After Atalanta

It's hard to believe that I am scooping amateur on doping news. But here it is: in the past two days, two separate stories have appeared about doping offenses in professional tennis. The one that seems more credible--or rather with the least amount of unknowns--is the case against Mariano Puerta , 2005's French Open finalist. This is his second offense and has warranted an 8-year ban by the ITF--a light sentence given that it could have been a lifetime ban. Either option ends his career however as he is 27 and the only 35-year old playing today is Agassi and Puerta is no Agassi. According to reports, Puerta ended up with the banned substance, etilfrine, in his system because it was in his wife's medication for hypertension. But it was such a trace amount that it could not have enhanced his performance--and he did lose to Nadal after all. So many questions still though. Why is Puerta's wife on hypertension medication anyway? Is there something about being married to Pue...

Doing some holiday shopping this afternoon, I stopped into Barnes and Noble to take a look around (and to use the bathroom which is nicer than the mall's facilities--a potentially interesting observation to explore further for those who do bathroom studies). Because I was just casually browsing I was sucked in rather easily, as they knew I would be, by the display table simply with the sign SPORTS on it. What did I see? Lance Armstrong, Toger Woods, boxing, golf, Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, football, football, football, baseball, baseball, and misc. No women anywhere. I have read all the studies about lack of media coverage and the general disinterest in women's sport. But I was still surprised nary a woman graced the table. Perhaps because I have been immersed in writing on women's sport--some of which warned me in some way that that table in B&N would not represent women--I have been living in a false reality, also known as academe. In a (near) Olympic year one woul...

I was giddy with schadenfraude this past weekend when I flipped on ESPN and saw a special piece on the new accusations against Rene Portland , head coach of the PSU women's basketball team. They interviewed fairly extensively (enough to draw out some tears) a former player who was forced off the team in the early 80s because Portland threatened to reveal her homosexuality. Another player --not gay, but sister is--from the 90s has also come forward to dicusss the homophobic comments and atmosphere Portland made. PSU students are starting to protest. [Alas PSU is not playing at my Big Ten university this season so we cannot stage a protest here.] Jen Harris's lawsuit has finally set off all the furor over Portland's overtly discriminatory ways that should have been dealt with years ago. I am buoyed by this activism yet also cautious as I think about all the coaches who are not as obvious as Portland and harm just as many people who, because of the often covert homophobia in a...

I am just too tired to review last year. We all know what happened. So here are my thoughts on 2006. The Comeback Kids? Martina Hingis is staging her comeback this year. It’s in the back of Kournikova’s mind . And Monica Seles is thinking about it as she trains 5 days a week at her Florida home. As much as I would like to see Seles return to the game, I think she should cut her losses now. I wish she could have gone out on her own terms but I don’t think it is meant to be. If she does come back my prediction is she will play one grand slam, lose before the quarters and call it quits. As for Hingis—well this should be interesting. Just because she beat Martina N. (her namesake—I wonder which Martina cringes more at that) handily this summer in World Team Tennis does not mean she is ready to play with the big girls again. My prediction—third round loss at the Australian. And if she sticks it out, 4th round at French—after all clay is the equalizer, though it is also the one Grand Slam sh...

It wasn't an exceptionally interesting year on or off the court in men's tennis. Roger Federer dominated--again. I predict similar things from him next year--maybe a few more of the top ten men will have flashes of brilliance, like Safin at the 2005 Australian or Nalbandian at the year-end Master's, and knock out a win or two. But no one will beat Federer's record which is a product of his superhuman consistency. This prediction could all fall apart however if Federer actually gets a full-time coach. Off the court, well no one really cares about Federer's off the court life. But just in case there are some passionate Federer fans out there...I think something will happen on the long-time girlfriend front; perhaps a pregnancy or a proposal. Probably the most interesting thing that will happen this year is Andre Agassi's retirement. And if it doesn't actually happen his deteriorating performances (not that there's anything wrong with that) will certainly b...

The women's crew team at the University of Cincinnati is bringing suit under Title IX (and the equal protection clause) against the university for failure to provide adequate funding . This is going to be a fascinating case to watch. Title IX does not mandate that equal funding--dollar for dollar--go to men's and women's team--it mandates equity. The crew team notes that they had been promised a boathouse to be completed by this year and it never happened. University officials claim the original estimate of $3million doubled to $6million and made it less feasible. Yet the baseball stadium is a brand new 11 million dollar complex and the football stadium also underwent substantial renovations. And, it should be noted, that in NCAA re-accreditation reviews of gender equity which look for the completion of proposed action items,"it was too expensive" is not an acceptable excuse for failure to complete a project. Additionally, there is a million dollar differential be...

[I added the part I because I anticipate future entries on this subject. I limit this entry, however, to a short anecdote, followed by an even shorter comment.] I was watching the Grand Prix ice skating event which is taking place in Paris this week when I was at the gym yesterday afternoon. I have been out of the ice skating loop (both the double and the triple loops--ha!) this season and since it is an Olympic year I thought I would see what was going on and who was hot/injured/without a coach/etc. I turned it on during the men's short program which frankly is probably the least interesting to me. But I stuck with it (Sunday afternoons do not offer great programming variety). The actual performances didn't really impress me but as usual what comes out of the commentators' mouths is always of interest and worthy of comment. Gheorghe Chiper was skating first. I had never heard of him. He happens to be having a good week--he got the bronze. Chiper is 27 and from Romania wher...

[apologies for not blogging sooner--major computer meltdown this past weekend. But I am up and running again.] So the girls of curling calendar I wrote about earlier still has me thinking. Oh sure--there are lots of examples of female athletes acquiring material (and non-materials even) gains from their sexuality. So the concept of the calendar I guess does not really shock me, only that it was so blatant in its attempt to get people to watch curling by using near naked photos of athletes. I have to question whether this will really work anyway. It's not as if when you tune in to a curling match the women are going to be in sexy outfits or anything (at least let's hope it doesn't come to that!)--won't those who tuned in to get turned on quickly realize they are not getting the calendar version of these women? Anyway, what intrigued me about one part of the story was the construction of the European women as much more sexually free than the Canadian women. Do we really s...

Yikes--I hadn't realized it had been so long since my last post. It's been a busy few weeks leading up to Thanksgiving (US version for my international readers) break. And still there is work do get done so I simply offer here a preview of what is to come: More on this curling calendar-- I am still a little stunned and amazed. Progress of the US women's hockey team's road to the Olympics tours in which they are not doing so hot. Canada keeps beating them handily. Not good with so little time left to prepare. And lastly since the year-ending tournaments are over (for the women) and near over (men's master's event is currently underway) I will do a tennis year in review and maybe even make predictions for what is to come next year. Stay tuned!

And if you take a look at the new "ladies of curling calendar" you too may just see everything! A former curling skip who is also a photopgrapher has created a calendar in which female curlers (including her) pose nude or nearly nude in an attempt to generate more interest in the sport and make some money for curling teams. Oi vey--where do I even start with this? How about with the prophetic statement by former world champion Colleen Jones: "I think the women are going to have to curl naked in order to get people out there,” she said at the time. “I'm not kidding." Apparently she wasn't. Jones also mentioned that curling needs their own Anna Kournikova. So curling wants someone who is really beautiful, hangs out with (and eventually marries) A-list celebs, engages in cattiness with teammates, and has a mediocre career from which she basically retires at a very young age. I don't think any sport really needs their own Anna. Women's tennis was gaining...

Recently out WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes gave an interview to Planet Out where she mentions the climate of the WNBA and her experience in this climate. Swoopes seems to be a little too kind (naive?) about the organization saying that she doesn't exactly think they are homophobic, just that they have issues about how much to market to their large gay fan base. The "not exactly" homophobic position of the WNBA is apparent when Swoopes recounts her conversation with WNBA president, Donna Orender who said (and I believe Swoopes may be paraphrasing here): "Sheryl, your sexual preference has nothing to do with who you are on the court and who you are off the court. What you choose to do is your business and we're happy for you." Why do people want to divorce your "sexual preference" (learn how to say gay or lesbian without getting tongue-tied, Donna!) from "who you are"? Of course it is about who you are! Orender would never suggest that Swoopes...

I have been teaching in higher education for about 6 years now and have always been very conscious of my pedagogical practices. And I have been going to the gym since...well...a long time but have not, until recently thought about the pedagogical practices aerobics instructors employ. And even more recently I have been moonlighting as a spin nstructor. So I have decided to combine all my interests as well as my work on women's activity and its empowerment potential and write a paper about feminist pedagogical practices and spin/indoor cycling. This is very convenient because while I am taking and/or teaching spin classes, I am also doing research. I have made many observations thus far some good, many bad (many instructors continually reify the hegemonic female body and the male model of sport) but last night a good thing occurred. During one of the sprinting drills which was done in stages the instructors described our effort level by encouraging us to visualize another biker j...

Woo-hoo it's hockey season finally. And while there is next to no hockey shown on TV out here in the middle of America, I am still excited to be able to surf the 'net for the latest hockey news. First, a somewhat reluctant but nonetheless huge shout-out to the BU Terriers who are in their first season in Hockey East and have lost only 1 game; a loss they avenged the other night when they beat Northeastern [which has slid steadily downhill since the loss of team USA goalie Chanda Gunn (graduation) and their former coach (to UConn)]. The reluctance is because it is practically sacrilege for a UNH alum to give props to anything BU. But any supporter of women's athletics, particularly women's hockey, cannot let this pass with comment. Also, it's almost an Olympic year which means women's international hockey gets a little more recognition (fingers crossed). I have been meaning to check out the potential roster for a while now but keep getting sidetracked by silly th...

Can I get a whoop whoop for Sheryl Swoopes?! Swoopes came out as gay today and not because she was pressured but because she said she was tired of hiding her relationship with her partner. (Of course the partner is not named but I expect her identity will be revealed shortly.) I was initially wary of the way the article read. Swoopes could be read as being somewhat vague or even exhibiting "apologetic behavior": she says she has not always been gay, that her homosexuality was not the reason for her divorce, that she doesn't want to "throw it in people's faces." This was my initial reaction only because it is not the out and proud and going to get married Rah Rah lesbianism that perhaps many are accustomed to (and afraid of?). But this of course is a good thing, I realized. Swoopes shows us that there are many ways of being gay. She presents the view that is often not voiced: not everyone thinks being gay is an innate characteristic and that just because it...

OK--I am finally going to do it. I am going to bring up the issue of mixed gender competition. Of course I am doing it in a very safe way by focusing on two particular examples I observed this weekend. I don't want to explode this discussion too much so soon. So there was crap on TV this weekend which actually allowed me to get some work done but still in those moments when I was ready for a break I was flipping through the channels for some salvation (but not the kind found on BCTV). The Travel Channel had a poker tournament on. It was a women's tournament. Why is there women's poker? I have seen some mixed gender poker on ESPN but I am left wondering why, more often than not it seems, there is a separation of the genders in the game of poker. Seems like it plays on a pretty antiquated notion that women are not as smart as men since poker does not involve physical strength (the usual reason for separating the sexes). Is there something I, a non-poker player, am missing her...

Not happy with the response from Penn State administrators, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) has decided to sue the university on behalf of former player Jen Harris who was dismissed from the team last March, allegedly because coach Rene (rhymes with weenie) Portland thought she was gay. The suit was actually triggered by Portland's public response to the allegations initially made by the NCLR. Portland launched a character attack against Harris citing her poor basketball performance (she was one of the team's top scorers) and poor grades (she had a 3.0 GPA when she left PSU). I checked out some of the message boards where Penn fans have been posting about this issue. Mostly they all adore the homophobic Portland and think Harris is a whiner out to get some money--though there are some sound minds pointing out that Portland's track record on the issue of lesbians in sport is not pristine. Not surprising responses. Fans like their winning teams and their winnin...

Because I complain so bitterly at times about the lack of media coverage of women's sport, I thought I would say something positive. Of course I can only say something positive when something positive has occurred and it has. Checking my Yahoo sports page this morning I noticed that they top three stories listed under the category College Hockey were all about women's games from this past weekend. OK--so two were about the same game--but they were different articles which just goes to show that more than one media outlet actually covered the game. So I think it's a win-win all around (unless you are the UVM Catamounts who lost two game to the Badgers this weekend both 5-0. Don't give up, Catamounts--it's only your first season playing in the big leagues. Things will get better!)

about Penn State basketball coach Rene Portland? Have almost three decades of anti-gay recruiting policies and various levels of subtle and not-so-subtle harassment finally caught up to her? We shall see. The National Center for Lesbian Rights has demanded the Penn State president look into the allegations after the latest incident of harassment forced one of the Lions best players off the team and to another school. The former player, Jennifer Harris, allegedly isn't even gay. Of course this is her mother saying this and denial, especially publicly, of homosexuality isn't exactly a foreign concept in women's sports. Of course what actually comes of this remains to be seen. We should note that while the NCLR is a worthy group, usually we hear about organizations such as Lambda or even the ACLU intervening in cases such as this. While Harris does have a lawyer, I have not heard of any actual suits being brought yet. And we must also remember that Portland has not been subt...

In honor of National Coming Out Day I have decided to write about some famous sport icons who faced intense coming out processes while playing. OK--the coming out day thing is a pretext. I thought of the idea before I realized it was coming out day. No matter. (And Happy Coming Out Day to all those for whom that is relevant. Woo-hoo, Go Gay!) So back to the icons. I am speaking of Rene Richards and Martina Navratilova. What inspires this entry is some recent light reading I have been doing where they were mentioned--deparately, but in ways which disappoint me. Richards first. So Richards is a transexual, MTF, who played as a woman for a but on the women's tennis tour. Obviously with some controversy--including legal battles. In the most recent issue of Bitch , Richards comments on the presence of MTFs in sport. (The article was about golfer Mianne Bagger .) Richards believes they should not be allowed to play--even after completion of reassignment surgery and hormone treatment--whi...

Many thanks to amateur for pointing me to this fascinating blog entry by sportsbabel about his experience running in a recent breast cancer charity event. Here are his very interesting observations as he questions if such events are really "feminist" (noting that there are many types of feminism of course): "1. There is a bounty of sponsor-provided free food offered to the runners after the race is completed, while Toronto's homeless peer in through the semi-enclosure or sleep on grates nearby. 2. After the post-race refuelling is finished, there do not appear to be temporary recycling facilities anywhere to collect what will be thousands of plastics and tetra boxes. 3. Men can get breast cancer as well, yet I could only find this nugget of information buried away on the web site's Breast Cancer Statistics page. Saying so out loud must confuse the "Think Pink" message. 4. In the ultimate irony of "Thinking Pink," there is predominantly pink...

I have decided to write my cultural studies paper about subculture on snowboarders. Though I was intrigued by wrestling, I cannot pursue it because the assignment calls for analysis of a youth subculture and while youths watch pro wrestling they are not actual participants. So, I have never been a snowboarder and was only a fair-weather (almost literally) skier so I have not spent a lot of time observing the habits of snowboarders. And now that I am out here in the flatlands I can't jaunt off to a ski resort to do some ethnographic data. So I am asking snowboarders to give me some details. Please, please comment. Here's what I am interested in: 1. style: the fashion, is there one style? do you have to wear certain clothes to be accepted? are there identifying clothes both on and off the slopes (i.e. can you pick out fairly easily a fellow snowboarder)? 2. class/economic issues: what socioeconomic class do most snowboarders come from? are they adhering to their class status or t...

Despite the title of this entry I am not going to make sweeping generalizations about male fans. because sweeping generalizations are bad--very bad. Instead I am going to relate an incident I observed this past weekend and offer a brief analysis. I went to a women's Big Ten volleyball match. Not a big crowd but very enthusiastic. Arriving shortly after the first serve (is there a volleyball equivalent to tip-off or faceoff?) were two men I had seen at women's softball games the previous spring. Both were wearing rather offensive (sexist/homophobic t-shirts) which initially made me wonder why they support women's sports at all--an incongruity to analyze another time. Both cheered but one was cheering in a different sort of way. He was, essentially, coaching. He would tell players, by calling out their numbers, what they needed to do: "Number 5 you need to set up the pass." Most obnoxious was that whenever a home team player went to the line to serve he yelled where...

Apologies for the extended absence--it's been a crazy week. And I don't really have any particular issue to comment upon at the moment, so I thought I would ask a question. I am taking a class in cultural studies and I have to write a paper in about a week or so about subcultures. I have to find a subculture and analyze it--any version of a subculture that I see. I of course want to manipulate the assignment, as I have been doing all semester, to be ale to talk about sports. But are there subcultures in sports? This is what I need help in locating. I don't mean people who are very subtly or not-so-subtly pushed out of mainstream sports but groups who choose to be different from mainstream sport--on purpose. They define themselves in opposition and develop their own rules, ways of being, etc. A friend of mine suggested rugby--at least the way Americans play it. But I know very little about rugby. Please comment if you have any ideas.

Last week I caught a few minutes of the new season of The Biggest Loser. The format, at least to start (those reality shows always like to throw in a twist at some point) is the men versus the women. So we saw clips of the first day workout and each team doing their thing. The men's team has a female trainer; the women a male trainer. The female trainer was "motivating" her charges by saying "You can do better than that--this isn't the girls' team." When I was in high school the football team's practice field was, unfortunately, next to our tennis courts. I constatnly heard remarks like this--and far worse actually. It's so depressing, after so much progress in women's sports, to still be referred to as the lesser and to hear it used as a fear tactic: you better run faster, lift more, jump higher, throw farther because if you don't--you might as well be a girl. And, in this case, it came from a female trainer which made me cringe even mor...

The French Open organizers have finally decided to award equal prize money to men and women. No word (that I have found) on the impetus for the change. Seems like quite a delayed reaction, especially in a country that is so concerned with the perception of equality that it forbids that differences be displayed in public schools (i.e. the recent law that no religious symbolism--crosses, star of david, head scarves--be worn by students). Also surprising that tournaments were not under much public/social pressure to equalize the prize money years ago. In the 70s Billie Jean King organized boycotts against tournaments that awarded grossly inequitable prize money and then she went off and formed her own tour. Seems like when the prize money got closer to equitable people were satisfied and the issue was dropped. Everyone forgets such strides made in the 70s and has relegated it to "history." Jennifer Capriati, when asked a few years ago, didn't even know what Title IX was. I c...

This will be a quick (but, as always, poignant) rant. I missed the WNBA playoff game today because I was reading about the various versions of equality that feminists have espoused, including, for all you Iowa law folks, Pat Cain's thoughts on the matter. And I admit I have not been following the finals too closely. (I had to google to find out why Sun star Lindsay Whalen was not playing.) But still I wanted to know the result so during the boring Emmy speeches and in between reading my students' papers on the social construction of gender I flipped over to both ESPN and ESPN2 to check out the tickers. One of the tickers was entirely devoted to football (not just game scores, QB stats, running back stats, etc.). The other didn't have the WNBA even listed as a category. I don't think it is too much to ask to have the score from a game that took place this afternoon as part of the ticker.

So my friend J. showed me some of the new Nike ads aimed at women which are now appearing in magazines including Jane . In my somewhat hybridized academic speak I said "Holy, problematic!" J. nodded in agreement. Here is link where you can see three of the ads of the 6-ad print campaign which the Nike peeps are calling a continuation of the "If you let me play campaign" from the late 90s. (Also a problematic campaign. If you let me play. Please, sir, please let me play sport. I promise if I do I won't get pregnant or do drugs and become a burden to your welfare state.) The problem with this campaign, as with some of the other Nike campaigns, is that we want to like them. And I always get so close to just giving in and saying "sure, these are great. Go women's sports!" This time was no exception. I like the copy for the most part. I can relate to loving my knees with scars and my broader then my hips shoulders (though the shoulder ad has the women...

So E. comes home from hockey practice the other day and tells me about a plan to make the women's team that plays in Cedar Rapids a little more visible. The idea is to let the women's team scrimmage between periods at the Rough Riders game. Teams do scrimmage between periods--but the teams are comprised of little kids. It serves as entertainment, brings the parents of the kids to the game, and gives the kids the chance to spend a little time in the limelight in front of a big crowd. But it's a different story when you put grown women in this same situation. Because it is a space/time that has already been established as a "lesser" (which is fine when you are talking about developing junior players) moment by devoting it to children, putting women there creates a very different situation. It becomes more like a sideshow atmosphere. And it equates the women with the children. It seems like a no-win situation. Even if the women play well, they are still playing into...

I was very excited for a great weekend of sports (and simultaneously nervous because I have a lot of reading, correcting and writing to get done this weekend and I was worried about the distraction). It's the final weekend of the US Open, the WNBA playoffs are on and I was really excited to watch the Solheim Cup which I have never seen. I tried to win tickets to it to no avail but I thought watching it on TV won't be too bad. Except that it's not on TV--ok it's on the Golf Channel which I don't get. Can you imagine if the Ryder Cup was relegated to the Golf Channel? I think the Solheim Cup is the perfect event to show on network (or at least ESPN) TV. It's a different format; it's a team competition versus the usual individual-oriented tournaments that dominate the golf calendar. So while the LPGA website has done a great job documenting the tournament, with tons of photos and scores, it's not the same as television coverage. I clearly don't understa...

I love Kim Clijsters. I am not afraid to proclaim it. When she was away last year with injuries, the game just wasn't the same. I love her intensity. I love her splits (though I gasp every time she does one, afraid she will pull or strain something). And I love her spirit. She is undoubtedly the nicest player on the tour. Since coming back from injury she has frequently discussed how much more she enjoys the sport and appreciates the opportunity to play. But questions have been asked (by those pesky sports reporters who never to cease to amaze me with the idiotic questions they ask) if Clijsters is too nice to win a major. She has reached 4 finals and lost them all. So she was asked that question again today (or in an interview that was aired today) and she pointed out that niceness is clearly not a factor in winning Grand Slams because just look at Roger Federer--the nicest guy on the tour who is rolling through most players, all the while smiling and shaking hands and being a gen...

Tonight has been an amazing night of tennis at the US Open. Maria Sharapova was pushed to three sets by fellow Russian, Nadia Petrova and I am in the midst of watching a very close, intense three-setter between Kim Clijsters and Venus Williams. Let me reiterate--it's an amazing night of tennis. Not an amazing night of women's tennis. It's just good (ok--there have been a lot of unforced errors throughout the night--but it's still been really interesting) tennis. I say this because two women's night matches are uncommon at the Open. And the commenators did not fail to point this out. They noted that tomorrow night the scheduling goes back to "normal" with a woman's match followed by the men. I do not understand, given the incredible surge in popularity of women's tennis, why the US Open continues to believe that it has to schedule a men's match after a women's match in order to draw a crowd. The stadium is packed tonight. And it will be pac...

I thought Roddick not re-negotiating his clothing contract with Reebok and going over to Lacoste was weird earlier this year but after watching a week of the US Open and realizing that many players have changed their clothing contracts this year, I am left asking: where is Nike? First I saw that Agassi was wearing Adidas . I can't imagine that Nike would have dropped him so I assume that Adidas gave him a good deal. And Steffi still wears Adidas so maybe it was just easier--especially if they plan on doing more ads together. Then I heard that American Robbi Ginepri, who is having a comeback summer, was dropped by Nike earlier this year because os his poor performances of late. He went to Under Armour which is now making tennis clothes--or at things that one can play tennis in. Anyway--now that he is playing well (he beat former top ten player Tommy Haas, also formerly of Nike who is now wearing an Asics shirt with what looks like a bar code on it--trying to save time getting throu...

OK the title is cheesy but the issue is serious. For the second time this week I have heard a male commentator at the US Open mention that the official weight stats of the female players need to be updated. What they really are saying is that they need to be corrected because clearly, the suggestion is, the women are lying about their weight. I don't remember the context of the first mention. (And I want to note here that I have only heard this mentioned twice but I have not been watching nearly as much of the Open as I would like given this nagging thing called graduate studies.) But tonight was especially poignant. Venus Williams was playing Daniela Hantuchova. Serena was in the stands having already won today and the camera was frequently panning to her. Male commentator, out of nowhere, says that Serena's weight stat needs to be "updated." Serena's weight is listed at 135--OK, it's not correct. But there has been an obsession with it this Open that has bee...

My favorite Grand Slam of the year began this week. Well it's kind of my favorite by default as the US Open is the only one I have been able to attend thus far (though tentative Wimbledon plans are in the works). Anyway here's what I think so far... 1. Andy Roddick has not won a Grand Slam since dumping sweet, cute girlfriend Mandy Moore. Granted, the Mandy/Andy thing made me nauseous but she was a good, calming influence. I think Roddick's ego has gotten the better of him. And I think it's perfectly delicious that the ad campaign he did for American Express about him losing his MoJo (because MoJo finds his AmEx and goes out partying) is airing this week during the tournament. 2. Attention everyone: Scoville Jenkins, age almosot 19, who lost to Roddick in last year's first round, and who is now fighting hard but still down two sets to love against Nadal, has become a man. Yes, apparently winning more than 4 games in the main draw of the open is some kind of male ri...

I tuned in to both the National Pro Fastpitch championship games between the ChicagoBandits and the Akron Racers AND the All-Star game that followed eager to hear the commentators' takes on the release of the IOC vote which ousted softball from the 2012 Olympic Games. All throughout the Little League World Championships and, prior to that, the coverage of the World Cup, commentators spoke about the importance of fighting to reinstate the game, the numbers of the girls who would be without a dream if it got taken away, and the fervor of the fan response to the vote. I mean one vote!! And the rumor of confusion over what delegates were voting for and that the abstention was Jim Easton , chairman of Easton sports, the baseball/softball equipment supplier who abstained because of conflict of interest. (Turns out he recused himself prior to voting--he was not the delegate whgo abstained.) What fodder for the commentators. And yet not a word was spoken. How can this be? I asked myself (...

Being able to blog about commercials that are aried during women's sports events combines my most favorite subjects for analysis: women's sports and pop culture. So two commercials struck me while I was watching today's coverage of the Wendy's Championship for Children . One was for the home security system ADP (which also sponsors rookie Paula Creamer) and the other for DSW, which is a big sponsor of women's golf and several, at least, of its players. The ADP commercial has a faux reenactment of a very suburban-looking woman (who is providing the voice-over) waking up in the middle of the night to her ADP alarm going off. Everything is fine, of course, because she has ADP and we see her huddling her children close to her, assuring them everything is going to be fine. What is conspicuously missing is the man, as in her husband, not the ADP guy who answers the phone. We don't know why there is no man: is she a divorcee, widow, wife of frequently traveling busines...

Though my primary interest in gender and sports lies with athletes and often the organizing bodies to which they are beholden, I also pay some attention to the gendered aspects of sports leadership/administration, including the cause of sports officials (referees, umpires, etc.) an issue I have highlighted in previous blog entries . In part, my interest is in the overall lack of interest this issue receives, so often overshadowed by the equity issues among athletes that predominate the discussion. But even the casual observer (OK maybe you have to have a general awareness of gender equity issues at-large) can see that men officiate men's games/matches/events and most often do so in women's events too. I don't remember seeing one female umpire at the Little League Softball World Series. This practice is also very engrained in professional tennis. While women do serve as linespeople in both men's and women's matches, they are rarely in the chair as the match umpire an...

I have tried to distance myself from the debate over the sexualization of female athletes primarily because I am just not sure where I stand on it. Historically, the fear of sexualization of female athletes, especially young females athletes, has been used to limit women's sporting opportunities. The argument that men would leer and lust after girls in skirts playing basketball (when they wore skirts to do so) didn't seem to me a very good reason to keep girls from playing--I think paternalistic is the right word here. Allowing girls to play might actually demonstrate that they are more than sex objects; or at least make the leering men forget that for 40 minutes or so. But while opportunities have increased (because of legislation mostly) the leering men seem to still be around. So the strategy that showing the world that women are athletes has not successfully mitigated their status as sex objects. Part of my ambiguity over the debate though stems from the fact that many of t...

As I mentioned below, I caught some of the women's AVP final at Manahattan Beach this weekend where Kerri Walsh and Misty May won something like their 7th title of the year. Congrats are in order of course. But I just wouldn't be my analytical/critical self if I didn't find something about gender/cultural norms that arose to blog about. There seems to be some confusion about what Misty's name is. She did get married and is apparently going by May Treanor. The commentators called her Misty May and the graphics lacked consistency showing her as May Treanor as well as just May. I could go on and on (and on) about women changing their names when they marry and the huge problems with that practice but that's not really what this blog about. So instead I will just focus on the huge problems I have when famous female athletes change their names. Sure there's the cultural reasons all marrying women face but because these athletes have already established themselves in t...

I caught some of the beach volleyball finals at Manhattan Beach this weekend. I saw the amount of money that women's winners May and Walsh won (around $28,000 which they have to split) but didn't watch the men's award ceremony. So I went looking around to see if beach volleyball has the same sometimes problem that professional tennis has: unequal prize money in some tournaments. It was a difficult search (which blows my theory that google can solve any problem) but I finally found an article specific to the Manhattan Beach tournament which stated that the founder believed in equality between men and women. Good news of course. But I am still not sure that it is a universal standard. Anyway this got me thinking about the reasoning behind differential prize money. In tennis the argument has been that 1) men play longer (3 out of 5 sets vs. 2 of 3 for women) and 2) that more people want to watch men. The problem with the first reason is that only in the grand slams do men play...

As a brief addendum to my observations about the lack of discussion about larger softball players I add this tidbit: While glancing up briefly to the Little League World Series (baseball, not softball) as it was playing in the background, I noticed an interesting discrepancy in the personal "stats" displayed on the screen. When a player is up at bat, on the screen appears the player's name, age, height, some personal fact or interest (favorite team, actor, movie, etc.) and weight . Weight was missing from the stats shown during the L.L. Softball World Series. Why is this? Are we worried about scarring girls by displaying their weight on national television? If so, why doesn't that same concern apply to boys? In a warped form of "equality," we see incidences of eating disorders rising among boys and men. Of course the issues can differ. Though larger boys might feel embarassed by possible excess weight (or the percpetion of excess), it seems more likely that...

[with thanks to amateur for finding this article for me] While this particular event/incident is a little outdated, having occurred at the summer games in Athens last year, I think the issue is still relevant. And since I am still on my bring-softball-back soapbox, I will relate the issue of cheerleaders to softball. You just wait and see... So last year at the Olypics the FIVB, the international governing body of volleyball, hired a team of cheerleaders (actually they were referred to as a dance team) to perform at the men's and women's beach volleyball matches. And of course this caused controversy--and rightly so I may add. I am not going to enter into a debate on whether cheerleading is a sport or not--not yet anyway. But I am going to argue some of the points presented in the article which claims that the women were there to keep the crowd entertained between points. Umm...I am not an avid volleyball watcher but I think the time between points is pretty short. And they ga...

As I write I am watching the championship game of the Little League Softball World Series (special thanks to houseguest Kevin for hooking up the wireless at our house to enable this multi-tasking). So here are some of the things I have learned so far. 1. There might not be crying in baseball but there is some crying in softball. The starting pitcher for the CT team got a little weepy when she was pulled in the second inning. But the point is that crying can be a good thing. The pitcher went to first base and has played well since. In such a high pressure game maybe a few tears are a good release. A few years ago at the French Open American Ashley Harkelroad had a commanding lead in the final set and let it slip until the set was even. A dejected Harkelroad, during the changeover, had a good cry in her towel and then came back to win the match. 2. That as much as I hate the hyperbole about little girls' dreams being dashed by the removal of softball from the Olympic games, this ser...

It's not a stretch to say that we (society/media) have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with female athletes' bodies. I feel I don't even have to give the myriad of examples here (though I will upon request). So as I have been watching softball this spring and summer I have been fascinated by the lack of discussion about the larger women who are the big hitters on a team. They have a body shape that in any other context would be deemed overweight but use their size to their advantage in hitting and frequently play first base. When they get on base after a hit they are immediately replaced by pinch runners. In watching the Little League Softball World Series I see the trend exists even at the youth level. I guess what I am wondering is why, in our thin&fit-obsessed society is this phenomenon not discussed. And what is the effect on these girls/women? I imagine there must be some kind of double consciousness. On the field these girls are often the heroes of the game or at t...

Well I came back from vacation just in time to catch the final rounds of the Little League Softball World Championships. But I apparently missed some controversy. During tonight's game pitting the Asia-Pacific team against the East team (from Orange, CT) commentators mentioned and cameras panned to East team's centerfielder, Taylor Sullo, who had been suspended for a game. But no one would say why. After much searching (starting with the tournament's own web page which is useless--do I really have to go on a tangent about the need for quality communications/media in women's/girls' sports?) I found my answer : East champion Orange will be without center fielder Taylor Sullo, who must sit out a game after being ejected Sunday in a 2-1 victory over Cedar Mill because she rolled up her shorts at the waist after her team had been warned not to violate the uniform rule. I probably should not be the one to question this ruling given that my sport of choice, tennis, still h...

OK--I'm not really going to the compare the two players in any substantial way as I know little about the mechanics of golf and only slightly more about their lives. But I know that Pressel, also an amateur, does not get nearly the amount of attention that Wie gets yet it seems Pressel has been more consistent. Pressel, of course, is not out there trying to break down the gender barriers that exist in professional (and amateur) golf. [SMALL TANGENT: Though I question if that is what Michelle Wie is really trying to do. I don't think she is attempting to make the game more accessible for other women players. I believe she is trying to make herself a more outstanding player. This is not unlike other athletes and I try to suppress the essentialist inclinations that sometimes creep in that suggest that Wie, and other female athletes, should be helping their sport and their fellow women players. I get especially angry when people like Frank Deford suggest that Wie is hurting women...

Since I just recently complained (using a newly released study) about the lack of coverage of women's sports in the United States I thought I would share some news from around the world. I am not suggesting that other countries pay more attention to their women's sports--these articles certainly do not sugest any type of trend. But given that so many of us--myself included--forget in these non-Olympic yeas that there are millions of women worldwide playing sports at some level, I thought I would create this sort of transnational reminder. This first story is about the women's national Pakistani tennis championships. While Western news images of women in veils in hot, arid climates flood our senses, it's good to see the Pakistani Daily News promoting women's sports and offering a counter image. China View has a brief story on the Chinese women's volleyball team defeating Jordan in the regional World Championships match. Again, we think of Jordan, we think of the ...

First apologies for the sporadic posts of late (and a pre-apology as it continues to be a pattern, or rather non-pattern); I am on vacation. Woo-hoo! And so having just played tennis for the first time in 2+ months I was somewhat inspired by this very old Slate column about women's tennis skirts . First of all, I am still somewhat skeptical that talking about skirts is the real issue behind the gender inequality in sport. But I do find it fascinating. And I have heard some interesting research on the history of women's uniforms. That having been said, I feel the need to talk about my theories and observations on the tennis skirt. I like them. I won't apologize for it. While I did occasionally don shorts during matches, most of the time I wore skirts. Because I really do think they comfortable, despite the Slate columnist's (Eliza Truitt) claims to the contrary. With skirts there is no tugging between your thighs for the bunched up fabric that sometimes accumulates or ri...

The NY Times ran an article yesterday about the trials of minor league baseball umpires which was intriguing though not especially captivating to a non-fan like myself. What caught my eye though was the one line (in parentheses even) sharing the fact that there is one woman in the AAs working as an umpire. And then no more was mentioned. This is the real story, I thought. Not only does she have to deal with the regular crap all baseball umpires take, but she is working in a hyper-masculine environment. So as I do with all things intriguing, I googled her. She has been working as a baseball umpire--the only one (though not the first) since at least 2000 according to this article . As expected, she deals with doubts about her ability from coaches, players and even other umpires and she also has the burden, because she is the only woman, of having to do extra interviews in addition to her other duties. Of course if the old boys' club actually let in a few more women, such things would...