Wrestling Champ Forfeits to Female

“He’s got morals and values,” the coach of the Kelly Walsh wrestling team, Todd Lattimer, said of Green River wrestler Seth Harris.
In today’s state wrestling championship, defending champion Harris was slated to wrestle NC freshman Jessica Brenton, one of only a few female wrestlers in Wyoming, whose career has been among the most successful of women’s careers in the sport. Harris chose instead to follow what his upbringing tells him about how to treat a “young lady” and forfeited the match. The morals and values Lattimer is referring to are those that led Harris to forfeit his first state wrestling match because it was against a girl, those morals which dictate that women are inferior,and should be treated as such.
The two articles describing Harris’s forfeit in the Casper Star Tribune are rife with praise for the young man, referring to his actions as moral, admiring him for being a man, and observing how well he has learned the difference between right and wrong. Words like “family beliefs, “upbringing,” “courage” and “sacrifice” adorn the report. The smiling face of the forfeiting champion gleams from the pages, a noble visage unharried by the incorruptible chivalry his mormon parents instilled in him. Never mind that Brenton may well have beaten him, girl-parts and all; Harris has won his coaches’ respect.
Brenton’s coach, Scott Russell, praised her wrestling ability. However, he offers no recognition of her courage in participating in what has long been a male-dominated activity. He does not note her nobility in challenging archaic norms, or describe the morals and values which inspired her to pursue her dream of wrestling. He simply says that state laws dictate that girls be allowed to wrestle, and that he follows the rules. The unspoken rule, implied by the reverence for Harris’s decision, seems to be that women actually shouldn’t be allowed to wrestle; Harris is being praised for noting such.
Words like morals, family values, right and wrong, are charged with something far more than their meaning. When such words are called upon, it frequently seems that they are calling down the writ of God, denoting who is playing by the rules of God and who is not. Rarely is it noted that morals refer not to a set of defined rules and their interpretations, but only to the existence of that set, their meanings varying from person to person. I strongly doubt that any person on earth lacks some moral code of their own, some system of conduct which they believe is appropriate for human behavior. While for some, morals entail not injuring women, others might call morals striving for success, and still others may observe morals as sacrificing virgins to the god of thunder. Further, a moral code describes a spectrum of offenses. While it may be immoral to give up, it would be more immoral to wrestle a girl. Morals do not denote what is humane, in the classical sense; rather, they describe specific and variable codes for living. The coach’s frequent generalizing references to morals, values, and the like seem to assume that all people share that same code, when clearly they do not.
In current society, particularly in politics, morals have become a buzzword, a buzzword which seems to make the same oversight as wrestling coaches. When President Bush refers to “good family values,” I find myself asking, “which family?” Harris demonstrated values of a traditional Christian sort, values that were formed in an era when the superiority of white males was unquestioned. These morals defined the treatment of women based on the theory that they are intrinsically inferior. Thus, one does not hit a woman because she is naturally unable to defend herself. In keeping with this moral code, however, it would be immoral to allow a woman to own property because she is ill-equipped to effectivey manage it.
In the public eye, when someone refers to morals, these are the morals that are brought to mind. Being moral, then, cannot be cited as a universally good trait; rather, it simply describes a set of behaviors that one can expect an individual to exhibit, based on those beliefs they hold most dear. Thus, one can be both moral and wrong, when wrong is defined as the value of actions which do harm to an individual or to society. In the case of Harris, whose forfeiture is derived from his morals- his personal rules- regarding the treatment of women, those who share something akin to my own moral code would see his behavior as moral and wrong, in that he is following his moral code, but in doing so damages an individual and/or society.
Brenton has established herself as a skillful wrestler, yet Harris forfeits to her because she is female, irrespective of her skill. In doing so, he implies that she is not skillful enough to offer a defense, and that her participating in wrestling is morally wrong, regardless of its amoral value. He offends her morality, which dictates that she should wrestle. Moreover, his actions injure society; by acting upon morals that assume inequality to be natural, they cultivate an attitude of inequality that has become archaic and injurious to those who were once oppressed by it.
In short, the liberality with which people refer to morals and values cultivates oppression,and these terms should be called upon only with greater forethought regarding their meanings. We cannot in good conscience assume that because one is moral, that their morals are correct and good. Such an implication suggests the degree to which oppression has been institutionalized, that we could praise someone’s moral behavior when it is a direct affront to the ideals of equality. An action may be moral and still be unjust, if justice is that which gives each his or her due. With that said, in both wrestling and justice, Brenton has triumphed over Harris, regardless of morals or nobility or antiquated ideals of manliness.