Ladies who don't lunch

They play soccer instead, and think it may be the best thing about coming to America.

Though I've moved since then, MacArthur was one of my local parks when I got my first apartment in LA. That dirt field is beat to heck from all the games played there, but it's the center of a little feeling of community.
It's true that the U.S. offers women opportunities in soccer that they simply didn't have elsewhere. When I taught at nearby Belmont high school, a little freshman girl told me that she had to hide her soccer uniform from her mother, who was convinced playing the game would keep her daughter from ever marrying. What's interesting is that the girl had her father as an ally - he'd drop her off at practices and covered for her absences so that her mother wouldn't suspect the ruse.