why we need to end sexism in sports!
This is an amazing article with a great message. What you said is the truth that many people of both genders think that the opposite sex shouldn't do something because they think it would be to difficult for them. The sad truth is that perfect equality may never happen because people all have different minds and it may be almost impossible to change them. This is my first proper review so I hope its good. Also keep on writing your amazing this made me want to check your works to.
Carly here:
This article was really truly amazing!. I liked the topic. "Inequality has no justice" and how despite this phrase, the article still has a glimmer of hope for justice, that WS wonderfully written. When I began to read this work, all I imagined to see was lost hope in justice, lament on why this world is like this, and although there was a little of that, you still managed to pull through hinting hope in equality for ever paragraph you wrote..
I like how you rubbished the idea of women getting injured and as such should not get involved, that was really brave. Kitchen accidents are even more deadly, and yet men are allowed to cook.
thumbs up.
Hey! Sofie here, dropping a review
This is great topic for an essay, and very much needed in the current political climate. It read very well for the most part, but there are some things you can do to make it even better.
"Growing up was hard for me, in fact, I still am."
This opening sentence could use some work. Perhaps, "Growing up was hard for me. In fact IT still IS." That might hit the ear a bit better.
"Studies show when over two thousand citizens took a vote to see if
girls should play with boys, forty-five percent said no. They said no
because of injuries and the fact that girls apparently can't play."
You may want to mention real quick where you got that stat from, or which study your are citing exactly. Where did you read about this study? From a magazine? A newspaper? A website? Which one?
"Am I the only one who believes that isn't fair?"
When you're writing an informative article, such as this one, you should really really REALLY avoid using "I" statements. "I think-" "I believe-" "Am I the only one-" These should all be avoided. You should also refrain from asking direct questions like this to the reader.
Instead, why don't you try : "Many people would agree that this is unfair."
"This girl was Maddy Paige, and this is part of her story."
This whole portion of the essay about Maddy seemed a little out of left field to me. You might want to mention where you got this story. Is this something you read about? Does Maddy go to your school? Tell us real quick where you got this story from.
I feel like the conclusion was strong. Citing the Equal Rights Amendment was a great touch. All in all, it's a solid essay and I hope more girls write about this subject and their experiences because those stories need to be heard. If you just polish up some spots, avoid using "I" and avoid talking to the reader directly, I think you'll be good to go!
Happy Writing!
- Sofie
Hello, Steggy here for a review!
Nice topic and title for an essay. I personally haven't been in many sports (only played soccer for four years) but you do a nice job with bringing in your own life to prove the point of what is going to happen within this essay. As I was reading, I see what you were trying to say but most of the words just kind of went over my head. One thing I suggest is trying to think of the words before writing; basically just re-reading it over so you can fix the smaller mistakes. Another thing I suggest is to be wary is having reliable resources that end in .org or .gov because while there are reliable sites that have .com, it is usually best to have .org or .gov sites since they are run by people who have shown research and whatnot.
When writing an essay, you should first begin to outline your ideas and how they relate back to your topic. With a thesis statement, you should begin to grab the reader's attention with something that grabs the attention of the reader. You could begin with some statistics that show what you are going to write about and since you are writing about inequality with sports, you could write something like 3 out of 4 women experience inequality in sports or something similar. From there, if the reader is hooked, you can begin the thesis statement which deals with what side you are on.
I'm going to take what I find in each paragraph and try to show what I think should be edited and what I like.
What I like about this paragraph is how you show your frustration with growing up with only boys in your neighborhood and how your parents weren't really there because they worked most of the time. I believe that there are some people out there that might even agree to what you are saying there.
Within this chunk, there really isn't a hook for the reader to grab onto, which is fine! You could easily like I said before, slide in some study before then going into how that relates to your life or something. One thing I suggest you be wary of is not to use I throughout your essay but only in the beginning because when you do use it a lot, it shows that the essay is more self-important than actually focusing on your ideas about inequality. Blossoming as a child, I didn't really have any female role models. What I had was a neighborhood full of boys! this sentence doesn't quite feel right within your beginning of this essay mainly because while yes it does show you didn't have any female rights as growing up but instead just kind of throws off the point you are trying to prove.
So, I watched the boys do their thing and learned on my own be careful about beginning sentences with 'so'. To me, it doesn't bring out the main point of the sentence. Best stated in here, most people don't find it that big of a deal with talking, however, it does show that when writing it just seems lazy, for a better lack of word.
From just reading the first paragraph, I think you should try to rewrite a thesis and a hook within that chunk. Like I said before, you want to hook the reader into reading your thoughts, not to drive them away with your words.
In this paragraph, I think what I like is you end this with a question so it can make the reader think which would then make this your thesis statement. However, what study shows that? You need a resource to your proof or it is just a study without meaning. From this, your wording for how the people responded seems a bit, well, weak. Mainly because you show only a small percentage of people who voted but not the other half. One thing to be aware of it try not to show questions within the essay because often times they are very tiresome to read and usually the reader can answer them themselves (example, 'another answer was the girls shouldn't be playing sports and guess what?').
Throughout this essay in some places, there seems to be more of an 'ask and don't tell' type of thing. Basically, you are asking the reader for their opinion before telling them yours. Most of the time, essays just follow the 'don't ask; tell' writing where they tell them what they think without asking what the reader thinks. This happens often because the writer wants to prove their point by asking the reader what they think but it just gets, like I said, tiresome for the reader to put in their thoughts.
I suggest don't start off with introducing another person's story like this mainly because it doesn't bring a point for the reader to wanting to read it. Maybe just slide into the story and how it relates back to your topic.
Don't include 'my point' in any essay writing because that is just the same as saying 'What I'm trying to say is'. The reader wants to know what you are trying to prove, not what you are trying to say. Also be careful not to include contractions within the essay because this will make the essay more of a non-clean paper.
Some links that might help you later with essay writing:
Do's and Don't's of Essay Writing
Five Things Not To Do In An Essay
Strategies for Essay Writing
Overall, this was a good topic for an essay. Most people overlook the whole idea of inequality in sports because it happens behind closed doors and whatnot. You do seem to prove your point that inequality should not happen as much but I believe that it will continue to happen, even if we try not to.
If you have any questions, let me know!
Steggy
Hey there, VegasLights.
Growing up was hard for me, in fact, I still am.
This first line needs a bit of work. The subject of this sentence is the difficulty of growing up, so really, the 'I still am' ought to say 'it still is', talking about the difficulty. Maybe reword it to something like, 'growing up was hard for me, in fact, I'm still growing...' That line aside, I liked your introduction. The backstory served its purpose well and was the right size.
Want proof, over 87,000 people a year go to the emergency room because they tripped over their pet.
It's excellent that you have numbers to back up your claim, which is a very strong claim. Just make sure you mention where it came from, to add legitimacy.
But the thoughts only got worse from there, eventually, she had to leave the team.
You haven't explained why she had to leave the team. Try not to use the 'one thing led to another' stance. This area wasn't as strong as your stats about the injuries, simply because it doesn't have much proof to back it up.
" Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.".
Yes! Brilliant addition. You made your point really well here. I also loved the quote you ended with. It was a conclusion to this 'essay' by itself. You brought up some excellent points in this and I appreciate your views. The thing I would say to work on is making sure you have lots of evidence. Otherwise, well done.