Talented female athletes strive to even the score

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

Sanoe Aina tasted celebrity status last year as the first girl to appear in a Little League World Series championship game. Advertiser library photo • 2002

As much as the Sorenstams and Wies of the world serve as inspirations to girls, the battle of the sexes hasn't changed all that much since our own fathers were picking up their baseball gloves and our own mothers were picking up Barbie dolls.

Some men still kick up a fuss when women are on their turf. Take golf pro Vijay Singh, for instance, who said Sorenstam had "no business" on the course with the PGA and says because women have their own LPGA tournament, they don't need to compete against men. Ever.

Thirty-one years after Title IX was created to even the playing field for women in education and sports, attitudes like his show it takes longer to do away with stereotypes. Even in a society where boys are brought up to be more sensitive to gender bias, boys are still ridiculed when they lose to a girl. And when they win, some are quick to point out shortfalls of the women who lose.

TITCOMB

"I think guys think that girls are weaker," she said. "I think that they just don't want to be beaten at their own game."

The boys and parents who grew up with Titcomb were used to her playing, said her mom, Dale Titcomb.

"But when Richie-Anne got to high school, she had to earn the respect of the parents and other players," she said. "She's considered a park rat. My husband coached when I was pregnant with her, so my husband's former players were like her older brothers."

Richie Titcomb says her dad, known as "Coach Dickie," was as hard on her as he was the boys.

"I enjoy playing with boys way more than girls because of the girls' attitudes," she said. "I'm just used to playing with boys since small-kid time."

She is playing on a summer boys' team, as well as the Pearl City Pearls women's softball team. She also has been lifting weights because she says it makes her feel like she's keeping up with the guys.

"She doesn't want to be special," her mom said. "She's not a girl on the team. She's just another player."

Pointing out the girl

Carissa Moore knows that feeling. She's a surfer who often gets second looks because she's a girl.

At 10 years old, Moore, who has been sponsored by Roxy since she was 7, knows what it's like to compete against boys who tower over her 4-foot-7, 75-pound frame.

"When she's practicing, she gets comments like, 'Who's that girl?'" said her mom, Carol Moore. "Not necessarily that it's bad. They'll say, 'Oh, she's good.' It's not easy to gain respect."

Her dad, Chris Moore, says he has been pleasantly surprised about how well the boys have treated Carissa. Not only have they accepted her, he said, but they've become friends, too.

"I'm sure there's a bit of pressure on them to beat Carissa, but they seem to have risen above all that," he said, "and for 10-year-olds to do that is pretty amazing. Actually, I think she gets a harder time from the older girls when she competes against them."

Carissa is pretty calm about it all. Maybe that's what makes her such a natural at surfing.

She won this year's season for the Hawai'i region Mini-Grom 10-and-under division, flying past competitors such as John-John Florence to become the first girl to win a National Scholastic Surfing Association season title against boys.

"I think they just told me, 'Good job,' " Carissa said of the boys.

Her proud dad says he's trying to teach her not to feel threatened by bigger, older surfers.

"Surfing is a very male-dominated sport because there's intimidation. You have to compete just to perform, just to get the wave."

Carissa, who just finished fifth grade at Punahou School, says she sees room for improvement for girls in surfing. For one thing, she was not all that excited about last year's movie "Blue Crush," which featured girl surfers but had a romantic storyline she thought was weak. She would like to see surfing movies and magazine covers that focus on female surfers for their abilities and not just their looks.

Perhaps that's why her role models are men — Kelly Slater and Sunny Garcia, who have surfing videos and magazine covers devoted to their surfing prowess, something that rarely happens for the women in the sport.

Facing reality

Sanoe Aina has no illusions about what the trailblazing of other female athletes will do for her. At 13, the girl from Waipi'o knows that to get a scholarship for college, she'll have to take the traditional route of playing volleyball or softball instead of hockey or baseball.

Aina, who just finished seventh grade at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Pearl City, has played baseball since she was 5. She tasted celebrity status last year as first baseman and co-captain of the Waipi'o Little League baseball team and was even featured on ESPN. Aina, who stood out with her twin braids, had become the first girl to appear in a Little League World Series championship game and the ninth female player in the tournament's history.

This summer, she's playing on girls' volleyball and softball teams. But by fall, she'll be back with the boys, playing hockey.

"The girls are easier to talk to," she said. "But I play better with boys because I'm more competitive."

She knows hockey will be the closest she'll get to a rough-as-a-man kind of sport because her dad won't let her play tackle football.

She knows what reality is for her to make it as a female athlete. Reality is playing a traditional girls' sport, because that's where the scholarship money is.

"I'll probably try for a scholarship in softball or volleyball," she said. "I want to become a lawyer. I guess I argue a lot."

That could help her cause if she continues her own trailblazing.

Slow pace of change

Leaders in the movement to improve the balance between the sexes say they won't hold their breath for stereotypes to go away.

"The pace of change is glacial, especially when that change means people have to reconsider their approach and their values," said Cynthia Pemberton, author of "More Than a Game," (Northeastern University Press, $17.95) an autobiographical account of her crusade for gender equity. "It's uncomfortable."

When she was assistant athletic director for women's sports at Oregon's Linfield College in 1989, Pemberton had never heard of Title IX, a 1972 change in federal law that made gender bias in classrooms and playing fields illegal. But she saw things at Linfield that were unfair, such as female athletes having to pay for their own uniforms and equipment when male athletes did not. Her fight to make the school comply with the law made national headlines.

"When men are so immature and threatened to share their space with female athletes, it's frustrating. It's disappointing," said Pemberton, now chairwoman of the Department of Education Leadership at Idaho State University.

Pemberton likes to look at the bright side, and she sees it as this: There has been progress in leveling the playing field, even though there's still work to be done.

What she tells her students is this: Picture Congress now, and picture Congress in 1972. If a bunch of affluent white men passed Title IX in 1972, she says, just think how much more forward-thinking people could be now.

Reach Tanya Bricking at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.