Hansen's push for equality in sports

By: Julia Vellucci
Humber Athletics Communication

Shade Hansen, the star pitcher for the Humber Hawks softball team and record holder for the most single-season strikeouts in program history, described men and women as unequal in the world of sports.

Hansen was a feminist from a young age as she used her seventh-grade assignment to express the issue of gender inequality, an issue she wanted to be more involved in and share with the world.

She self-published a book for that assignment called Girl Writes (Rights), a touching tribute to the emergence of a young feminist's perspective.

"I just always had a passion for it, so I might as well express myself," Hansen said. "I love poetry, so I was like I might as well just write a book, poems and pictures and just like, try to get it out there," she said.

"As children, most of us are taught to like gender-specific items and make choices based on these teachings. As I approach my teen years, I am beginning to question these choices and these teachings," Hansen said in the synopsis of her book.

"My hope for the future is to live in a world where men and women are equal on all levels. I hope that this world is without all labels except for one: HUMAN," she said in the preface of her book.

Hansen's book contains many poems that capture the essence of femininity and gender equality. Some poems describe how capable women are, and others describe how humanity is something everyone has in common.

She described her goal in the book to inspire and have others question their own experience regardless of age.

Although Hansen is no longer in seventh grade, she is doing that concerning sports.

"In softball, a lot of the coaches are men, and a lot of the umpires are men, and they only usually respect the men, even though it's a women's sport, which I find crazy," she said.

"Luckily, through my years of softball, I was coached by a woman, and it opened my eyes to this world of younger girls who play softball - or any sport - should be looking up to stronger, more confident women so they have that role model they want to become," Hansen said.

Before softball, she played baseball and said in regards to it, "When I played, I was six, probably. It was just all boys and their dads, so I felt really out of my element there and quit."

"But then my sister, she was like, 'hey, softball is a thing' —and then I just helped around and stood on the outside and looked in and finally some coach asked if I wanted to come play for them. And that's where I got started."

Her passion for equality and feminism is her guide for new experiences, such as a beauty pageant she competed in and won the title of Miss Teenage Etobicoke in July 2022.

"My whole thing about going into that was fighting for women in sports and standing up for them. But honestly, at the end of the day, at a real pageant, it's only about how you look in a dress, which is very sad," Hansen added.

"I'm hoping that in some other way, shape or form, I can try to get my message out there and push past all of these beauty standards—women can be powerful too and can play sports, and all of these good things."