I think the ancients referred to them as “Sporty Spice”
Tom boy was a pretty classic term though it has gained some additional connotations.
I hear jock I just think athlete, so I’m gonna go with athlete.
this, probably
Jocks
IMO no equivalent. The closest word people might use is really derogatory, and has a connotation of being overly masculine for a woman.
In the spirit of describing women who are extremely proficient at a sport but not being indirectly called masculine… the word is probably just “athletic”.
Panties :D
I think jocks they make jockstraps for women too. So it still fits.
They’re actually called Jills around here.
Cheerleaders if you mean like a subculture clique?
I heard some people call them Stacies and I have seen this being used in pop culture as well.
And Stacies mom…has got it goin on!
At my highschool, 2001-5 we called them “preps”
In my area, that’s a word for popular/materialistic girls, not athletic ones. I think OP means to find a term for girls who are athletic, not for the stereotypical girl “equivalent” (i.e., not a girl like Cher from Clueless).
Very similar time frame for me… I always thought that preps were more of an upper-class group. Maybe there’s a little overlap between those two groups though.
Gonna channel TierZoo for a minute here:
If you’re going to play High School, there are two ways to create the Jock build:
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You can go with the Prep class and then subclass in Meathead. You’re going to letter in baseball, soccer, golf and track and field, your girlfriend is a cheerleader, you’re probably going to be prom king and you’re going to the college your dad did and probably join the same frat your dad was in.
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Start out as trailer trash nobody and go for the “peak in high school” subquest, you’re gonna be on the football team and the wrestling team, you’ll date one of the three straight girls in the marching band’s color guard. You’re probably someone’s school bully. You’re not even going to apply to college. Ten years from now you’ll be other than honorably discharged from the marine corps and you’ll work as a bouncer at a dive bar in Jacksonville.
It’s kinda rare to see a direct distaff counterpart to either one of these. In the former’s case, you get a cheerleader. She might run track or something in the spring but these girls usually throw themselves into shit like student government, yearbook club, whatever student committee organizes the dances, she’s gonna major in poli-sci and marry a lawyer for his money or she’s gonna get an MBA so she can be a self-proclaimed “boss bitch.”
In the latter’s case, she probably doesn’t go for athletics or even extracurriculars at all, she’s a fixture at house parties with alcohol, she has basically no plan for life, through her 20’s she’ll waitress at various chain sit-down restaurants and/or cashier at Food Lion until she gets knocked up.
There is a somewhat rarer class of severe tryhard, she’s convinced she’s going to be an astronaut so she takes herself 100% seriously, isn’t accepted to the Air Force Academy so she enrolls in ROTC at ERAU, is in every sport the college offers to girls, does basically no socializing, ends up an officer in the Air Force but does not become a pilot, resigns as a Captain and opens a shelter for abandoned parrots. Athletics are just a byproduct of overachieving with nothing to show for it.
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sounds about right, i went to highschool 2019-2024