Sanity Check: Trophy Wigs

Trophy Wigs

By Sharon Short

    The wigs are my nine-year-old daughter's idea.

    She recently competed in a regional Taekwondo tournament in which she won two trophies: second place for "forms" (demonstrations of Taekwondo techniques) and third place in sparring. 

    Though pleased to have placed, she is dismayed that the figures on the trophies are... boys.

    So, she tells me a few evenings ago, we need to make wigs for her trophy-people.  Now.

    I'm not adept at wig making, so I try parental sleight-of-hand: pulling an explanation out of thin air and hoping she falls for it.  "Maybe the person on the trophy is supposed to be either a girl or a boy."

    "Mo-o-o-o-o-m!" she wails, turning my one-syllable title into a multi-syllable lament that, to her pre-pre-teen view, I'm being clueless--again.  "These are definitely BOYS.  My sister's soccer trophies have GIRLS with PONYTAILS."

    "There are," I inform her, "men who wear ponytails, so maybe your sister has a boy trophy with a ponytail and your trophies have girls with very, very short hair."

    My nine-year-old flashes a look which clearly warns that if she has to say "Mo-o-o-o-om" one more time, it will take at least twelve minutes and forevermore prove that I will NEVER understand ANYTHING ABOUT HER.  This is not a fate I relish, and so I concede that she is right.  Her trophies are bedecked with boys. 

    I try another approach.  "I'm sure the boy trophies were just a matter of economics."

    "Huh?"

    "You were the only girl in your particular group for sparring, and only one of two for forms.  Maybe the tournament organizers just wanted to save money by ordering boy trophies in bulk." 

    "Boys get boy trophies," my daughter states matter-of-factly.  "Girls should get girl trophies.  Are you going to help me make wigs or not?"

    I'm tempted to ask her why she cares so much.  After all, she won the darned trophies.  Plus, hairstyles have never much interested her before.  This is the same girl who was horrified at my glee in finding cute pony tail holders to match the color of her Taekwondo belt—and refused to wear them.

    I'm tempted to tell her that she should feel blessed that no Taekwondo coach, competitor or referee has ever made her feel out of place for being interested in a sport that draws mostly males.  That when I was her age, girls didn't play soccer, what's more one-on-one sports with boys.  That her paternal grandmother could only play half-court basketball because full-court was considered too strenuous for girls--so she and her teammates once snuck into the school gym at night just for the thrill of playing full court.  That for a long time, athletic girls were often considered... well... just a little odd. 

    But looking at my daughter, I realize telling her to accept "good enough" isn't… good enough.  I realize she doesn't need a lesson in the long, challenging history of women's sports.  Not just yet.

    Tonight, she needs wigs.

    So we dig out some mauve yarn left over from a scouting project.  Scissors.  Tape.

    We cut little strands of yarn and affix them to the tape.  Then we stick the little mauve wigs on the heads of the Taekwondo trophies.  Presto, chango.  Girl trophies for a girl athlete.

    And my nine-year-old smiles happily at them, all the way-too-early-pre-teen angst gone. 

    There's a saying my nine-year-old is far too young to know about, or to yet understand: we've come a long way, baby.  But with plucky nine-year-olds like her, we'll make the rest of the journey just fine.