It was recently announced that Sarah Thomas, mother of three and the first female referee to officiate a major college football match, is in the running to become a permanent NFL referee. This would make Thomas the NFL’s first female ref, cementing her position as a pioneer for women sports.

Sarah Thomas started officiating football games in 1996, unwittingly becoming the first female football referee to officiate a Division-1 high school game. When she started her career, Thomas says, she wasn’t even aware of how completely male dominated the job would be. However, she’s found that her gender has little impact on how she approaches officiated football games—it is her excellent record and skill as referee that that gets recognized and caught the attention of NFL officials.

Even though her career is centered around stereotypical masculinity, Thomas is, refreshingly, uninterested in overlooking her feminine identity. In an interview with ESPN, she has this to say about gender and refereeing: “I am a female…I take a lot of pride in that. I’m not trying to be one of the guys.”

I find this quote pretty exciting, because it shows us that liking something that’s historically been thought of as “just for boys” doesn’t make you any less feminine. You can like football and still like make-up! If Sarah Thomas is named the next full-time NFL ref, she can be an inspiration to other young women who may have been discouraged from pursuing their interests. She shows us that our genders don’t need to stop us from being great at our jobs, and, no matter what our interests, hard work can get us to the big leagues.

What do you think of Sarah Thomas? Do you have any stereotypically “male” interests? Have you ever faced any hardships because of them?

-Julie