Feminism is about women being allowed to reach their full potential and enrich the universe with their unique abilities. There should be no qualifications, asterisks, or separate but equal denotations as it relates to opportunities and accomplishments in this world.
Man, woman and child as long as they are not endangering themselves should be allowed to compete on the highest level to show their talent. Some would say even self-protection does not deter a true feminist like Joan of Arc.
How can someone show their greatness unless they are tested to the point of failure or ultimate success, vanquishing all their competition. Contesting against the best, brings out your best and shows who is the best. That is what the Olympics are about. That is what life should be about.
No artificial man-made limits to protect/advantage selected competitors to the detriment of others. Darwin did not propose a theory that in a natural state, only the strongest win, and the weaker shrink to the sidelines, becoming extinct.
Deanna Guzman already has won the state championship in the shot put, so she has proved she is a top-level athlete. Guzman who describes herself as a geeky book reader, is also a role model.
This fall as a high school senior she has tried out for and made her high school's football team. It is not the flag football team, but the "boy's" football team. She not only made it through the rigorous training camp, running laps like any player when she made a mistake, but she is a starting offensive tackle. On the record, multiple male teammates respect her as an athlete, not as a female athlete, but as a peer.
Kamil Vickers a 300 pound tackle on her team stated, "she is not afraid to get hit or to mix it up. ... She's like a ball of energy. That's the kind of thing teams need nowadays."
Deanna stands 5-foot-8 and weighs 205 pounds. She can bench press 150 pounds. She earned her starting position and she earns mention in this blog. She is a pioneering woman, breaking new ground for women. High school records show that Deanna is the first female to make a varsity "boy's" football team in New Jersey as an on the field player.
Her coach noted that because of Deanna, several other female students have told him they are thinking about trying out next year. Alexis Littlejohn (14 years-old) has told the coach she was inspired by Deanna, and she will definitely be at tryouts next year.
Deanna has become a leader/role model outside her school as well.
In Pop Warner Football in Newark, several girls are now playing on "boy's" teams. Many are starting and they are recognized by their teammates as playing at the high level needed to win games. Quite a few of them have heard of Deanna and look forward to walking in the path she is clearing.
In one obvious difficult parental situation, 12 year-old Madison Jacobs, played against her younger brother, Javon Swain (10) in a Pop Warner game, but then aren't brothers and sisters always fighting and tackling each other. I feel sorry for Mom, Avia Jacobs, who has to play referee on the ride home from the game. A tie satisfies no one, but sure would decrease the acrimony before eating dinner.
Back to Deanna, she has had to overcome more than just gender bias to be the athlete she is. On her 13th birthday, while walking to school, she was struck by a speeding car. She suffered multiple fractures, some of which required open reductions and internal fixations. She had a rod inserted in her femur (the bone between the knee and hip joints) and wires were used to hold the bones about her shoulder to the rest of her arm. After she healed sufficiently, she needed extensive physical therapy to relearn how to walk. She needed to strengthening and to regain motion to return her arm to full function. Imagine how hard she worked so that now she can play football or bench press 150 pounds.
She became the state champion in the shot put and a starting tackle on her football team.
If she never does anything else in her life (and I would not bet against that) she is already a very special person. She is a leader and a success story.
Deanna is a pretty stylish, athletic geek. She reads books on brain function and urban communities's socioeconomic conditions and how they affect young people. Like I said earlier, I won't bet against her changing the world in the future, nope, not me.
She has figured out a part of the puzzle who is Deanna Guzman. She knows whom she wants to be and she is in the process of becoming that person - using her unique talents.
She is a winning feminist.
-- L.A. Preschel
Sourced from an article "Girls tackle football and the rest is history," by Barry Carter for the Newark Star-Ledger 03 October 2017
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