Girls Who Play Boys Who Don&#39;t Think Girls Should Play Boys
Hannah Berner's high school doesn't have a girls' tennis team,
but she still gets flak for playing with the boys. Her story got
us thinking about girl athletes who happen to play against the
opposite sex, and the strange combination of stereotypes they
face.  Berner [pictured, second from right] went 16-2 this
season, and helped New York's small Beacon High School sweep the
city's three major tennis tournaments. But her opponent aren't
happy about a girl demonstrating such prowess. After one of her
wins, the opposing coach claimed that the game was unfair
"because her gender unnerved her opponents." The coach said that
for a boy, playing Berner is "a lose-lose situation. If he wins,
he's supposed to win. If he loses, he lost to a girl."  This
statement highlights the weirdness of people's reactions to
girls like Berner. Traditionally, the rationale for keeping
girls out of boys' sports has been that girls aren't good enough
to compete with boys.