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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House stepworks dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. Caroline. You have mentioned that

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Speaker 1: you have an older stepbrother. Is that correct? All right?

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Speaker 1: I don't mean to put you on the spot. Actually

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Speaker 1: I do mean to put you on the spot spot.

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Speaker 1: Did you ever? Did you ever wrestle with your stepbrother? No,

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Speaker 1: because he is he's actually not raised with me, like

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Speaker 1: he's much older. He didn't. We didn't, Russell, is the

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Speaker 1: answer to your question. That makes sense. So the age gap,

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Speaker 1: it was a prohibitive age gap. For right, it would

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Speaker 1: have been weird. I mean, I guess siblings beat each

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Speaker 1: other up, but I guess it would have been weird

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Speaker 1: that like an eighteen year old boy was beating up

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Speaker 1: a five year old girl. Now I get that. My

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Speaker 1: oldest brother is it's fifteen years older than I am,

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Speaker 1: and I don't think that we have ever wrestled. But

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Speaker 1: my my other brother is closer in age to me,

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Speaker 1: and he's still he's a four or five years older

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Speaker 1: than I am. And I went through this pretty tomboyish phase,

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Speaker 1: and I always wanted to wrestle, but it was really

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Speaker 1: unfair to my brother because inevitably he would win because

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Speaker 1: he was a lot larger and older than I was.

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Speaker 1: But I and when he would when he would win,

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Speaker 1: I would get really upset and then I'd go crying

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Speaker 1: to Mom and he would get in trouble for beating

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Speaker 1: up on me. A little jerky word. I was the instigator.

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Speaker 1: I loved wrestling. Her face is lighting up. Yeah, Um,

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Speaker 1: but I never I never ever won. I wonder if

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Speaker 1: I could have a rematch probably anyway. Uh, I'm thinking

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Speaker 1: about wrestling because we're talking about wrestling today in the podcast.

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Speaker 1: So I was just curious to know if you if

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Speaker 1: you would spar No, we hadn't sparred. We we get

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Speaker 1: along pretty well wrestling or not. Um, So we're talking

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Speaker 1: about women's wrestling today. We talked in the last podcast

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Speaker 1: about women's boxing. So we are calling this Pugilism Week

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Speaker 1: at stuff Mom never told you, because there has been

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Speaker 1: a lot of progress with both of these sports in

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Speaker 1: recent years, and not only that in recent weeks. On

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Speaker 1: February six, two thousand twelve, Megan Black made history. Caroline Yes,

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Speaker 1: a a little one d and six pound high school jr.

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Speaker 1: Became the first female to win in Iowa state wrestling

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Speaker 1: match and actually, well sort of, yes, yes she did.

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Speaker 1: But last year Cassie Herckelman one um by default when

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Speaker 1: her wrestling partner, her male wrestling partner, refused to wrestler.

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Speaker 1: Her potential wrestling partner, who then forfeited was named Joel

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Speaker 1: north Thrope, and he even issued a statement on his refusal.

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Speaker 1: These are very official high school wrestling matches that take

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Speaker 1: place in Iowa. As you will soon learn, Iowa is

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Speaker 1: just a hotbed of wrestling in the Midwest. But he

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Speaker 1: explained why he forfeited to Cassie Herckelman last year, and

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Speaker 1: he said, I have a tremendous amount of respect for

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Speaker 1: Cassie and Megan and their accomplishments. However, wrestling is a

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Speaker 1: combat sport and it can get violent at times. As

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Speaker 1: a matter of conscience and my faith, I do not

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Speaker 1: believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage

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Speaker 1: a girl in this manner. Clearly, Joel Northrop would have

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Speaker 1: been uncomfortable at my house when my brother not wrestling. Um.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, he didn't think it was it was okay

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Speaker 1: to wrestle a girl, but Megan Black did, in fact

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Speaker 1: wrestle a guy to the ground and became that that

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Speaker 1: first female winner of an actual bout, not just a forfeit. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: good for her, But Northrop isn't the only guy. I

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Speaker 1: to UM kind of feel uncomfortable with the idea of

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Speaker 1: wrestling women or girls. Um To researchers from the University

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Speaker 1: of Iowa in fall sought to understand gender and masculinity

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Speaker 1: issues among high school athletes, particularly high school wrestlers. And

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Speaker 1: these were these are their parents, they're wrestling fans, and

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Speaker 1: they went to observe wrestling and talk to a bunch

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Speaker 1: of guys, and they took notes basically about um masculinity,

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Speaker 1: UM how the guys viewed themselves and each other. And

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Speaker 1: they noted that a performance practice that they found to

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Speaker 1: support orthodox masculinity included never wrestling a girl. Right. Wrestling

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Speaker 1: a girl put them in a catch twenty two situation

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Speaker 1: because if they were to wrestle a girl and when

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Speaker 1: it wouldn't matter because it's just a girl. But if

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Speaker 1: they wrestled a girl in law, then they're the guy

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Speaker 1: who lost to a girl and WHOA, that is not okay, right,

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Speaker 1: And so these researchers noted that when the opportunity presented

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Speaker 1: itself for a male wrestler to wrestle a girl or

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Speaker 1: a young woman, some of them just refused to do

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Speaker 1: it and would end up forfeitting the match. And they

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Speaker 1: talked to two boys who refused to wrestle girls on

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Speaker 1: the team because of that lose lose situation that you're

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Speaker 1: talking about, and one of the boy's father father's actually

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Speaker 1: said that girls don't belong on the mat period, and

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Speaker 1: it actually ended up becoming a rule for that particular

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Speaker 1: school that no one had to wrestle a girl if

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Speaker 1: they didn't want to. And I find it ironic that

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Speaker 1: there is um such a a gender bias against girls

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Speaker 1: in wrestling, because the same study also pointed out observations

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Speaker 1: of so called feminine behavior between male wrestlers, such as

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Speaker 1: two wrestlers spooning in between practice bouts on the mat um,

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Speaker 1: and they point out that this entails speaking very closely

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Speaker 1: faced a face, lying close with arms around each other,

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Speaker 1: and ending up on top or bottom of one another.

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Speaker 1: It reminds me of have you ever seen the movie

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Speaker 1: I can't remember what year in the seventies that came out.

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Speaker 1: But it's Women in Love, which is an adaptation of

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Speaker 1: a D. H. Lawrence book, And there's this epic male

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Speaker 1: wrestling scene. It's incredibly homoerotic um and this this study

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Speaker 1: reminded me of that because two men wrestling is in

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Speaker 1: such a combination of that kind of close uh feminine

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Speaker 1: contact that you think of and then this like pugilistic

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Speaker 1: masculine energy, right, and so there there's got to be

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Speaker 1: some discomfort. Even if the um young men who are

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Speaker 1: forfeiting the matches can't put words to it. There there

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Speaker 1: there must be some sort of discomfort about that conflict

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Speaker 1: that it's a traditionally male dominated sport. It's it can

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Speaker 1: be violent, um and intense, but there's also that close contact.

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Speaker 1: And so maybe it's okay for two guys to be

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Speaker 1: doing it, but if two girls want to wrestle on

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Speaker 1: the team, or if a guy and a girl were

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Speaker 1: to wrestle, then all of a sudden it gets weird, right.

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Speaker 1: And and women's wrestling, if we think of it in

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Speaker 1: terms of like the w W E more entertainment professional wrestling,

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Speaker 1: it's usually parodied. That's what I think of when I

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Speaker 1: think of women wrestlers as that you know, the the

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Speaker 1: babes and the valets as well. Talk about a little

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Speaker 1: bit later on, but women's wrestling as a scholastic sport

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Speaker 1: that's happening in schools and now in the Olympics has

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Speaker 1: made some strides, not just at the Iowa State Wrestling Tournament,

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Speaker 1: which is one of the most elite high school wrestling

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Speaker 1: championships in the U S, which is why Megan blacks

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Speaker 1: victory was such a big deal. Um, but wrestling has

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Speaker 1: not been around for very long for women in the Olympics.

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Speaker 1: It made its debut in two thousand four, right yeah,

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Speaker 1: two thousand four at the Athens Summer Games. And back

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Speaker 1: in two thousand four, only six US colleges offered women's

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Speaker 1: varsity wrestling and only two states, Texas and Hawaii, sanctioned

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Speaker 1: girls wrestling at the high school level. Those numbers have

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Speaker 1: since risen, and according to the National Wrestling Coaches Association,

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Speaker 1: the number of colleges sponsoring a varsity wrestling team has

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Speaker 1: risen to thirteen um and just a small gain in

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Speaker 1: the number of states UH sponsoring high school state championship

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Speaker 1: that's just written by one state, which is Washington, and

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Speaker 1: the first US women's team to wrestle at the Olympics

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Speaker 1: was small. It was Tella O'Donnell, Patricia Miranda who wrestled

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Speaker 1: on Stanford University's men's team because she had no other option,

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Speaker 1: um and Takara Montgomery, and then finally Sarah McMahon, who's

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Speaker 1: football coach in high school, told her mother that it

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Speaker 1: would be a cold day in hell before Sarah would

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Speaker 1: wrestle with the boys. And what did she do? She

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Speaker 1: wrestled with the boys, and then she went on to

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Speaker 1: the Olympics and took home the silver that year, and

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Speaker 1: Patricia Miranda took home the bronze. But a lot of

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Speaker 1: people are saying that women's wrestling has a long way

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Speaker 1: to go, which it does slee since only thirteen colleges

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Speaker 1: sponsor a varsity wrestling team. But Terry Steiner, the U

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Speaker 1: S women's coach, says, we have a great elite level team,

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Speaker 1: but our development team is below other countries. Women's wrestling

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Speaker 1: is still not accepted in the high school systems here,

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Speaker 1: while Canada has it in most high schools in nineteen colleges.

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Speaker 1: It's a matter of changing attitudes and Steiner also wasn't

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Speaker 1: initially convinced about women wrestling. Uh. He was a little

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Speaker 1: conflicted when he was first offered the job of coaching

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Speaker 1: that first women's team for the Olympics. He says, I

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Speaker 1: had reservations because I've never been involved with women wrestlers before,

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Speaker 1: and I'd never paid attention, and I had a lot

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Speaker 1: of ignorance and stereotypes. But of course, these very athletic

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Speaker 1: and strong women who had been wrestling boys for years

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Speaker 1: proved him wrong, and he was very happily surprised. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and he really came around because in June he said,

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Speaker 1: we're going for four medals and were capable of it.

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Speaker 1: Stakes for Terry Steiner and that first women's wrestling team

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Speaker 1: in two thousand four were high, not just because they

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Speaker 1: were the first ones to compete in the Olympics, but

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Speaker 1: they were really hoping to do something for the sport

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Speaker 1: for girls, to attract more girls two into the ring

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Speaker 1: or onto the mat. I guess the ring is in boxing,

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Speaker 1: the mat is for wrestling. Um. And they often brought

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Speaker 1: up the US women's soccer team and Mia Ham and

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Speaker 1: how their victories at the Olympics really put soccer on

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Speaker 1: the map for women um and perhaps it has had

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Speaker 1: a positive result. Um. ABC News reports that five thousand

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Speaker 1: girls are wrestling nationwide now, which is a three hundred

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Speaker 1: percent increase in the preceding five years. But that I

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Speaker 1: mean it's totally eclipsed by the number of boys in

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Speaker 1: high school who are wrestling, which comes to around two

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Speaker 1: d seventy thousand. And there is not just more boys

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Speaker 1: competing in high school and college levels, there's going to

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Speaker 1: be more men obviously competing in the Olympics, and men

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Speaker 1: get to compete in both the freestyle and greco Roman wrestling,

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Speaker 1: whereas the women's wrestlers only take part in the freestyle

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Speaker 1: event and only in four categories. But there is a

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Speaker 1: downside to all this good news about the Olympics and

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Speaker 1: more girls getting involved in wrestling. And isn't that grand

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Speaker 1: Because in July two thousand nine, Olympic medalists Sarah McCann,

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Speaker 1: Patricia Miranda, and Randy Miller, along with seven other wrestlers

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Speaker 1: at the Olympic Training Center, filed a grievance with the

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Speaker 1: USA Wrestling, claiming gender discrimination and abusive behavior by national

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Speaker 1: team coaches. Right, it's it's pretty ugly and unfortunate. All

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Speaker 1: the stuff that they're claiming UM and the complaint the

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Speaker 1: wrestlers said that USA Wrestling violated the Ted Stevens Olympic

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Speaker 1: and Amateur Sports Act by not providing equitable support and

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Speaker 1: encouragement for participation by women, and in the three years

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Speaker 1: leading up to the complaints, fourteen women's wrestlers with a

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Speaker 1: combined twenty three Olympic and World medals left the Olympic

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Speaker 1: Training Center over complaints of inflexible training schedules, harsh disciplinary actions,

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Speaker 1: meager financial incentives compared to men's wrestlers, mediocre coaches, and

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Speaker 1: quote inappropriate substandard coaching behavior by national team staff, which

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Speaker 1: is completely unfortunate. I mean, these these girls have had to,

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Speaker 1: you know, basically fight for their right to wrestle UM

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Speaker 1: literally and figuratively for years, and once they're finally reaching

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Speaker 1: through the top tier of the sport, they're encountering the

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Speaker 1: same kind of discrimination like that you know, Sarah McCanns

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Speaker 1: football coach who said that hell would freeze over before

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Speaker 1: she could she could wrestle with the boys. UM. And

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Speaker 1: when we get down into those different gender biases at

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Speaker 1: work within UM the sport of wrestling, a lot of

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Speaker 1: it is reflective of the same kind of stuff came

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Speaker 1: up when we were talking about women's boxing, right, and

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Speaker 1: part of that is the quote unquote muscle gap. Um.

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Speaker 1: In the studied Gender, Sexuality and Sport by Kyla Bremner,

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Speaker 1: she discusses what Mary Joe Caine refers to as the

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Speaker 1: muscle gap, which is used to justify the division of

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Speaker 1: athletic competition along gender lines, basically saying, you know, well,

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Speaker 1: men have always been thought of as stronger, with more endurance,

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Speaker 1: and they're naturally better performers, so they can do more

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Speaker 1: than women can. And I think it's worth noting that

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Speaker 1: Bremner knows what she's talking about. Uh, she is the

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Speaker 1: first Australian female wrestler to compete at the Olympics, and

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Speaker 1: she's also a doctor. Um. But yeah, she She cites

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Speaker 1: some of her her personal experience, one of those being

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Speaker 1: that she tried to enter a men's competition in Australia

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Speaker 1: but was denied on the grounds that she could be

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Speaker 1: hurt by her male opponents. I mean, couldn't any opponent

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Speaker 1: be hurt in wrestling that? I mean, it's it's silly

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Speaker 1: because wrestling is a is a weight class sport, right,

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Speaker 1: so she wouldn't be fighting against like three hundred pound

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Speaker 1: giant beefy dude, right, so I would let her wrestle.

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Speaker 1: Sounds like there might be some discomfort yet again with

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Speaker 1: that close physical contact the issue of sparring with a woman.

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Speaker 1: But what really takes the cake in Bremner's experience is

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Speaker 1: when one of her male teammates refused to get in

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Speaker 1: the ring with her. I could keep calling it the ring,

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Speaker 1: get on the mat with her unless she shaved her legs. Right.

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Speaker 1: They didn't like the idea of wrestling with someone who was,

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Speaker 1: I guess, acting masculine. Do male wrestlers remove body hair

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Speaker 1: kind of like male bikers? Is that is that a thing?

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Speaker 1: Because if that's the case, Okay, if everybody's shaving their legs,

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Speaker 1: if you can't have any win resistance on the map, right,

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Speaker 1: I would really slow you down wrestling. Well. Also, it

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Speaker 1: would seem like it would be advantageous for male wrestlers

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Speaker 1: to at least shave their under arms, because that would

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Speaker 1: hurt if somebody grabbed a handful of your underarm hair. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but I mean, so look at this. She's she's a

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Speaker 1: woman in a male dominated sport. And while they've led

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Speaker 1: her in that far. They're like, well, we're not going

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Speaker 1: to touch you unless you shave your legs. But then

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Speaker 1: when she shaved her head, they were extremely distrong. They're like,

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Speaker 1: you shaved the wrong thing. We said, legs, nuthead Bremner.

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Speaker 1: So yeah. In in her essay, Bremner brings up some

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Speaker 1: points that perhaps, you know, it could bruise a man's ego,

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Speaker 1: which sort of came up with those high school students

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Speaker 1: in that in that study we talked about earlier. And

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Speaker 1: then she points out, you know, there's the sexual nature

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Speaker 1: of females in combative sports that brings up that whole

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Speaker 1: idea of Woo college Jeda wrestling. You know, so there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of stereotypes that female wrestlers and athletes in

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Speaker 1: general have to fight well. And I would argue that

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Speaker 1: this whole sexualization aspect is a lot more pertinent to

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Speaker 1: female wrestling as opposed to female boxing, because with boxing,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you're I mean, you're just going for some punches,

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Speaker 1: whereas with wrestling, there is a lot more groping and

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Speaker 1: all over contact that's involved, which brings up, you know,

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Speaker 1: images such as old school where they have the lubricant wrestling, UM,

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Speaker 1: jello wrestling competitions, things like that, right, And there's also

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Speaker 1: a side show aspect to women's wrestling if you look

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Speaker 1: back at the more the cultural history of it. Um

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Speaker 1: again reminding me of Andy Kaufman, the comedian when he

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Speaker 1: was doing all that kind of performance art, and one

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Speaker 1: of his things was was that he would wrestle women,

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Speaker 1: and it was just a crazy thing to do. But

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Speaker 1: the thing that we probably don't realize a lot is

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Speaker 1: that women have been wrestling for quite a long time,

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Speaker 1: going back to Spartan girls who wrestled, wrestled in Roman

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Speaker 1: and Byzantine times. This is coming from uh film by

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Speaker 1: Independent Lens on PBS called Girl Wrestler. Yeah, they talk

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Speaker 1: about girls in African tribes often wrestling as part of

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Speaker 1: initiation into womanhood as well, so this wasn't limited to

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Speaker 1: one area or one time period for certain. And then

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Speaker 1: moving up into the early twentieth century, American women wrestled

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Speaker 1: against one another in public demonstrations for entertainment. Like you said,

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Speaker 1: the whole side show aspect, and according to the right

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Speaker 1: up about this movie Girl Wrestler, they say these displays

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Speaker 1: where the predecessors of modern day televised entertainment wrestling such

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Speaker 1: as Wow Women of Wrestling and Glow Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling,

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Speaker 1: franchises that have given women's wrestling an undeservedly bad reputation

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Speaker 1: as a circus like spectacle full of mud and jello,

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Speaker 1: which sounds disgusting. Well, it also seems very very US

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Speaker 1: centric because when I think of wrestling, I do think

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Speaker 1: of the w w E, and I think of China

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Speaker 1: and those twins. I think there's some twins that a

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Speaker 1: thing going on now. China aviously does not wrestle anymore.

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Speaker 1: Um and you know, those are the women wrestlers in

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Speaker 1: our minds, But in that culture they typically would start

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Speaker 1: out as valets escorting the male wrestlers around the ring

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Speaker 1: um or their girlfriends or even referred to as host

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Speaker 1: And today they're known as divas and knockouts. So again

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Speaker 1: and again and again, it's sexualized, right, making it more

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Speaker 1: acceptable for women to be on the mat in the

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Speaker 1: ring depending on where they are, uh, if they're sexy

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Speaker 1: with with fake boobs and leotards and things. Whereas globally,

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Speaker 1: female wrestling is not all that uncommon. They're about eighty

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Speaker 1: countries that sanctioned women's wrestling for international competition. UH. In

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Speaker 1: the New York Times, there is an article published in

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine that was reporting on a group of

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Speaker 1: women in Um, a town south of Baghdad in Iraq,

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Speaker 1: who formed a wrestling team despite strong pushback from threats

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Speaker 1: that it's to be banned on the basis of promoting

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Speaker 1: promiscuity and transgressions against Islam. UM. And even south of

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Speaker 1: the border, in Bolivia, they have these female wrestlers referred

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Speaker 1: to as chilidas, and it's um sort of an offshoot

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Speaker 1: of the luchadors in Mexico. But you know, and while

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Speaker 1: it's done purely for entertainment, and these are UM wives

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Speaker 1: and mothers who will wear traditional Bolivian garb and come

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Speaker 1: out and put on these wrestling shows. And they do

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Speaker 1: sound pretty, pretty intense and pretty fun to watch, but

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Speaker 1: it's more of a mockery of the macho culture. UM.

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Speaker 1: For instance, in an interview with Carmen Rosa, the champion

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Speaker 1: who is one of Bolivia's chilida's um, she she says

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Speaker 1: men are useless, they can do nothing, and uh, they

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Speaker 1: eat because we cook and otherwise they would starve to death.

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Speaker 1: And here the macho culture is very strong, and it's

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Speaker 1: something we have to fight with our best punches. So

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Speaker 1: when we fight, we are representing not only Indigenous women

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Speaker 1: but also every woman. So there and that kind of

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Speaker 1: feminist statement is certainly not proclaimed by the divas of

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Speaker 1: the w w E. Right, you could, certainly you could

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Speaker 1: look at the chelitas as being exploited. You know, they're

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Speaker 1: there for entertainment. They're getting leered at by all the

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Speaker 1: drunk men in the stands, but they are a very

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Speaker 1: repressed group of people. Oppressed group of people they are.

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Speaker 1: They have been considered for centuries just lower than the low.

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Speaker 1: And this is sort of a way. It seems that

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Speaker 1: the attitude that I got from reading a bunch of

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Speaker 1: these articles about these fantastic women, this seems to be

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Speaker 1: a way that they're taking some power back for themselves.

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Speaker 1: They're still I mean a lot of them are still married,

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Speaker 1: still have families, but they're taking the extra cash they

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Speaker 1: get from these tournaments and bringing it home to supplement income.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely um and it's it stands in such stark contrast

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Speaker 1: to the entertainment wrestlers north of the border. Although there

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Speaker 1: are some pretty colorful characters, I mean, we haven't talked

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Speaker 1: much about women in the w w E, but you

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Speaker 1: know what about what about Mildred Burke? I love her? Ah.

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Speaker 1: This is from Professional the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame.

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Speaker 1: Burke was born in nineteen fifteen in Kansas, and after

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Speaker 1: seeing her first match, she convinced future husband Billy Wolf

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Speaker 1: to train her. Wolf was the Missouri state wrestling champion

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Speaker 1: in the Kansas City y m C, a wrestling coordinator,

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Speaker 1: and she actually started wrestling on the carnival circuit in

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Speaker 1: y four and offered twenty five bucks to any man

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Speaker 1: within a fairweight range who could pin her in ten minutes,

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Speaker 1: and supposedly it never happened. She got that bucks every

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Speaker 1: single time, and even when Billy Wolf at first when

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Speaker 1: she asked her him to coach her, he wanted to

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Speaker 1: teach her a lesson because he assumed that since she

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Speaker 1: was a woman, should be a terrible wrestler, and so

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Speaker 1: he recruited some guy in the gym to body slam her.

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Speaker 1: Burke didn't care. She body slam him right back, Grandma,

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Speaker 1: and then they got married. They did, and after an

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Speaker 1: incredible streak of championships, broke off the belt in nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty four in Atlanta, and that same year it's kind

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Speaker 1: of a rough streak. That same year, after her divorce,

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Speaker 1: she created the World Women's Wrestling Association before retiring two

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Speaker 1: years later. And other wrestling aficionados out there might also

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Speaker 1: have heard of Lilian Ellison, better known as the Fabulous Mula,

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Speaker 1: who started wrestling in the early nineteen fifties, but a

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Speaker 1: promoter suggested that she changed her name because Lilian is

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Speaker 1: not the most fearsome name, and so she told the

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Speaker 1: promoter that she wanted to do it for the Mulah,

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Speaker 1: and hence her new nickname was born right. But she

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Speaker 1: actually started as one of those ballets that you're talking about,

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Speaker 1: basically just being arm candy to the main attraction, the

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Speaker 1: male wrestlers, and so her name when she started out

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Speaker 1: was not the Fabulous Mulaw. That's until later she started

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Speaker 1: out as slave Girl Mula, which is less awesome, But

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Speaker 1: she soon was wrestling in her own right, and that's

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Speaker 1: when she became known as the Fabulous Mula. And I

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Speaker 1: just like to point out that she had nothing to

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Speaker 1: do with Iowa. She got her inspiration from watching wrestling

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Speaker 1: in Columbia, South Carolina, and the person who would go

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Speaker 1: on to defeat the Fabulous Mullah many years later was

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Speaker 1: Wendy Rickter, who may befriended Cindy Lauper in nineteen eighty four,

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Speaker 1: which forged a relationship between MTV and w w E

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Speaker 1: random cultural note there, Yeah, and that led to MTVS

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Speaker 1: I I don't remember this. Maybe someone does and they

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Speaker 1: can tell us how it went. But it led to

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Speaker 1: MTV's Brawl to End at All, which is where Wendy

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Speaker 1: defeated f M Fabulous Mula, Fabulous Mula. But that kind

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Speaker 1: of wrestling is so much different than the wrestling on

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Speaker 1: that tiny matt where you know, these these athletes are

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Speaker 1: going to the Olympics pretty soon. There is definitely um

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Speaker 1: a shift in perspective between the actual athletes. Not okay,

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Speaker 1: well not that WWE wrestling women aren't athletes, but but

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Speaker 1: you know, between the women who are working to get

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Speaker 1: to the Olympics and the women who were armed Candy

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Speaker 1: on TV. I mean, and wrestling will I think will

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Speaker 1: always be more of a niche sport, that it's not

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Speaker 1: that big compared to things like football, soccer, other more

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Speaker 1: mainstream sports. But I think it's great that girls like

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Speaker 1: Megan Black who was a hundred and six pounds is

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Speaker 1: taking on guys in the matin and body slamming them.

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Speaker 1: I guess you don't really body slam and actual she

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Speaker 1: could wrestling, She could probably body I was about to

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Speaker 1: say she could probably take me down, and lord knows,

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Speaker 1: I'm a far sight away from a hundred and six pounds.

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Speaker 1: Um So, anyway, I hope that this little history lesson

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Speaker 1: on women's wrestle, thus closing Pugilism week stuff Mom never

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Speaker 1: told you was interesting. I hope that we have some

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Speaker 1: female wrestlers out there, or women who wanted to wrestle

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Speaker 1: in high school and we're told, no, what's happening? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: let us know your stories, mom. Stuff at Discovery dot

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Speaker 1: com is where you can send them. Oh and one

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Speaker 1: one final note. Uh. In April, the Olympic Trials for

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Speaker 1: wrestling will be happening, and you guess it, it's gonna

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Speaker 1: go down in Iowa. People in Iowa is wrestling? What

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Speaker 1: what happens all of the time? It's corn and and wrestling. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is wrestling. Iowa's football. I don't I don't know,

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Speaker 1: it seems like it. Let us know. Okay, This is

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Speaker 1: an email from Gino. I am a male preschool teacher

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Speaker 1: and childcare provider in California. After listening to your Lego podcast,

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Speaker 1: I asked two of my female students seven and eight

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Speaker 1: which legos they would prefer playing with. One girl picks

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00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker 1: Star Wars, saying that she enjoys the movies and want

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00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:05,640
Speaker 1: to build and wants to build the stuff she saw

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00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 1: keep in mind this girl who's dressed as Bad Girl

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00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 1: and Wonder Woman for past Halloween. The other girl, who

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00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: is more on the girly side, picked the Friends Legos,

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Speaker 1: saying only that it's because they are her favorite colors

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Speaker 1: and couldn't think of another reason for it. Both girls

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00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 1: play with the legos we have in the classroom and

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00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 1: have never wondered about pink and purple legos. Sure, my

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00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:25,479
Speaker 1: sample sizes is beyond mall, but I think that if

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00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:27,480
Speaker 1: I added pink and purple legos to our tub that

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00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:31,880
Speaker 1: both boys and girls would use them. Thanks Gino. I've

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00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 1: got an email here from Kristen and she is writing

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00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:38,399
Speaker 1: in response to our episode on foster care because she

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00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 1: was in foster care from ages six to nine while

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00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 1: I was too young to really understand what was happening.

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00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:45,439
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe now that I came out as

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00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: relatively unscathed as I did. The children's services in my

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00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 1: county had disturbing had disturbingly few resources, including enough foster homes,

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00:26:55,119 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 1: so they weren't as selective about homes as they should

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00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 1: have been. I was bounced from place to place, witching

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00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 1: schools multiple times a year between first and third grade.

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00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 1: I don't think anything during those times was constant, and

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00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: I lost all sense of permanence family or home. Eventually,

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00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: my state of point of psychologistic a shine to me

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00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 1: and adopted me when I was almost ten. Later I

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00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: found out that, had my adopted parents not intervened, I

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00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:20,439
Speaker 1: was going to be sent to a group home for

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00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 1: disturbed children, probably until I was eighteen. As I get older,

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00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:27,159
Speaker 1: ITT weighs on me how unlikely my outcome was. I

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00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: wonder if I ever would have been adopted if I

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00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 1: were special needs, a minority, or lgbt Q, all of

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00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:38,399
Speaker 1: whom fair particularly poorly in the foster system. I know

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00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:40,640
Speaker 1: that when I'm older and more financially secure, I want

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00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 1: a foster or adopted, particularly those children who are often ignored.

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00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:48,280
Speaker 1: So thank you, Kristen, and thanks to everyone who has

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00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 1: written into Mom's Stuff at Discovery dot com and also

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00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 1: thanks to all of our friends on the Facebook and

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00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 1: followers on Twitter. At Mom's Stuff podcast, you can join

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00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 1: the conversation to All you have to do is go

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00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:03,119
Speaker 1: to those places and click like and click followed, and

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00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 1: that's all you gotta do. You can read about wrestling

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00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: as well, How Pro Wrestling Works can be found at

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00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out

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00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 1: our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how

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00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 1: stuf Work staff as we explore the most promising and

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00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:25,600
Speaker 1: perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The how Stuff Works I Find

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Speaker 1: app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes, brought to

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Speaker 1: you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,

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00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:37,320
Speaker 1: are you