College football is a popular phenomenon that is at the center of most college campuses, but one school took the famous American pastime to an all new, over-sexualized and horrifying level.
While both male and female viewers crowd into stadiums during fall weekends to witness the beauty that is football, females are often considered to be less knowledgeable about the game.
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As a result, Texas A&M University decided to host a lecture on July 27, 2016--entitled “Chalk Talk”--to help educate their female fans about the basic fundamentals of the sport. Rather than breaking down the game into simplified terms, the presentation was a degradation to women everywhere.
Prior to the event, Aggie head coach Kevin Sumlin wrote, “This is a great opportunity whether you’re a casual observer of the game or you’re calling plays from the stands at Kyle Field. There will be something for all knowledge levels.”
Little did the viewers know that when Sumlin said, “something for all knowledge levels,” he actually meant that women could only comprehend information in terms of sex.
The astonishing part about this whole catastrophe is that faculty is responsible for this. Coaching staff, cognizant adults who are more than educated enough to understand the magnitude of this offense, prepared these slides to proudly present at this so-called educational lecture? Can you digest that? Because I cannot.
Last time I checked, I am a female, and have been for the last 18 and a half years. Yet, I’m pretty sure I did not get this far in life by dumbing down my education, and general knowledge of life, into terms of sex.
I did not get into Baylor University on an academic scholarship because my “knowledge level” is that of a caveman.
I am not on my university’s Dean’s List because I equate anything I absorb with how to “spread my legs” or “get erect.”
I am a woman with the same mental capacity as a man, but apparently these Aggie football coaches believe that women can only respond to graphic and obscene commands relating to intercourse.
Do these coaches think that this is the only thing women are capable of? That women are nothing but oblivious specimens that exist solely for the satisfaction of men and must be properly "educated" on how to have sex?
All campus rivalries aside--if any school, if any person, delivered a presentation as gruesome as Texas A&M assistant coaches Jim Turner and Jeff Banks did, the response would be the same: please tell me this is some kind of sick joke.
The world has already painted a picture of women to be less than men in all aspects, whether it is the gender gap in salaries or in the unspoken limitations put on women.
These coaches – alleged role models for the athletic program of the largest public school in Texas – have condoned such sexist behavior and perspective amongst their viewers.
These female viewers, students, and fans, are not at this university to be belittled and spoken down to through demeaning slides. The prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses has become more prominent than ever, and rather than educating students on the realities these victims face and the long-term consequences of such a cruel act, these coaches are putting on a presentation promoting it.
We make commercials and t-shirts promoting the “It’s On Us” campaign – a Title IX movement to end sexual assault – yet here, the A&M coaching staff is objectifying women for all of their viewers to see. The contradiction, and the tolerance of this contradiction, is exactly where the issue lies.
I am not saying that Texas A&M University as a whole is an issue; I am saying that the behavior that this faculty has displayed is beyond unacceptable.
Every voice matters, whether you are a college student, a football coach, or a university administrator. Remember to use your voice for something that matters, and for something positive. There is enough cruelty in this world without our college faculty reinforcing this behavior within our college campuses.
Take action and speak up. Use your voice for greatness, and maximize your potential.
“Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity; the female sex.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
