“Is Softball Sexist?”

The conventional wisdom is that baseball is for boys and men, and softball is for girls and women. But women have been playing baseball since long before they had the right to vote. As the national pastime went professional, women were forced out of it — and into softball. Title IX, the 1972 federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education, also protects equal access to and funding of sports for boys and girls at the school level, and girls have been fighting to play baseball — with lawsuits, if necessary — since the 1970s. But equal access is often interpreted to mean not baseball, but softball.

In a New York Times op-ed last week, Emma Span made the case that “softball and baseball are not, in fact, ‘separate but equal’ but entirely different sports.” As a former little leaguer who gave up baseball when the only option left was school-sponsored teams, I am inclined to agree. [NYT]