Throwing Like A Girl Analysis

In James Fallows’ essay “Throwing like a girl” he insinuates that phrases such as “throwing like a girl” have led to the stereotypes that doing things like a girl implies that something is done wrong or is inferior. Fallows’ argues that pitching a ball is a learned skill, due to social conditioning females are less likely to have been given the opportunity to learn despite capabilities. Though many may believe the differences in a male and females' ability to throw is in their anatomy of the shoulder, Fallows argues that there is no documented proof of a physical distinction between genders, he also points out that there are many female professional athletes who could throw faster and harder than the average male. Without there being a physical

Though women have come a long way, I do feel like social conditioning discourages young girls from learning to pitch or participate in any activity that would be deemed masculine. However, I do not feel it is always men that have the condescending tone. Twenty years ago around the time Fallows’ wrote this essay when my sister and I were very young everything we owned was pink, covered in lace and ballerina related, I accepted this in all it’s entirety my sister on the other hand wanted to play football. Our parents were relatively accepting of this; with my step-father rather ecstatic to have a kid wanting to play football, his mother, however, was exasperated. While our parents dropped use off for the weekend, she stated quite firmly overshadowing my parents’ laughter and joy “girls do not play football.” Over the course of two days, our grandmother took every opportunity to kneel down to whisper into my sister’s ear, by Sunday night when our parents came back to get us my sister was programmed to say that she didn’t want to play football because she might get hurt and girls don’t play football. Since the time this article was written many social norms have changed, but when Fallows’ wrote this piece, I believe he was a bit of a revolutionary pointing out a bias so accepted that it was absurd to think