Playing co-ed intramural sports at Marquette is basically playing in a men's league with a few women standing around, and I'm sick of it.

I signed up to play intramural softball with a group of friends this fall because I thought it would be fun. Most of us had some experience playing; others, none at all. We signed up to play in the co-ed B league, figuring it would be people like us who just wanted to have a good time with their friends. We were wrong.

I'm not sure if it's the men, the women or the intramural rules that are to blame, but somehow or another, the women don't play on the teams we've been up against. They don't play much in the field, but batting is where the sexist attitude of the league is truly evident. There is a rule in co-ed intramural softball that states if a man is walked on three straight balls, the woman batting behind him can walk as well. The idea behind this rule is to keep pitchers from intentionally walking a man in order to pitch to — and supposedly more easily strike out — a woman. Not only does this rule seriously offend me, but it discourages women from playing.

The point of intramural sports, in my opinion, is to play and have fun. I do not understand why women even sign up to play if they are not actually going to participate. I am so tired of watching woman after woman give up her bat and follow a man around the bases. Where is the fun in that? If only the men on a team are actually going to play, they should sign up for a men's league.

To those women who don't want to bat because they are afraid they're terrible, I give you the case of my roommate. She is admittedly un-athletic. She did not know that dribbling was actually a requirement in basketball; she thought the players were just showing off. She never exercises. She doesn't know which way right field is. But she is on our intramural softball team anyway and she swings the bat. On Sunday, she hit the ball for the first time ever and didn't care at all that she got out. That is what I thought intramural sports should be about.

It isn't only in softball that I've encountered this sexist attitude in intramural sports at Marquette. I played co-ed dodgeball last winter, and again, women did not participate on most teams we came up against. The guys would stand in front, chucking the foam balls as hard as they could while the girls would hover in the back and fetch new balls for the guys to throw. I am as competitive as the next person — probably more — and I understand that people want victory. But this is a co-ed league, and a team shouldn't have to bench all its women in order to win.

This viewpoint was published in The Marquette Tribune on October 13, 2005.