Being a gymnastics coach takes more than just teaching gymnastics. It is my job to teach my young inspiring gymnasts how to be powerful and how to be strong. I need to teach them individuality, leadership, and confidence. I need to build them up, make them stronger to get the next skill. So, you can imagine my horror when one of my more advanced gymnasts asks me if she can do “girl push-ups” in replace of the thirty push-ups I requested them to do. For those of you that do not know what “girl push-ups” are, they are push-ups on your knees; in other words, it’s a modified push-up.
When my gymnast asked me if she could, I played dumb. I knew what they were because they called them the same thing when I was in elementary/middle school which was about ten years ago. I was astonished to hear that the school system still allows the gym teachers to call modified push-ups, “girl push-ups” after ten plus years of progress regarding women’s rights. However, I wanted to see what her answer would be when I asked her what they were. She just told me that they were push-ups on your knees, but that’s what they called them in gym class at school. So why not just call them knee push-ups?
To be honest, it disgusts me that “girl push-ups” is still a term within the public-school system. Why does the school system feel the need to call a modified push up or, simply, a knee push, a “girl push-up”? Maybe it’s because they’ve been saying it for ten plus years and now it’s just part of their vocabulary. If that’s the case, it’s time to change that vocabulary. It is not okay to be calling a modified push-up what they do because by using that term instead of the correct one, they are saying something completely different.
Is there such a thing called a “boy push-up”? No, of course not. That’s just a regular push-up. If a male does the “girl push-up,” he is seen as weak, but when a female does it, they are just seen as a female. So, by calling a modified push-up a “girl push-up,” it’s putting an image on women that they are weak because they cannot complete a real push-up. No wonder why women still feel like the inferior sex in the 21st century. Not only that, but elementary/middle school is a huge turning point for females because that’s when puberty hits. They already feel uncomfortable in their own bodies. Their confidence and self-esteem levels may be low at this point in their life. The last thing they should be told is that they are not strong enough, which this term is telling them. By using the term, it destroys a girl’s self-esteem and confidence even more. How are they ever going to think they are strong enough now?
Being an athletic female myself and living within the 21st century, it hurts me to know that these topics are still an issue. It’s hard to know that society still views females as a weaker sex. By calling a modified push-up a “girl push-up,” the school system is telling women that they are not good enough; they aren’t strong enough. No, the system should just eliminate this term altogether and tell everyone, males and females, that it’s okay to do a modified push-up, but everyone should try a regular push-up.
It’s the school system and issues like these that make young women feel like they aren’t good enough or strong enough. It’s issues like these that make women still feel inferior. In times like this, it disappoints me that women are still not fully equal to men after all the progress women have made in the past.