Being at the level I am at fencing allows me to go between beginner and advanced classes, helping the new students learn the new skill and getting stronger in my own craft by practicing with the others.
But it also means that because some of the other students have been at this for longer, and are therefore better, I tend to lose a lot of bouts.
For the most part, I'm OK with this. I get it, and I know I'm getting better. Many of the kids I fence with have been doing it since they were little, so it comes more naturally to them than it does to me. It's also harder to learn something like this at my age. I try not to let the losses get me down, although they occasionally do.
A couple of Thursdays ago, I went in to fencing a little early to help my coach with the new students. Thirty minutes later, I put on my body cord for electric bouting and waited as the other students trickled in.
One of the advanced students and I were the first to bout. As he hooked himself to the scoring box, a newer student stood off to the side with him. As I waited a few feet away, I heard the new student bet the person I was going up against that I would lose 5-0.
Now, I can't count how many times the score has ended up that way against this particular person. But I always remind myself that it's OK. I'm still learning, I'm still growing, and every time I fence someone difficult, I get stronger and smarter. I'm not the best fencer in the world, but I give it my all any time I go up.
For the most part, I'd say we have a pretty good club. Everyone tries to lift each other up and make each other better. We get along, and anytime someone loses, no one is sitting there saying how bad he or she did. Not that it never happens. I just don't hear it. Never in the year of fencing have I ever heard someone actually say that they thought I or anyone else would lose. Needless to say, I wasn't happy when I heard that.
So I fought my current opponent (lost 1-5), and then when the newer student went up against me, I beat him 5-3.
It's not like it was some great defeat, but winning that match made me happier than any of the others I had won. Because I proved him wrong.
The reason I like fencing so much is because it levels the playing field between men and women. It invalidates society's argument that women aren't as good as men because in fencing, women are good at certain things, and men are good at certain things. It's just the nature of the sport.
The new student based his opinion on how he perceives my skill level, and he wasn't entirely off point. But his judgment points to something else, as well. Would he have said the same thing had I been a man or a boy around his age?
If I was, I doubt he would have helped me, but I think he would have been less inclined to make a comment like that. I would have been on his same level, instead of a grown woman going through the trial and errors of a new skill.
Maybe that's a judgment on my part, but I can't help but think that I'm not too far off. Especially considering a friend's reaction when I told her was to shake her head and say, "Boys."
My editor's notes always somehow talk about a YouTube video, and I have one in mind while writing about this. Earlier this year, an Italian media company called Fanpage.it made a video about young boys' attitudes toward violence against women and girls. In the video, boys ages 7-12 are asked a series of questions, including what they want to be when they grew up.
The interviewers then introduce them to different girls and have them do different things to them, such as make funny faces and give them a friendly hug. Then, the interviewers tell the boys to slap the girls. You could tell that the boys are taken aback by the question. Each thinks about it, and then every single one says no.
At the end of the video, one of the participants says, "As the saying goes: 'girls should not be hit, not even with a flower.'" When I fence, I have to remind many of the younger boys that I'm wearing protection so in this instance, it's OK to hit hard. So many are hesitant to even poke me.
But that attitude seems to change once boys hit their teens. Suddenly, it becomes less important to treat women with respect. They begin to see them as less than themselves. Even my little brother can sometimes have that attitude, although my mom, my sister and I are always quick to remind him otherwise.
If boys keep that attitude throughout their younger years, eventually it carries over into adult life, and before you know it, they turn into men who don't respect women and may even end up being domestic abusers. They turn into men that women talk about on the Tumblr page Stopthecatcall, where street-harassment stories range from fairly inane ones to ones that veer toward the scary and even dangerous.
So many women want to excuse boys for "just being boys," but I don't buy it. I want to be an example of someone who proves to men that women are equal to them, if not a little more fierce. That's why I fence and why I kickbox (besides the fact that I want to be able to defend myself should I ever have a story worthy of Stopthecatcall).
I want the boys in the fencing club to see me and the other girls as worthy opponents. I want them to treat women the way they should be treated, and not just as objects or people who don't deserve everything men do.
In the last few weeks, I've seen so many men on social media comment about how male privilege isn't real. But it is, and it needs to be stopped. We need to stop letting young, impressionable boys grow into the men who abuse women, physically or emotionally.
Being a boy is no excuse.
Assistant Editor Amber Helsel graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Mississippi in 2011. She has begun her journey as a superhero (and fencing is part of that) and is currently writing a novel that she hopes to publish by the end of the year. Email her arts, food & drink, wellness and hitched story tips at [email protected]
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