I recently completed a book about high school hockey. Because of budget cuts, there were several departments that were defunded, one being the female hockey league.

In trying not to have any spoiler alerts on this book, one of those female team members went for tryouts on the male hockey team—and made it! She fought all sorts of harassment on her way to becoming one of the best players on the team.

It made my skin boil each time I read that the most disapproval came from the adults who were coaches.

Because of those transparent insults, I began to reflect on all of the dialogue over the years concerning gender equality. On many occasions, I have revealed the struggles of my wife and me when trying to step outside of our pigeonholing, only to be met with resistance. However, in being honest, the major hostility came from those leaders who lectured in favor of inclusiveness.

In escaping our earlier conditionings, wouldn’t the commanding step toward true gender equality be accepting each other as co-worker, team member in sports and recruited soldier in all aspects of life instead of being restricted by all of those antiquated mentalities such as “Happy wife, happy life,” “Treat her as your mother, sister or girlfriend” or “Men are strong and women are emotional”?

Now that the Confederate statues are disappearing from an oppressive nation, shouldn’t we all be unchained also from deep--rooted postures on gender?

I’m wondering if we truly are capable of unconditioned progressivism or are our leaders, like those once standing statues, so immovable that their indoctrinated myopia will conceive those same bigoted views when actually utilizing their inclusive sermons toward gender equality in the real world?

RICK KNIGHT

Henrico County