July 10 , 2000 The End Is Near BY RICK ROCKWELL Can the Mexican opposition topple the PRI? Temp Slave Revolt BY DAVID MOBERG Contingent workers of the world unite. Locked Down BY KRISTIN ELIASBERG Prison cutbacks leave inmates hopeless. News & Views Editorial BY SALIM MUWAKKIL Just say no to the war on drugs. Forgotten America BY JUAN GONZALEZ Enemies of the state. Appall-O-Meter BY DAVID FUTRELLE A Terry Laban Cartoon Bully Culprit BY JAMES B. GOODNO Estrada is leading the Philippines into crisis. Three's Company BY JOHN NICHOLS Third parties strategize for the November elections Don't Drink the Water BY ERIK MARCUS Did a factory farm cause a deadly E. coli outbreak? Eight Is Enough BY DAVE LINDORFF Judge restricts freedom of anti-death penalty activists Pass the Petition BY TED KLEINE In Michigan, a Republican leads a campaign to legalize marijuana Profile BY TRAVIS LOLLER Irina Arellano: on strike and in style. Culture Botched Burbs BY SANDY ZIPP BOOKS: How the suburbs happened. Harrington's Way BY KIM PHILLIPS-FEIN BOOKS: The Other American. Slaughterhouse Live BY JEFF SHARLET BOOKS: Absolute oral history Shakespeare Inc. BY BEN WINTERS FILM: Something is definitely rotten in Denmark. Post-Feminist Smackdown! BY JANE SLAUGHTER

Post-feminist Smackdown! By Jane Slaughter   Women's wrestling has grown fast in the past few years. The USGWA national tournament drew 272 girls in 1998, and 432 from 44 states last March. "The caliber's just gone way, way up," says Sarah Van Skaik, a freshman at Cumberland College in Kentucky. "The first year was like nothing. Last year it was about five times better - and this year it's just a whole lot better." The sport is almost certainly slated for the 2004 Olympics, and the U.S. Olympic Committee is providing training stipends to the top three women wrestlers in each of six weight classes. Two states, Texas and Hawaii, have sanctioned girls' wrestling as a high school sport, and Florida is moving in that direction. Three small colleges, including Cumberland, now give women's wrestling scholarships. Girl wrestlers have a mixture of feminist and post-feminist consciousness that's quite appealing. Says Katie Downing of the University of Minnesota-Morris team, who took a silver medal in the world championships last year: "A lot of people think that if a girl's out to wrestle, she's on a mission for all womanhood or whatever. I don't think I've ever met a girl who's out to prove a point. It's not about that. All the girls I know that wrestle are there because they love to wrestle." But doesn't she have a sense that it's great to be a pioneer? "That's a definite bonus - to even the playing field as far as women's sports in general," Downing admits. "It opens people's minds a little bit too, the whole idea that men aren't just dominating sports in every field. That's nice too." Jane Slaughter is a contributing editor of In These Times.   TOP HOME SUBSCRIBE MAIL   In These Times © 2000 Vol. 24, No. 16