When my friend Brandy asked me to accompany her to a “women’s arm wrestling event” a few months ago I happily obliged. As it turned out I was about to participate in the first ever meeting of the “Boston Arm Wrestling Dames,” or BAWD, a local branch of the Collective of Lady Arm Wrestlers (CLAW).

I recently came across two posts by Salty Eggs’ staff writer Tara Nieuwesteeg that tackled the sport – particularly whether events like the one I attended – are feminist in nature. In the first post,  “Ladies Arm Wrestling is a Thing,” Nieuwesteeg writes:

It’s not completely clear why this is a feminist endeavor. Yes, it’s females doing something cool. As with roller derby, here are a shit-ton of like-minded people who probably feel very strongly on things like reproductive rights, equal work for equal pay, women’s healthcare, and a general message of promoting women as people. Don’t get me wrong: What they’re doing is awesome. But should ladies’ arm wrestling really take off (which I suspect it will), it would be nice to see these women use their collective arm strength for something not just awesome, but maybe a little bigger, too.

In the original posting, Nieuwesteeg’s commentary was prompted as a reaction to a NYT article that called the sport “feminist.” However, after hearing from participants, and supporters of CLAW and its chapters, she was still hesitant to apply the label, titling a follow up post, Is Lady Arm Wrestling Feminist? Yes, But…

As with many commenters on the original article I was unsure about why Nieuwesteeg questions whether these events are feminist in nature. She answered, in the follow up, by addressing commenters and arm wrestlers directly:““Calling something “feminism” just because it consists of women doing something fun and bad-ass isn’t enough anymore.””

The mission of CLAW is to “empower women and strengthen local communities through theater, arm wrestling, and philanthropy.”  Yet somehow, this mission falls short of feminism in Nieuwesteeg’s view because it is somehow not enough or perhaps too frivolous.

Here’s where I disagree with her – and with the “but” in the title. As I posted on twitter, there’s always room for any of us to do more or do bigger , but what does “bigger” mean? And what qualifies as big enough to be feminist? While CLAW is fairly young as an organization, it’s had an impressive impact in its short existence – and it continues to grow at a rapid pace with leagues springing up all over the country. (Boston is about to host it’s second “brawl” and has already had to switch to a much larger venue).

Poking around on the CLAW main site, and visiting the sites and pages of a few other affiliated chapters, it’s easy to see the reach the wrestlers and these events have had. During the inaugural event I mentioned earlier, the Boston arm wrestlers raised $2,000 for Elizabeth Stone House, a local charity that works with homeless families and helps victims of domestic violence. CLAW reports over $175,000 raised for charities ranging from domestic violence shelters, family planning advocates, rape crisis centers, LGBTQ organizations, and many many more.

I would argue that CLAW, and its spinoff organizations, are not about just fun and bad-assery (and even if they were, why does that exclude them from feminism). At their core, the arm wrestling events that CLAW puts on are about empowering women whether through entertainment or advocacy – and I fail to see what is not feminist about that. Moreover, womens’ arm wrestling is a subversive form of entertainment. Having attended a bout in my home city, I can say, confidently, that this is not anything near what you’ll find on main stream television – this is not male-gaze driven entertainment – it’s about women’s voices.

I find something inherently troubling and dangerous for feminism as a whole if, within the movement, we are questioning the identities of those participating in events like womens’ arm wrestling bouts.  CLAW provides a safe space for women to embody characters, satirize pop culture, politics and current events, while socializing and effecting meaningful change in their own communities.  Why, I wonder, does it seem to Nieuwesteeg that these things need to be exclusive?

While I don’t believe it was the intention, Nieuwesteeg’s posts are indicative of a problematic and exclusionary attitude prevalent in the overall movement today. Personally, I find it neither productive, nor helpful, to question the identity of anyone who self identifies as feminist or to infer that their own particular brand of activism is lesser because it does not meet some as yet determined standard.

As women (and feminists) we’ve got enough on our plates finding our own spaces and making our voices heard – does publicly diminishing the efforts of other women, by suggesting they “do more,” really help?  There’s a suggestion in here that the women involved in arm wrestling events do more – without really knowing, fully, what it is that they all do, or are inspired to do by these events, in the first place.

The ultra-conservative attempt to push women out of the public sphere has a new frontier: the Arizona Charter Athletic Association. Our Lady of Sorrows, a school run by a breakaway Catholic sect, has forfeited the league’s high school baseball championship rather than put their team up against a squad that includes a girl named Paige Sultzbach—a team they already played and lost to twice during the regular season.

Our Lady of Sorrows gave a statement to ESPN explaining that the school bans co-ed sports and will not play a co-ed team because “proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty” under those circumstances. Despite the fact that it takes a lot of imagination to imagine boys and girls getting frisky on the basepaths or across vast swaths of outfield in full view of the public, Sultzbach and her team have been more considerate of Our Lady of Sorrows’ views than they have been of her rights to participate in sports programs under Title IX:

From early on, Paige tried to blend in, her mother said. When the coach referred to the kids as “guys and gals,” Paige spoke up and said that they all wear the same uniform, so the coach should just call them all guys.

Her teammates have stood up for her.

During Mesa Prep’s two previous games with Our Lady of Sorrows, Paige didn’t play out of respect for the opposing team’s beliefs, but that wasn’t going to be an option this time, Pamela said.

“We respected their school rule … but she took it hard,” Pamela said. “She didn’t like it and neither did her teammates. They went out and played the best they could because they wanted to prove a point.”

As depressing as this story is, it’s encouraging that Sultzbach’s teammates have supported her. The reason it’s important to let girls try out for their high school baseball teams, to have women in all arenas in public life, is not just because it’s nice for women. When 15-year-old girls play second base for championship teams, edit magazines and hold high office, sometimes men find that they like having women there. The more boys figure this out, and the more feminism becomes their cause too, the harder it will be for anyone go give credence to the idea that girls don’t belong on baseball fields or anywhere else in the public square.

Apparently, the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick thought it was clever to write, in reference to Jay-Z’s work as part owner of the New York Nets:

As long as the Nets are allowing Jay-Z to call their marketing shots — what a shock that he chose black and white as the new team colors to stress, as the Nets explained, their new “urban” home — why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment? Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N——s? The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B—-hes or Hoes. Team logo? A 9 mm with hollow-tip shell casings strewn beneath. Wanna be Jay-Z hip? Then go all the way!

“I guess I won’t need my color TV anymore now that the Nets will be wearing black and white,’’ writes reader John Lynch. And reader David Distefano now wonders what’s left for the Nets to choose as “their alternate third-uniform to sell during nationally televised games.”

And his editors saw fit to let this get into print, which perhaps says more about their failings. If you can’t see Jay-Z — the guy who made it possible to be viably middle aged in hip-hop, a long-established businessman, a guy with a wife and kid — as anything other than an ignorant thug, you’re willfully blind in the same way as people who look at President Obama and insist on seeing a radical. No one who sees the world through lenses that distorted should be trusted to interpret it for the public. And it’s contemptible to make money off that kind of willful blindness and the pleasure people get out of casual racism. This column may be the consequence of Mushnick’s views being taken to their logical extension. But someone let him off the leash.

I was so, so sorry to hear of the death by gunshot wound in an apparent suicide of linebacker Junior Seau, who played for the Patriots between 2006 and 2009. It’s too soon to know whether Seau’s death is linked to brain injury—the Boston Globe points out that Seau appears to have shot himself in the chest rather than the head, as did late Bear Dave Duerson, who wanted to preserve his brain for scientific study—or a sad conclusion to other troubles. Seau was hospitalized after falling asleep at the wheel in 2010, and arrested on assault charges. No matter the cause, it’s sad to see someone who gave me so much pleasure leaving football to something other than a happy, fulfilling retirement.

CNN contributor and conservative blogger Erick Erickson said he liked the idea of excluding women from The Masters golf tournament, saying, “I don’t want to be hanging out at some women’s event!”

The Augusta National Golf Club, which hosts the tournament, has never admitted a woman as a member in its history, but its discriminatory policy sparked controversy this week after it decided not to extend membership to the new female CEO of IBM, which sponsors The Masters. Augusta has offered membership to previous IBM CEOs (all men).

Both President Obama and presumed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney have spoken out against the policy, as has South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R), but Erickson sees the debate over the prohibition on women as a “partisan” issue. “Who freakin’ cares?” he said during a lengthy rant in support of the policy:

ERICKSON: Who cares? Who cares that she wasn’t invited into the club? She’s a woman — women aren’t allowed! …. It is striking to me just how political the president wants to make everything. The war on women coming home to The Masters. Who freakin’ cares? [...]

I don’t care that The Masters are a male-dominated event. I don’t care that women aren’t members of The Masters. Frankly, I kind of like the idea that women aren’t members of The Masters. Good Lord, I don’t want to be hanging out at some women’s event! Can’t men go anywhere and just be men? There are plenty of places where women can be women. … You know what Mr. President, why don’t you just leave the partisanship out of golf?!

Listen to the clip, via Media Matters:

Erickson decries the partisanship of the issue, but even though Romney took an identical position to Obama’s, Erickson dismissed Romney’s opposition to Augusta’s policy by saying, “At lease he was smart enough to know that we don’t want to wade into the war on women with Augusta.”

Augusta National golf club has never admitted a woman member it its history, but that gender discrimination policy is being put to the test this week. IBM, a sponsor of The Masters golf tournament which Augusta National is hosting, has a female chief executive – Virginia Rometty. (IBM’s prior four male CEOs were all given honorary membership.) Rometty is expected to be at Augusta National today, and media reports are asking whether she’ll be allowed to don the famous green jacket, which is traditionally worn only by club members and Masters champions.

Both President Obama and Mitt Romney have issued statements indicating their disagreement with the club’s policy. Meanwhile, club chairman Billy Payne insists that Augusta will decide for itself whom to allow in its ranks.

The golf writer for the New York Times, Karen Crouse, weighed into the controversy yesterday, telling GOLF.com in an interview that she would like to use her influence to bring about a change:

“If it were left to me, which it seldom is in the power structure of writer versus editor, I’d probably not come cover this event again until there is a woman member,” Crouse said Thursday. “More and more, the lack of a woman member is just a blue elephant in the room.” [...]

“I love the [Masters] tournament for the reasons the players do — the course is beautiful, the history is abundant,” Crouse said. “But I find it harder and harder to get past one thing that’s missing. [PGA Tour commissioner] Tim Finchem is not making a stand. High-ranking players with daughters are not willing to talk about it. Somebody has to make a stand. Why not me in my own little way?”

Crouse’s willingness to speak out about a discriminatory policy that affects her personally didn’t go over well with her employer. The New York Times’ sports editor Joe Sexton admonished her publicly:

Contacted by The Associated Press, New York Times sports editor Joe Sexton said the comments were, “completely inappropriate and she has been spoken to.”

Crouse deserves credit for being willing to stake a principled position on the issue, despite knowing it would anger her male colleagues and the existing power structure. As Alyssa Rosenberg has previously observed, women reporters are often subjected to double standards that devalue their opinions.