While following the Joel Northrup story (the young Iowa wrestler who made national news by refusing to wrestle a female), a friend pointed me to an article regarding the story and especially a comment that followed the story. That comment follows below. The third paragraph is particulary noteworthy and compelling.
JT Nunley says:
February 20th, 2011at 7:52 pm
Those responses along the line of: “He’s just too afraid she would have kicked his behind” display a conspicuous ignorance about scholastic wrestling, and obviously made by people who are not students of the sport. Linn-Mar is THE standard of high school wrestling in the state of Iowa, and Iowa is the standard for the entire country. Linn-Mar’s wrestling program consistantly produces the best high school wrestlers. I’m a wrestling coach in California, and I follow Linn-Mar. In one year they produced two wrestlers who were 4 time Iowa State wrestling champions. Two students from a single high school wrestling program, who were state champions every year of high school. And in 2010, two wrestlers dominated their weight class at the collegiate level, winning the NCAA Championships. Both of them were products of Linn-Mar high school.
As a team, our own wrestlers decided not to ever wrestle girls, for the simple reason that they understand that they are never willing to physically combat a young woman, and to commit the kind of legal battery on her, that they are willing to inflict upon a young man, when they are on the mat.
The Israeli army did extensive experiments in the 1960′s and 70′s trying to incorporate women into combat roles along side males, at a time when the survival of Israel was hanging in the balance. But the results were so disastrous, that they were soon abandoned. They found that men would routinely risk themselves and the units safety, and even abandon mission completion, whenever a female member of their combat unit was captured, or even injured. This protective role seemed to be so hardwired into these young men, that it was deemed impossible to “train out” of them. The Israelis determined that a boy would have to be trained from birth to disregard a foundational understanding (call it God given, or evolved) concerning the importance of women, as THE essential element in the continuum of human existence. To try and remove that understanding from the thought process of young men would result, I feel, in a world not worth occupying.
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