You WILL believe she is as good as Stephen Curry, or you are a sexist bigot!
The culture wars are heating up, and both extreme ends of the ideological divide appear to be dashing to Crazy Town as fast as their legs can carry them. The vital, existential question is this: how many previously sane people will follow them in all the excitement?
Newsbusters recently flagged an article in ESPN Magazine by Howard Bryant that condemns disinterest in women’s professional sports, specifically basketball, as a mark of bias and misogyny. I wish I could read the whole thing—it requires a subscription—but the excerpts quoted seem clear…and deranged:
A. “Using men as the standard for female athletic achievement is designed to diminish and distort women’s accomplishments….The insistence on being identical to men might appear noble but is actually a false flag.”
B. “….acceptance of the women’s game on its own legitimate terms, independent of men – feels less promising and more turbulent. And in many ways it parallels the various racial dynamics of integration. Legislation secured the right to exist. Achievement vindicated the movement. Neither assured acceptance. The women’s game is in a similar place. The progress is there. The progressive thinking isn’t.”
C. “The issue is why the women’s game cannot be left alone, without harassment, without needing to be viewed through the invalid framework of the men’s game in the first place.”
D. “Six-foot-10 [male tennis pro] John Isner serves 143 mph. Five-foot-9 Serena does not and never will, which is proof of nothing, another false equivalent in a country built on inequalities.”
E. “These empty arguments, rooted in distortion and misogyny, are not without a sinister purpose. They are intended to devalue the women’s game, block opportunity, attack equal pay or discontinue women’s sports altogether.”
F.”[A]s long as women’s sports remain a cultural priority, financially and legally protected, maybe acceptance really isn’t that important anyway.”
This position…I think I’d like to read between these lines, but I’m wary—is reminiscent of Mao, or some other 1984-ish ideologue willing to argue that black is white and up is down. Rebuttals of the parts and the whole are absurdly simple.
A. If women were stronger, bigger and faster, then women’s sports would be the standard, because in athletic competitions, spectators want to see the best athletes, defined by what they can do, and not what they can do in spite of their physical limitations. Preferring to watch male athletes isn’t “designed” to do anything. It’s a reasonable choice. I can’t wait to see a female Major League Baseball pitcher, and when and if she arrives, I hope she’s a superstar. That doesn’t mean that I was sexist when I concluded that watching all-female teams play inferior baseball in the now defunct women’s professional baseball league was a waste of my time. “The insistence on being identical to men might appear noble but is actually a false flag” is a ridiculous straw man. Nobody insists on any such thing, but spectators want the best possible performance for their sports entertainment dollar. Whether the athletes are male or female, we insist on the highest possible quality.
Women’s gymnastics are more popular than the male sport, not because of gender, but because the lighter, more limber women can do things the men cannot, and they are more fun to watch. If WNBA players could dunk, run and shoot better than their NBA counterparts, it would be the more successful league.
B. Civil rights aims to make sure all citizens have the same opportunity to succeed and will be fairly rewarded for the same levels of success. The movement jumped the rails when it decided that it needed to guarantee equal success regardless of ability, skill and achievement. Bryant is extending this illogic to the next frontier. Women deserve to have the same fan support as men in sports where the men are better and more entertaining. Such a contention relieves the women of the responsibility to raise their talents and performance to a level that actually warrants such support.
C. Again, the “invalid” framework is “superior athletic performance,” and it’s not invalid. It is the standard that is essential to the integrity of sports. I wonder when Bryant will make the same argument for the Special Olympics? After all, the only reason anyone would rather watch a world class sprinter in the 100 yard dash rather than a dedicated Down Syndrome runner who is half as fast must be ablist bias and prejudice.
D. The false equivalence is apparently “they are both professional tennis players.” No, she is a women’s tennis player, and it is biased to judge women’s tennis by male tennis standards. Wait…isn’t this going backwards? Doesn’t this lead back to gender stereotypes and more bias? Doesn’t this point to judging female executives and Presidents on their own scale, so they don’t have to compete? Wasn’t the idea that they could compete, and that they should be allowed to rise or fall on their effort and ability, with their gender being irrelevant? Isn’t Bryant’s attitude a confession of failure?
F.“[A]s long as women’s sports remain a cultural priority, financially and legally protected, maybe acceptance really isn’t that important anyway.” This is the “affirmative action forever” theory. There’s no reason for women’s professional sports to ever make money or attract a large fan base. The government should just keep them going, because in theory they should be able to compete.
Is Howard Bryant really the template of the typical progressive? That is terrifying, if true.
Ethics Alarms 
For what it’s worth, I know a few avid sports fans who prefer the WNBA to the NBA. Their reasoning is that the WNBA plays a “team” game, as opposed to all of the show-boating going on in the NBA. That is probably a by-product of its being more difficult for women to dunk: they are not out there trying to show off.
I sympathize with that view, having grown up following pro basketball in the Red Auerbach Celtics era, when plays and teamwork rather than showboating was the way the game was played.
I loved it when five guys from Ubeckisstazican or whatever – handed us our lunch in the Olympics. They spent a lot of time studying Cousy films and Red’s coaching clinics.
I remember Red was doing a series of clinics back decades ago in the Eastern Bloc. The team had trouble crossing a border and were being questioned about “being players.” Pete Maravich was on the team and took out two basketballs and did a five minute Marques Haynes type ball handling show – they got cleared.
“Women’s gymnastics are more popular than the male sport, not because of gender, but because the lighter, more limber women can do things the men cannot, and they are more fun to watch. If WNBA players could dunk, run and shoot better than their NBA counterparts, it would be the more successful league.”
I disagree. I think it is all about the audience. For the most part, women watch gymnastics, so that is why those events are more popular. Same with figure skating — women are far more into it then men. I have to go to a lot of basketball games with my job, and while there are women there, the audience is predominantly men. Note that I said “have to.” If more women become interested in sports — and I do think that is happening — then you will see audience appreciation grow naturally. I don’t believe in forcing it though. I have never brought my girls to a Mystics game, even though it would be free, because they have shown no interest in basketball. Am I supposed to drag them there anyway?
Men generally prefer to watch men compete, and women generally prefer to watch women compete? Is that actually a thing? Maybe I’m not the best guy to ask. I loves me some women’s soccer, it’s like 200% more physical than mens without any of that wussy diving.
+1
[insert your preferred jab at pro players for not playing “like a girl”]
“Am I supposed to drag them there anyway?”
Of COURSE you are Beth, and then when they become of age, you are to force them at gunpoint to play sports, enter STEM, and pee standing up. Otherwise, how will women ever achieve equality?!?!
Not so worried about STEM — we’re a household of geeks, but I feel confident in predicting that there will be no athletic scholarships in our future.
You’re holding the sisterhood back, Beth. Repent, sinner!
It’s a good point. While I know many women who are serious sports fans, I know many more who tolerate sports, who watch and root to be with their men and share their interests, or who have no interest at all. This is also a gender divide that that it is presumably sexist to acknowledge, and lack of sports interest and knowledge is also a handicap in the workplace that disproportionately affects women.
When I had an all-woman staff, I advised them to educate themselves on sports as much as they could stand, at least become literate (read the sports pages), and learn to play poker and golf well. The few that followed my advice were grateful, because it worked.
I bet all the women you know who are serious sports fans are those women Red Sox fans in the pink ball caps that sit between the dugouts and look as if they’re watching a live demonstration in a surgical theater. It’s just baseball, ladies. The Red Sox have won, what, three World Series in your lifetimes. Lighten up. It’s not life and death.
No real Red Sox fan of any gender wears those damn pink caps.
Hah.
I advised them to educate themselves on sports as much as they could stand, at least become literate (read the sports pages), and learn to play poker and golf well
I can peruse a sports page with the best of them but no longer have the stance for golf, the point of fencing, nor the courage to watch my friends’ fall apart as their kids flub the soft flies, but I happened to be watching when Liv Boeree
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2015/03/winners-at-european-poker-awards-21082.htm
I happened to be watching the when Liv Boeree flipped her chips through a field of 1,244 for four10-hour days — well, it was grueling to struggle through the hour-long summary of final table action anyway — to take €1,250,000 at the San Remo event of the 2010 European Poker Tournament. I admit it. That’s when I started dreaming about playing head’s up once again.
I love women’s volleyball. (Insert snark comment)
My basketball days are over but watching the WNBA was like watching an A team in the men’s league at the “Y.” Yeah….I can appreciate all their athleticism, etc., but it is just low end basketball.
This is one of those places I think I should make an obligatory cultural Marxism reference.
The ability to compete isn’t important, it’s a social construct or something, what’s really important is diversity, and equality. While you’re at it, you should watch the special Olympics with just as much fervour as the Olympics. In fact, we should do away with “special” Olympics and have those athletes compete with their quad-limbed counterparts. Disability is just a social construct anyway. Ableist, patriarchal, colonial scum.
It’s an interesting question. I don’t know Jack – if people like the biggest and the best, why are there so many college football and basketball fans? The worst NFL team still annihilates the college champion.
My wife loves college football and can go from one game to another for 12 hours straight, stopping only to mix another batch of cider and Hot Damn. I watch it to spend time with her. When I’m home alone, I may check the scores or watch the last five minutes, but that’s about it.
Could it be that you like what you like? Does it have to be more difficult than that?
1) The core following of all college sports is alumni/ae and students.
2) When the teams are matched, the difference in play between big time college football and basketball is not so great, and there will be individual stars who would not be out of place in the pros. College all-star football teams used to play NFL teams. A WNBA team, on the other hand, would be crushed by the worst NBA team playing its hardest.
3) College stars aren’t paid anything. Amateur sports is appealing because it’s amateur. I like little league baseball, but if I had to pay the same for a game as a Red Sox, game, I’d pass.
A. “’The insistence on being identical to men might appear noble but is actually a false flag’ is a ridiculous straw man. Nobody insists on any such thing, . . .”
I disagree. The idea behind the equal pay and “77% of male earning power” is exactly that – that there is and should be no distinction between men and women, or genders irrespective of the economics of men’s sports as compared to women’s sports. Follow the logic in the US women’s soccer players’ suit against FIFA. They are arguing that there should be equal pay for equal play. The idea is to blur the distinctions between genders. It is completely Orwellian in nature. If you control language, you control thought.
This is also the idea behind the current kerfuffle over city/state restroom use ordinances. You cannot tell me that ordinances are required to protect less than one percent of one percent of the US population. The hard left, and the Obama Administration, seek to remove distinctions between any gender. That is why the Administration threatened to withhold funding to non-complying school districts. Also, Eugene Volokh writes about a recent legal position put forth by the New York City Commission on Human Rights calling for imposing sanctions against employers and suppliers of public accommodations for violating someone’s civil rights because of continued references to a person’s gender identifier. Here is the link:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/05/17/you-can-be-fined-for-not-calling-people-ze-or-hir-if-thats-the-pronoun-they-demand-that-you-use/?utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=twitterfeed
Apparently, a business can be sanctioned if its customers continue to use a gender identifier that doesn’t comport with that business’ employee’s preferred name, pronoun, or title.
jvb
As an aside, I think women’s soccer is more exciting to watch because it moves faster, the women players take bigger risks, and they tend to be more aggressive. Women’s basketball? It is in the same place as my affinity for men’s basketball – virtually nonexistent.
jvb
You really prefer watching women’s soccer to watching Barcelona vs. Real Madrid or Bayern Munchen vs. Wolfsburg? Really? That’s interesting.
Well, truth be told, I prefer watching US women’s soccer over US men’s soccer. European and Mexican men’s are totally different. The level of play in those matches is far superior considering that US soccer is still in its infancy (or may terrible twos).
jvb
Ah. I don’t think U.S. soccer will catch up to the rest of the world for generations, perhaps never. While living in Amsterdam, I’ve seen young boys dribbling balls out of (1) a restaurant after a meal with their parents and (2) through the aisles of a cramped little neighborhood grocery store jammed with shoppers. Klinsman knows what he’s doing by trying to stuff his entire team with ringers.
This and the fact that soccer in America will probably always take a back seat to basketball, football, and (hopefully) baseball, which tend to monopolize the best athletes. In Europe, there’s soccer, soccer, and more soccer, and it’s the only sport with major draw for talent.
Soccer is a great sport for young kids. I had all my children play soccer and then when they got old enough they choose a real sport.
Pro Basketball is already behind MLB baseball, hockey and tennis have fallen way back into the pack, and if you want to bet that football will be around and thriving after all the lawsuits and mothers realize that they are sentencing their kids to likely dementia in their 50s—I’m guessing in 20 years or less—be my guest.
Baseball is the growing sport internationally, and soccer has its own concussion issues.
Baseball is my favorite sport, so I hope you’re right about it. It just seems to have taken a back seat to the faster paced sports, at least among the younger generations, mine included.
Well, think about this.
In 1960, September 28, Ted Williams played his final game in Fenway Park, and his career. He had announced that it was his last season, and many believed that he wouldn’t play in the last three road games. As you know, Ted hit a HR in his last at bat.
There were 10,454 in the park, which held 32,000 or so.
Can you imagine what that final game would be like today? Yet baseball was regarded as the National Pastime then, and football wasn’t challenging it yet, in the eyes of most of the culture.
66 years later, the top players are paid 25,000,000 a year or more; Ted made about $80,000 that last season. Most games weren’t televised; now every single game is. The players aren’t just better than ever, they are much, much better, especially in fielding and pitching. There were just 16 teams in 1960; now there are 30. In 1960, most Americans had never seen a MLB baseball game, even on TV, and never would get the chance.
If that’s declining in popularity, I’ll have me some.
“Six-foot-10 [male tennis pro] John Isner serves 143 mph. Five-foot-9 Serena does not and never will, which is proof of nothing, another false equivalent in a country built on inequalities.”
Umm, it’s proof that he plays tennis at an objectively higher level. This writer is some kind of evil idiot genius. He managed to take the biological reality that humans are a dimorphous species and turn it into proof that America is unjust. SJWs are just the worst.
Is that what this is?
Feminist bitches be crazy. Are you just figuring this out?
Feminist bitches like…Howard Bryant?
In my experience, male feminists are… less batshit crazy, more Enron crazy.