Amidst our concern about the negative social trends pressuring our girls and young women today, it’s nice to be able to celebrate a positive trend: the increasing participation of women in the disc-throwing team sport, ultimate. The game resembles football in that teams score when they complete a pass across a goal line (there’s no running the disc), and it also resembles soccer or basketball, in that players switch from offense to defense immediately upon a turnover. About 10,000 of the 30,000 members of the Ultimate Players Association are women, a number that doubled between 2003 and 2008. As the New York Times recently reported:

Watching these women play, one can see the athleticism that has attracted them: Gorgeous arcing throws, full-extension dives, insane vertical leaps, and discs pinched out of the sky with the barest of fingertips.

At the elite levels, there are men’s womens, and — in what’s very unusual for elite team sports — mixed divisions. At the most prestigious championship in North America, each of the divisions contains the same number of teams (16). Kathy Dobson, who played with the MIT women’s team that narrowly missed a national championship in 2003 explains:

At the UPA championships, the time of the men’s, women’s, and mixed finals are rotated every year, instead of saving the prime spot for the men’s final. As far as I can tell, the UPA treats the men’s division and the women’s division equally, without making exceptions or giving preferential treatment to either side.

It’s also worth note that both the UPA’s president and executive director are women. Dobson says that during her team’s championship quest, it received staunch support from men — cheering from the sidelines, coaching, inviting the team to dinner, even carrying water.

And for those who are not elite players? There are many opportunities to play in more casual, often co-ed games that are more about exercise and friendships than about competition. Dobson says:

There are a lot more opportunities to play ultimate after college. Most cities have an organization that sets up hat leagues [in which teams are formed by drawing names out of a hat] and club leagues. There is a very active community. I think that draws people into the sport — I played spring hat league a couple of years ago and many of the people played because they wanted to meet people while getting some exercise. I would say that I have met more than 75% of the people in my current network of friends through ultimate.

Playing ultimate, Dobson says, has been a “fantastic adventure.”