Along with discrimination for sports journalist, let’s not forget about the controversy in sports as a whole. The Title IX Education Amendment of 1972 has no doubt lead to many female athletes being given a chance to excel in sports, but what about the male athletic programs that are suffering? As I understand it, the spirit behind title IX is to make sure that women have just as many opportunities to play in organized colleges sports as men. This is a good thing, but from what I understand, this had degenerated into a “quota” system. If 55% of your students are female, then 55% of the athletes need to be female as well. I don’t believe this is a fair standard. Some of these men’s teams have been in existence for almost a hundred years, expecting the women’s team in the same sport to generate the interest and money in a few short years in unrealistic in my opinion. I don’t really know what the answer is, I heartily support women being given the exact same opportunities if they desire, but I also don’t think it’s fair to expect every college to be able to support the exact same teams for men and women. Not every campus is going to have enough women interesting to field a team, so the colleges end up cutting men’s teams in order to keep the numbers equal. Listed below are some links for both sides. http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/ge/
As to the OP, I think it’s about as wrong as you can get. I hope that once women’s sports reach a level that scores of reporters are waiting to interview the team, the same standard will be upheld. 15 minutes or so of total privacy, then doors open to the media, no matter what gender. I do think that athletes get somewhat de-sensitized to dressing and undressing in front of others, I know in high school, there were times when we’d all change on the bus, and while nobody was totally naked, it wasn’t a big deal. There are other venue’s that have some of this same indifferance. When I was in Drama, it was also no big deal to change costumes in front of each other…we just didn’t have time to run to a dressing room.
Robinh–
I totally disagree with you on this one. I don’t think that any woman in a locker room filled with her peers and teammates is worried about a man forcing himself on her. I took those comments to mean that most men wouldn’t actually voice thier feelings of being uncomfortable around women in the locker room, that it may go against the “macho” image for them to complain about it.
Considering that the networks are not going to wait 15 minutes to 30 minutes after the game ends to do their post-game show, that is not a realistic alternative in most circumstances. However, I disagree with the person who said something about women being more uncomfortable with their naked bodies than men. There aren’t any size-changing parts on a woman, thank you very much. That said though, I doubt most professional atheletes are very insecure about their bodies. On the other hand, I don’t think members of the opposite sex belong in locker rooms. Except in cheesy R rated films about cheerleaders.
If you want to turn this into that kind of argument, fine. Men are better at almost every sport than a woman, with a few exceptions (gymnastics and possibly soccer come to mind). There are exceptions to the rule: a girl trying out for a little league team for instance. Of course at that age, girls are sometimes more developed than boys, so they are on an equal par.
But when it comes to pro sports, if women were equal to men, then there would be women in the NBA, NFL, Major League baseball and the NHL.
By the same token, a man has no business trying out for the WNBA. Womens legues are set up to give women a chance, since they are not on the same par as men in these sports.
This is not a sexist statement. Just because men are better at sports does NOT mean they are superior to women. I think for instance, if the world was run by women, there would be less war. And the business world could use many many more women executives. I support equal pay for women for the same work. My experience is that women make better salespeople as well.
Men and women are different. And should be treated differently. Women should be allowed into mens locker rooms. And men should stay out of women’s deressing rooms.
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, is anything worthwhile ever said in these interviews? every day I hear the sports on the way to work, and audio of the players always sound the same. It’s the same dozen comments repeated over and over again endlessly!
“Well, we weren’t on our game in first half, and we knew we had to really pull together in order to get the win.”
“Well, we didn’t play well today, but we will suck it up and be back next week. We’re not out of this yet.”
“My arm was feeling good, and I am just glad to be back in the game.”
“Yeah, I think the officiating really stank, and there’s no doubt that the refs handed them the win.”
“We unfortunately took a few bad calls, and what can I say? Sometimes it just doesn’t come together the way we want it to.”
“We worked hard as a team, and I’m really proud of the game we played today.”
Bah! The only time it ever becomes even mildly entertaining is when some player gets really pissed at a reporter’s question or shoots his mouth off about some other player or coach. The actual information conveyed is minimum, often zero, and it isn’t even entertaining. And this is regardless of whether they invoke Jesus, God, or Allah for their victories.
This isn’t the type of situation to which I was referring. I was thinking of something more along the lines of the OP, where a “reporter” publically speculates about the size of a male athelete’s equipment (so to speak.) I am suggesting that such behavior, while coarse and unprofessional, will not receive the same reaction it would if the reporter in question were male and the athelete female. This sort of overt, agressive sexual banter can carry with it an implied threat, especially when power issues are involved. When a man ogles a woman and makes rude comments he can, through body language and tone of voice, imply a threat of rape, i.e. what he might do to her if he caught her alone. I think the women on this board will back me up here. Sometimes when the construction workers (to use a stereotype) whistle and such you know they’re just being rude and you can laugh it off. But sometimes they make you nervous and you find yourself crossing the street so you don’t have to walk too close to them.
Meredith Vieira can make all the comments she wants, but the man in question is very unlikely to worry about the possible threat (real or imagined) that she might, if given the chance, force herself on him. Women just aren’t taken as seriously in such situations; it is assumed to be a joke. But all men have to be more careful, because some men aren’t joking.
The whole reporter-in-the-locker-room situation is really more a power situation. By going into the locker room (with limited space and an uncomfortably intimate atmosphere for most people) the players, managers and selected reporters can control who reports what. Using the Lisa Olson story as an example, the Patriots could have bullied an unwanted male reporter out of the locker room just as well. These are big guys; in a group they could be very threatening. But if it had been a male reporter they had wanted to intimidate, they probably wouldn’t have done it naked. The implied sexual threat is just a bonus that men have at their disposal.
