Bethpage High School is one of the many schools in the United States that offer not only junior varsity badminton, but also varsity. These teams allows anyone in the school to play the sport no matter what level of knowledge and experience they have of it. 

However, with this very competitive sport comes stereotypes that are not always true. Certain stereotypes aim to make badminton players feel unaccomplished with their skills of the sport. Here are a list of stereotypes involving badminton:

• “Only people of Asian heritage play badminton”
• “It’s a sport for girls”
• “You can only play well if you’re tall”
• “It is a very easy sport to play”

Aashka Shah, a junior at BHS who is a part of the varsity badminton team, explains that although she is a female of Asian heritage and genetically tall, these stereotypes do not hold any validity.

She exposes that these stereotypes are “misleading because they don’t include the majority of the people who play the sport.”

Both the junior varsity and the varsity team at Bethpage stray away from these stereotypes. Both teams exemplify diversity and celebrate it by lifting each other up during the badminton season.