Some male students on this campus possess the misconception that females are either inherently worse than men at football or resemble a relative of Hagrid’s from ‘Harry Potter.’

To evidence this claim, recently a friend and I were introduced to an attractive girl of average stature on our floor who expressed to us that she had club rugby practice later that day. My companion’s jaw dropped in astonishment, as he explained quite bluntly that she was ‘not butch,’ as though that was some universal prerequisite for female rugby players that she had somehow managed to bypass.

The completely incongruent image he had of a 7-foot Amazonian warlord with enviable biceps was instantly fumbled. Most men possessive of this rationale are convinced that females typically possess less muscle mass and are less coordinated than men. While the former qualification might hold some weight in a tackle football game, discriminating against females in a Co-Rec football game because they are inclined to be less athletic is a ridiculous assertion. Dissent regarding the campus rule that a girl must be quarterback for Co-Rec games assumes that the likelihood of a female being a good athlete is statistically insignificant, even though games are not necessarily any less dynamic because a girl is passing.

I’ve heard other justifications for reversing the rule, an example being that girls prefer a less pressured position since many don’t have a whole lot of experience playing football. Making that determination for them up front is a sweeping generalization and highly unfair. Even if we were to implement a rule such as ‘the best athlete on the team should be the default quarterback, regardless of gender,’ I can scarcely imagine a man giving up that position at the expense of his ego.

The idea seems to threaten the imagery men have of rugged pigskin players plowing through one another to the roaring backdrop of a John Madden forecast. The suggestion that players should be rotated seems to me to pose a greater detriment to the game’s pace than the potential of having an unwitting girl fill the position. It’s only a Co-Rec football game. As though sexism and gender bias are not rampant enough on campus, we are now bickering over whether or not a female should have to be quarterback for Co-Rec games on Family Weekend? It isn’t exactly like there is a Super Bowl championship or even a club playoff title at stake.

The Co-Rec rule promotes female participants in male-dominated sports across campus and should remain as is. Is it really worth engaging in a debate about sexism or risking offending fellow students over? The proportions of testosterone and estrogen have no bearing on an individual’s athleticism or ability to strategize and hit pockets.