After Atalanta

Got this from a colleague the other day. It includes a petition that encourages Congress to take action to ending the abhorent practice of using Native American symbols as mascots for sports teams. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- American Indians are NOT Mascots Target: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi & Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Sponsored by: Tim Giago and Kimberley Lyman To most American Indians it is absolutely abhorrent for a professional football team to use the color of their skin as their team mascot. As a matter of fact, we oftentimes refer to the mascot of the Washington professional football team as the R word because to us it is as hideous as the N word is to African Americans. The use of an Indian name in and of itself for mascots is not offensive, but it is what the fans (short for fanatic) do with it that is reprehensible. When they paint their faces, stick turkey feathers in their hair, and do...

I was having a pleasant lunch yesterday afternoon (ok, the chicken panini was only so-so but the place was dry and warm unlike everyplace else I went) when I opened the sports page and found this headline in my local paper (but on an AP story): Danica fails to win consecutive titles . Instant irateness and subsequent tirade ensued to which my eating companion defensively said "don't yell at me--I get it!". First of all, the use of Patrick's first name in the headline is in keeping with the media's practice (not universal but still quite prevalent) of referring to female athletes by first name only which has the effect of inferiorizing them. Male athletes (with some notable exceptions such as Shaq) are referenced using their last names. [This practice exists in other areas as well. You don't know how many papers I used to get when I taught literature classes that mentioned Jane (as in Austen) or Sylvia (as in Plath).] But of course the most annoying part of the...

Christina Hoff Sommers can just bite me. That's actually what I wanted to title this post but I decided instead to play off her own editorial's title: The Gender Equity Hammer Comes Out . First of all, it seems that Sommers can't quite see that big ole patriarchal sledge hammer swinging around all that she does. Not necessarily surprising. I mean we all have things we choose not see when they might threaten our pleasant little privileged existence even as the hammer smashes others into the ground. Plus all teh conservative mens love her: the piece is published at mensactivism.org . But, really, Christina? Title IX is a hammer? Sommers's editorial focuses on how Title IX is going to be applied in its full force to science programs. But, of course, she feels the need to mention, probably as a cautionary tale (not that her audience really needs convincing), how Title IX has done "serious harm" to men's sports. Why? Because in order to achieve proportionality ...

At the end of March (I'm a little bit behind--the news is old, the commentary still relevant), Yahoo! announced that it was launching a women's site called Shine . (Thankfully it doesn't seem to have the requisite ! after it.) Geared towards women 25-54, the site represents a shift for Yahoo that has, until now, organized sites around topics like entertainment or sport. Shine will be constructed around a demographic and will feature nine topics: Fashion & Beauty, Food, Healthy Living, Work & Money, Love and Relationships, Parenting, At Home, Entertainment & Culture, and Astrology. Note the lack of a Sports category. It is, in my opinion, a huge oversight by Yahoo. The Olympics are right around the corner. Women comprise the majority of Olympic viewers. So the excuse "women aren't interested in sport" just doesn't work anymore. More and more women are entering the ranks of sport fandom (have you seen all the pink paraphernalia put out my profess...

Epidemic is probably a little too dramatic but a new study from the Tucker Center at the University of Minnesota has found that there has been a decrease in the last ten years in the physical activity levels of girls. Not good news. (But an excellent example to file away for future pedagogical purposes to illustrate the problem with the modern notion of progress as well as the limits of Title IX and the current models of sport in this country.) The results mention the impediments that still exist for girls including race and class issues as well gender stereotypes that discourage participation or certain types of participation. I think all of these things are culprits and I also see the move toward more organized youth sports programs and specialization at a young age as major issues that need to be addressed now. Several years ago I was involved in project that funded, aided, and researched sport and physical activity programs for low-income and minority girls in Boston. There was a m...

OK, so the NCAA championship game was two weeks ago. I really meant to finish this post that week. It just didn't happen. So here it is. Hopefully still somewhat valuable and/or interesting. -------------------------------- It's a good thing the food was good at my championship party Tuesday night because the game was just so-so. This does not mean there is no parity in the women's game or that the tournament as a whole was boring. The coverage before, during, and after was littered with "they're not quite there yet" sentiments or, conversely, "they're there and now they have to deal with all the evils of success" type comments. This article from the Tampa Tribune falls into the latter category. Signs that women's basketball as made it? The "feud" between Pat Summitt and Geno Auriemma, recruiting violations, cheating scandals, exorbitant coaches' salaries. What a lovely view to take of the sport. How about sellout crowds? How a...

...and get over it. The cutting of baseball that is. The University of Wisconsin cut the sport in 1991--17 years ago. Yet every spring I come across all these young men pining for baseball. Not to play it--they want to watch it. They want to watch college baseball. Unfortunately, not that many people wanted to watch it when UW did have a team. But this guy , despite knowing the lack of popularity of the sport, longs for spring days in the stadium. And this guy , who I think has written this same editorial before, blames Title IX of course. Though he does that tricky "I believe in gender equity and supporting women's sports but they aren't that exciting yet" thing so he doesn't come off as a complete chauvinist. Title IX came along and baseball got cut--for fairly good reasons--it wasn't that popular, trying to play baseball in Wisconsin is difficult given the lengthy winters, and they had a gender equity problem. The writer thinks that "it seems like as l...

The Billies, the annual awards event hosted the Women's Sports Foundation (and sponsored, in part, by ESPN), took place a few nights ago in LA . The awards recognize outstanding media coverage of women's sports in a variety of genres. This year's ceremony also recognized the 35th anniversary of the Billie Jean King's win over Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes. And the winners were: Under Armour for their Boom Boom Tap campaign in the Breakthrough and Innovation category. The movie Chak! de India in the film category. [Is it time for me to complain again about how I have yet to see this movie?!?] Kathrine Switzer won in the journalism category for her account of "crashing" the Boston Marathon in 1967, before women were allowed to enter. Her book is called Marathon Woman . And Lesley Visser won the outstanding journalist award.

In response to an incident that occurred a few months ago at a high school basketball game in Kansas, the Kansas State High School Activities Association has added language to its application for member schools which prevents discrimination against an official based on sex, nationality, race, or religion. (Note the very obvious absence of sexuality and gender expression. Grrr...) The addition of the anti-discrimination language was motivated by an incident this past February in which a female referee was told by one of the participating schools, St. Mary's Academy, that they would not allow her to officiate the game because a woman in charge of young boys went against their religious beliefs. St. Mary's has not commented on the change in the application which would effectively deny them any form of membership in the KSHSAA meaning they would not be able to compete against member schools--assuming they would continue to refuse female referees--which they seem intent on doing. Th...

The Women's Hockey World Championships concluded this past Saturday in Harbin, China. Needless to say media coverage of the event was not that forthcoming but I knew the championships would be winding up this weekend so I went searching for some information (which is almost all via the Canadian press). And guess what? The US won! That hasn't happened in quite a while and only once since women's hockey has had an international championship. So yeah! Also of note was the fact that my favorite collegiate team, the UNH Wildcats, was well-represented in China . Forward Sam Faber and defensewoman Kacey Bellamy both played for team USA. And the Marty twins lead Team Switzerland to the bronze medal (which they unfortunately lost to a strong Finnish team). The championship win was a big deal for team USA which has found it difficult historically to notch a win over Canada in the world championships. Thus year they had to do it twice. Last Thursday the US had to beat Canada to avoid ...

I'm a little late on this as the Women's World Curling Championships occurred a few weeks ago but given the lack of attention the sport receives I felt I should still post about it and the news it generated. This article , out of Canada where the championships were held in March, discusses the division of the women's and men's championships and the positive effects that have come from holding the events separately--or rather the lack of negative effects. This is the fourth year the women have held their own championships and they are hopeful that the event will continue building and that they won't, as one curler predicted, have to curl naked to get attention.* The Chinese women made quite an impression in Canada. Getting special attention was the Chinese skip Bingyu (Betty) Wang. Their success at the worlds is especially impressive given that the entire Chinese team began training in an ice hockey rink because there was no curling ice in the entire country until j...

...because that 1) might not be true, 2) seems to be a little too optimistic for a cynic like me, and 3) goes against my extreme suspicion of progress narratives. But no sooner was I discussing in my sport sociology class the dearth of coverage of (dis)abled athletes than I came across three stories about (dis)abled athletes.* The first was in last month's TENNIS which contained a pretty lengthy feature of Canadian quad wheelchair player Sarah Hunter. [The link is actually not to the article which only exists in hard copy in the April issue.] I thought it was a fairly well-done article. It doesn't depict her as some kind of amazing hero or pity her for her injury. It mentioned her female partner and their child to whom Hunter gave birth two years ago without presenting either of these things as somehow unusual for a person in a wheelchair. Then I saw two articles about women's national team wheelchair basketball. There's this one on SI.com--yes, Sports Illustrated is ...

It seems I have gone through March Madness without blogging about it. And it's not as if there haven't been plenty of opinions bandied about about "the women's game" and parity and excitement and promotion/publicity. So on this--the morning of the final--I'll try to address some of these things. In an entry from almost two weeks ago, this guy says that the "NCAA tournament soundly defeats parity." That there are "no surprises" in the women's game. That it's easy to bet on the women's tournament because it is so predictable. Ridiculous for two notable reasons. One, the controversy over seeding was pretty intense this year with Stanford not so subtly hinting that they deserved a #1 seed. And despite the lack of major upsets there were many games that I tuned in for--and others I know did as well--because the outcome was nowhere near a sure thing. Sure, it would have been highly unlikely that any team not seeded in the top 4 would ...

Jessica Mendoza, national softball team player, has been elected the new president of the Women's Sports Foundation. What I know of Mendoza, I like. She is part of a group of athletes protesting China's policy on Darfur and, in general, seems to be in the know politically. I had a problem with past president gymnast Dominique Dawes because of her belief that it's ok for female athletes to pose in a sexual manner. For some reason I don't see Mendoza taking that stance. I hope she brings a lot of awareness about the connection between politics and sports to the forefront.

I knew I had seen the word "boycott" attached to the women's hockey world championships which are currently taking place in China. You know why I love Canada? Because they get it. Because the athletes and administrators (ok--not all of them are as aware I would hope but...)there are not insisting that sports and politics don't mix; that athletes should not be political; that going to China to participate in an international is entirely unproblematic. Because while"the International Ice Hockey Federation sees no reason not to go ahead with the first women's world hockey championship in Asia." and notes: "The situation does not affect the women's championship," an IIHF spokesman said. Some in Canada do see the issues. Team veteran Hayley Wickenheiser said Of course no one really considered a boycott saying things like it's important that Asia host an international hockey event for the first time, and because it's a team sport it's...

I have gotten notice of quite a few articles about women's hockey lately so I thought I would do a round-up. The other day I linked to this article about Canadian hockey moms: mothers who play hockey, most who have taken it up later in life after watching and supporting their children for years and years. And though it is nice and possibly inspiring, unfortunately* it spent about three paragraphs on the mothers before launching into a lengthy discussion of the overall decline in Canadian boys who play hockey. It did end by noting the huge rise in the numbers of girls playing though and the hope that the increase would bring a little more respect to the women's game. And according to a Toronto paper , the women's game is gaining respect. Most of the article focuses on the national team and veteran member Hayley Wickenheiser who comments not just on the (lack of) depth in women's ice hockey but also on the denial of women's ski jumping in the 2010 Olympic games and th...

There are so many cliched sentiments to describe the $7.4 million judgment levied against the Michigan High School Athletic Association for attorney fees incurred during the 12-year fight to keep discrimination alive and well in Michigan high schools. The ones that came to my mind immediately: reaping what you sow; karma's a bitch. [Further cliches are welcome in the comments section.] More on the details of the case can be found at the Title IX blog , but the Reader's Digest version goes like this: Michigan scheduled more girls' sports in non-traditional seasons (like basketball in fall for example) than boys' which had a disproportionately discriminatory effect on the girls. There were actually a host of other gender discrimination issues brought up in the 12-year case but the scheduling issue got the most attention and created the most vitriol. MHSSA lost. They lost more than once and continued to appeal the decisions ordering them to put sports in their traditional ...

Not too long ago I asked where the moms were in a post about a dads and daughters event in California aimed at getting girls interested in sports. I found them. They seem to be getting a lot of press these days; all these moms who get pregnant, give birth, and continue their careers in sports. A few years ago it seemed like everyone on the US Women's National Soccer Team was getting pregnant and coming back to the game. Now the discussions are all about tennis player Lindsay Davenport who retired, had a baby, and came back to the tour and has had great success in her endeavor. And of course there's Brenda Frese who gave birth to twin boys six weeks ago and is back pacing the sidelines at the NCAA tournament. (Well she was back. UMD lost to Stanford last night--another big blow to my bracket. *sigh*) I didn't really mind at first all the pictures of Davenport and son Jagger, or of a pregnant Frese in her office chair on the sidelines, all the interviews with both about mothe...