After Atalanta

This post is inspired by the 38th anniversary of Title IX which occurred last week. Actually it's "inspired" by this column by a sportswriter, blogger, and basketball fan. Wendy Parker believes it's time to get beyond Title IX. Me, too. But not in the way she means. She means it's time to move beyond enforcement. Because she doesn't like the proportionality prong. And all those men have suffered at the hands of us "dogmatic" activists with our "life-and-death rituals." Who knew we were all satanists, too? I thought I was the only one! Clearly Ms. Parker's editorial triggered the snarky button (not that it takes much). Seriously, though. the day we get to move beyond Title IX is the day after we've gotten beyond patriarchy. So in the vein of Ms.* Parker's piece I bring you some reasons about why it might be a good idea to move beyond patriarchy--in a sporting context. I could of course go on and on about patriarchy and things lik...

This is my snarky Sunday post that comes after a week of hearing the debate (in person and in the media) whether cheerleading should be counted as a sport. I won't enter into the debate here. You can check out the Title IX Blog for some coverage of the Quinnipiac University trial that has thrust this issue into arguably the brightest spotlight it has ever felt. Debbie Yow, the newly appointed AD at North Carolina State, is largely responsible for introducing this debate into intercollegiate athletics and engendering the consternation over gender equity and Title IX. Competitive cheer was added to the list of varsity sports at Maryland while she was the AD there. UMD was the first school to do so. Maryland needed to add opportunities for women. It had several options including women's ice hockey (hence some of my bitterness), but the athletic department went with cheerleading which had previously been an athletic activity involving both sideline cheerleading and some competitiv...

We heard about Chinese government officials cleaning things up in Beijing by jailing dissidents, displacing peoples, and killing dogs all in preparation from the 2008 Summer Games a couple of years ago. But the clean-up act isn't anything new. Some of it has already happened in South Africa for the currently underway men's World Cup. And now it seems like officials in India are starting their own clean-up of Delhi in preparation for the Commonwealth Games. It is the first time India has played host to the games which feature the nations of the former British Empire. The games are held every four years and are the third largest sporting event in the world. In other words--a big deal. And as often happens when I prestigious sporting event comes to town, low-income peoples are made invisible through displacement, as is happening in East Delhi, where residents are being moved out (forcefully and without recourse) to make way for athlete housing. Also, bicycle rickshaw drivers are b...

And not mine! I'm not getting a whole lot of time these days to blog, let alone read stupid books about how women can fake or learn enough about sports to impress men. Thankfully the Bostonist does ! Here is a post right up my snarky alley about the book, She's Got Game: The Woman's Guide to Loving Sports (Or Just How to Fake It) . I heard about it previously, but just kind of blew it off. From what the Bostonist says, you should too. Unless you are doing research about fandom and gender stereotypes, in which case I suggest making sure you are properly buzzed before reading, or that you are getting a lot of grant money (yeah, right!) to take on such pain and suffering. The Bostonist also makes the excellent point that interest in sports often stems from experience in them. And if you don't have it--you may not ever be a fan. And that's ok. But don't fake it for a man!

I have not watched one second of the men's World Cup. And yet it seems to be the only thing I can blog about these days. (I do have a post coming about working out in skirts--so stay tuned for something non-soccer. Not that there's anything wrong with soccer. I'm just not much into men's soccer.) But some people are still talking about women who play soccer. First, Diane Elayne Dees, the creator of Women Who Serve, a blog about tennis, wrote this poem in remembrance of South African star Eudy Simelane , who was gang-raped and murdered because she was a butch-appearing lesbian. Diane's poem, In Memoriam, is at The New Verse News and was posted on June 12. [Dr. Pat Griffin has also written about Simelane and the issue of corrective rape in South Africa.] Salon has also taken the men's World Cup happenings to talk about the women's World Cup. Ryan Brown reminds us , in the wake of the most-watched (in the US) soccer game in 15 years last weekend between the US...

So according to Adidas, the men's World Cup balls are being manufactured in southern China. There is a minimum wage guarantee of 103 pounds with many workers earning more than that--sometimes double. And as I reported (and as you can see in the video from the other day) the ball is not stitched. It is "thermally bonded." But...and you knew there was a but...these conditions are the ones for the actual balls being used right now in South Africa. They are tournament balls. There are, of course, replicas being made for resale. Those are being made in Pakistan , where 70 percent of the world's hand-stitched soccer balls are put together--by workers who make no more than 2 pounds a day. It takes over two hours to stitch one soccer ball. This is what an Adidas spokesperson had to say: “These people have a hard life because they live in rural Pakistan, but they themselves don’t think that they are living in poverty. We pay far more than agricultural work for example. It is a...

As in other than scores or some kind of analysis of yesterday's England-USA match-up, which I have to admit, I did not watch. I harbor some resentment about the lack of excitement the Women's World Cup garners so I don't get too excited about the Men's World Cup. Anyway, there has always been some controversy over the manufacturing of soccer balls because of pretty blatant exploitation of citizens--including children--of third world nations who stitch the soccer balls. There are campaigns that continue to bring attention to these issues and urge consumers to pressure FIFA and other soccer organizations to use balls produced under with fair labor and under conditions that do not constitute human rights violations. With the start of the 2010 Men's World Cup such campaigns have been heightened. But the ( somewhat infamous ) World Cup ball is not being stitched. The manufacturing process is somewhat different. This You Tube video show the manufacturing process. It is an...

I wasn't as invested in the Women's College World Series this year. I turned it on when I was around. I went to one regional game. But I left the bar where I was watching game 1 of the championships on Monday night because I cared more about eating leftover pizza than seeing who won. Last night I watched intermittently and had it on before I went to bed. I was pretty sure UCLA had it wrapped up when I turned it off in the bottom of the fifth. And I only went to bed because spin class on Wednesday comes early at 6:15 and since I am the instructor I kind of need to be "on." But it was an exciting game. There was a two-run homer in the first. There were pitching changes all over the place. There were bases loaded. One grand slam. Not too very long ago, in the days of Monica Abbott and Cat Osterman, scores were low and games were all about pitching duels. Commentators talked about potentially tired arms, conditioning of pitchers' legs, and techniques batters were usin...

This is old news (well a week; so ancient in blogosphere terms). But last week the Center for Feminist Research at University of Southern California released a report written by USC professor Dr. Michael Messner ( Messner blogged about the study at the Huffington Post ) and Purdue professor Dr. Cheryl Cooky that was all about the the coverage of women's sports in the television media. The study on televised media has been going on for twenty years now. The report is just the latest incarnation. If you sense a tone of resignation in this post, well you're not imagining things. I don't think many of us (even some in the media ) are surprised. But the report and the longitudinal study remain crucial and an example of how and why academics do work that remove some of those bricks from the ivory tower. Those of us who study sport and culture are not surprised. Maybe most of the readers won't be either. But they will be reminded. When someone asks why we still need feminism, ...

I saw a few articles this past weekend about female auto racers. Note that I didn't really read them because I am not all that into auto racing. But the headlines were similar in that they noted the increased presence of women at Indy: there were four this year! This was interesting in light of two things: 1. Christine Brennan's column on the women in Indy versus the lack of women in NASCAR. There were no women racing Sunday for NASCAR. Danica Patrick who finished 6th in Indy is racing some second tier NASCAR events. But apparently the lack of women can be attributed to how heavy the cars are! Said Eddie Gossage, president of Texas Motor Speedway: "(NASCAR) may not lend itself toward women, who are, by nature, smaller people," he said. "The cars are bigger, heavier and require more physical demands. The races are longer. There are 38 races to a season, and it gets to be a tremendous physical grind. I'm not slamming women. I'm simply saying there is a big ...