Tomorrow is Parents' Day at Lake Forest College. There will be a breakfast for families in the morning, a F.A.N. Club tailgate prior to kickoff, and a men's game following ours. Of course, it would be great if all of those fun events resulted in two wins for the Foresters over the Blueboys/Lady Blues.
And this leads me to our topic of the day: sex-specific mascots. As a female athlete and now coach I have always resented such names (like the Lady Foresters) because it suggests that REAL Foresters are men and the women are a cheap knock-off version. However, there MAY be an exception with the Illinois College Blueboys.
The Blueboy is a reference to Union Soldiers, who wore blue (as opposed to the Confederate Greys). Now, while I am sure women could have fired a minie ball as accurately as men, the fact is that they didn't and BlueBoys were almost always exactly that--boys. [As a history teacher I feel obligated to note that WWI American soldier were referred to as "Doughboys" and WWII era soldiers were the more sex-neutral "G.I.s"--short for Government Issue, which was stamped on most of the Army's goods.] Anyway, in the case of Illinois College and their Blueboys is it okay that they are the "Lady Blues" or not? Should they still be Blueboys? Should we just treat a mascot like we treat the term "guys" and act as though they are all sex-neutral? Or is the problem the term "Lady" which tends to invoke images of tea and crumpets instead of sweat and aggressive play?
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