After Atalanta

Or maybe it's the new red--depends on what the usual color of boxing gloves is. I feel as if I have devoted a lot of blog space to the pinkification of women's sports and so I am not seeking out the pink stories, but when things come my way--in 3s--it's hard to ignore. So the latest is something called Pink Gloves Boxing. And it was featured on NPR's Morning Edition today . NPR! Guess it's time to write a letter. Pink Gloves Boxing is a fitness enterprise started by two former football players who started to train women in boxing. They have developed a whole package that they now sell to gyms. And the package includes not just information on training routines but the gear which includes: dog tags, t-shirts, and pink gloves--of course. The thing is, this program doesn't sound to me like it's any different than programs that already exist in gyms. My gym has a boxing class and many gyms have cardio boxing/kickboxing. After all, as the story states "There...

So it turns out the rumors around Caster Semenya are still based on things that very loosely resemble facts. Semenya has no intention of suing either the ASA or IAAF. She has retained a lawyer--the same firm that represented Oscar Pistorius in battle against the IAAF to run in able-bodied events with is cheetah legs. But the lawyers are there to help with what whatever issues arise from the continued inquisition over Semenya's gender. I am kind of disappointed.

On December 22 the Canadian Supreme Court refused to hear the case of female ski jumpers trying to get into the 2010 Olympics. This was the last ditch effort of the group which has pursued legal means and made appeals to the IOC, including a letter to President Jacques Rogge--who refused to grant the group's request for a meeting. I was pleased to see that South African runner Caster Semenya has not faded away after speculations about her gender and intense invasions of privacy. Instead she is fighting back-- with a lawsuit against IAAF and Athletic South Africa (ASA) for leaking information about the gender testing. The bungling of her case has also resulted in the president and board of the ASA to step down. It appears that testing began before Semenya went to Berlin for the World Championships and that ASA president Leonard Cheune decided to send her anyway because results were not yet in. But, as we know, questions were raised and information that should have stayed private was...

Indeed it is, Mother. Indeed it is. That was my mother's response after Christmas dinner to the news (as told by me) that two horses made the AP's list of the top female athletes of 2009. Plenty has been written about this already and even feminists have taken note. (The italics refer to the sometimes contrived strained relationship between feminism and sport.) The feminists over at Feministing had something to say about it. And so did a lot of other people. I don't feel the need to add anything else substantial. I don't have some kind of new angle on this story. The highly problematic comparisons between female athletes and horses and the ones between Serena Williams and the horses are obvious and dismaying. We could talk about how the people who created the list, the sports editors at AP affiliated newspapers, are predominantly men and predominantly white and middle class. But that's not a big insight either. And it's disappointing any way you look at it. If...

...I'm not the only one who has noticed that all this end of the decade stuff is a little premature. Check out Peter Bodo's (of Tennis magazine) column about the best of the almost decade. I usually dislike Bodo but I actually did not take offense at anything in this column--and it's not just because he agrees with me about how to count.

...to name the athlete of the decade until it was the actual end of the decade, this might not have happened.

To Kacey Bellamy the only UNHer to make the US National Women's Hockey Team. (She's also a western MA native so yea!) I have to admit I was a little peeved that, after Ben Smith retired after Turino and suggested having a female head coach, USA Hockey went with Marc Johnson of Wisconsin. But after reading this column , I was somewhat appeased.

• I n basketball, the $5.85 million per year average NBA salary (in 2008-2009) is 59 times higher than the $99,500 salary of WNBA athletes. • I n golf, the annual prize money for women in the LPGA rose by 234 percent between 2006 and 2008 to $62 million, while the PGA annual prize money for men rose by 310 percent to $214.4 million. • I n tennis, even though five of the top 10 highest-paid players are women, the top-paid male tennis player, Roger Federer, earns $9 million more than the top-paid woman, Maria Sharapova. • I n all sports, the 50 highest-earning athletes in the U.S. (salary, winnings, endorsements, appearances and bonuses) in 2008 were exclusively men. These are stats from The White House Project Report on equity in various fields including sport. The report also notes the lack of leadership and pay equity at various levels of sport, in the US and internationally. In college coaching and leadership, there is a wide salary differential, linked to the gender of the coach an...

Maybe, according to this article out of an Atlanta paper, a city which will host three women's professional teams in 2010 (soccer, softball, and basketball). Chicago has just as many. [Not sure if they are counting football at all, though. I know there are at least two leagues for women's football but I do not know if they qualify as professional or how that designation is made.] Anyway, some are hopeful that it's a good time (recession notwithstanding) for professional women's sports. That perhaps people are getting a little sick of male professional athletes behaving badly. That fans don't always like to see their favorite athletes getting arrested (guess we better not look too hard at Diana Taurasi then!) and that female athletes are generally seen as more accessible and more willing to do promotion and hang out with kids, etc. While I would love 2010 to be a great year for women's professional sports that have no historically been so successful, or even thos...

Seems to be all about the Seminoles this week. Except this time it's not the actual Seminoles, its the student-athletes at Florida State who call themselves Seminoles. The academic cheating issues at FSU have been covered. The school was investigated for a fairly widespread cheating scandal involving an online course. But ESPN's Outside the Lines has brought to light an interesting component of academic support in FSU athletics: the prevalence of student-athletes diagnosed as learning disabled (LD). It's a very thorough report that talks to specialists, a former member of the academic support team there (she was fired for allegedly providing too much help), and LD specialists--including the one FSU uses to diagnose their athletes. He is an outsider but gets paid $800 per test he gives to FSU students. He was very candid about the process but the article noted that his testing method is controversial. The model he uses produces an LD diagnosis at almost twice the rate of the...

So after I wrote this post I realized that I was kind of writing about pool. And I don't know if I think of pool as a sport. I didn't have a tag for it--not that that means that much. I kind of mentioned football so I am going with that. I just needed a jumping off point to get to my social commentary/soapbox and have decided that I don't really want to get into a debate about the "what makes a sport" criteria this morning. Not the collegiate football team in Florida, but the actual nation of American Indians. I was watching ever so briefly yesterday evening a Women's Professional Billiards Event (and, by the way, I turned it on when my onscreen guide said "Pool" was on ESPN and I was surprised--pleasantly--to see that it was women's pool; usually the unmodified on ESPN means it's a men's event. But then of course that gets me thinking about why billiards is segregated by gender in the first place...) Anyway, the event was happening in Fl...

So I am not, let it be stated for the record, going to discuss any of these best of the decade stories. It is a principled stand based on the fact that it's not the end of the decade. Not until next year. 'Cause you can't start counting at zero. That said I read one of those very pieces (I said I wouldn't blog about it, not that I wouldn't read them) that included some of the best or most interesting or ironic sport quotes of the years 2000-2009. Some indeed interesting, some not so much. But I was reminded of that incident with John Rocker in 2000 (which, as we know was not the start of the current decade or even century; I am being too nitpicky about this?) where he said to Sports Illustrated that he would never play baseball in New York because he didn't want to ride the subway with, among others, the queer with AIDS. That got Rocker a lot of press and a two-week suspension at the start of the season and a $500 fine. So I was thinking about this in light of t...

It's so lovely to find someone who agrees with you--especially on a cold, windy Friday morning as you feel a cold (but hopefully not the flu) coming on. The IOC has been making some changes to the summer games program, allegedly in the name of gender equity, that has a few puzzled. LA Times writer and blogger Philip Hersh is one of those and I agree with him--for the most part. The addition of mixed doubles to the roster seems a little silly. While I enjoy mixed doubles and seek it out when I am lucky enough to get to a tournament that actually has it (mostly the Grand Slams), it's another thing to include it in the Olympics where tennis should not be in the first place. Track cycling, with a much smaller international presence, has seen its events reduced--well the men's events anyway. The IOC, upon recommendations from the International Cycling Union (so it's difficult to know where exactly to lay blame), has dropped several events for men and added more for women. S...

Hard to believe that once upon a time, the National Organization for Women was considered radical. That a lot of the popular sentiment that said the American women's movement of the late 60s and 70s as man-hating and radical came from the very visible actions of NOW. But today, and even back then to a certain extent, it's just a lot of the same liberal status quo junk; the "you go, girl" empowerment rhetoric that has not a lot of substance behind it. So my disappointment upon reading Patricia Ireland's (former NOW president) opinion piece on Florida State University women's basketball team's new snazzy website was palpable but not surprising. A few weeks ago, there was some chatter on teh internets about said website with people weighing in on the potential homophobia and certainly heteronormativity that underlies this website which features players dressed in evening wear. Blogger and sports writer Jayda Evans wrote about the FSU site as well as the overa...

See, I knew I would be back to critiquing someone this week. And how appropriate that is the anonymous columnist from my alma mater's student newspaper. (In my day, when I wrote for The New Hampshire , they didn't allow anonymous columnists.) Anyway, anonymous Joe (he admits to being male), has a holiday wish list for the University of new Hampshire that includes a few sport-related things. First he wishes for a new football stadium because the current one is "small" and "ugly." I never thought it was that bad. He said that because the team has done so well recently they deserve a less-embarrassing facility. Perhaps. But it clearly has not affected recruiting. After all if you can make it to the second round of the post-season, you must be getting quality players who come in spite of the allegedly crummy stadium. And, of course, it costs a lot of money to build a new stadium. Anonymous Joe said that a new stadium, though, would bring in more revenue. But a...

Since I am usually such a Complainin' Jane when it comes to problematic things lay people say about women's sports, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to actually laud someone. (Don't worry; I'm not going soft. I am sure I will be back with something cynical to say tomorrow--or the next day. I have a busy week ahead of me.) The men's versus women's sports issue is making headline news again thanks for NBA commissioner David Stern's prediction that women could be playing in the league in 10 years. And then there was, of course, the "no ways" from people like Lebron James and Anthony Parker--brother of Candace who thinks that while his sister is just swell, she is not NBA material. Anyway, it seems the Modesto (CA) Bee took up the issue of the lack of popularity in women's sports and did some of that blame-gaming stuff where they attribute the lack of interest on the part of women as the reason for the alleged demise of women's sport...

I was part of an interesting dinner party conversation the other night about the responsibility of being a gym goer, a gym owner, or a gym employee. The talk was about one's responsibility when seeing someone who is doing something dangerous. Though we mentioned things like bad form and lifting too much weight or general overexertion, what the conversation really turned to was eating disorders. As a gym employee (kind of--I teach a couple of classes so I am more of a contracted employee) I was asked what our gym's (many of us go to the same establishment) policy was regarding confronting people with eating disorders. I doubt there is one. I know of other gyms that will discontinue a membership when they feel someone is engaging in disordered behavior. But that doesn't seem very productive either. Some other establishment will be eager to take that person's membership fees--probably my gym. We didn't come to any kind of conclusion. I spoke rather abstractly about try...

Amelie Mauresmo announced her retirement today, shedding tears in the process. I think we need to do some mutual comforting. Was sad I didn't get to see her play in the 2009 French Open when I was there but glad I had the opportunity to see her in both New Haven and New York.

So remember when everyone was all "boo hiss China"? They were about to host the Olympics and a lot of Americans got their retro commie high horses to talk about--well mostly how great the West and free speech and capitalism are. And granted there were a lot of problems worthy of critique like Darfur and the displacement of people and killing of animals and arrests of dissidents, etc. But those critiques, as I recall, were pretty free-flowing. Sure a lot of athletes took their problematic Switzerland stand but there was discourse at all levels really. So here we are, two years later and everything is all rosy for Vancouver in a couple of months, right? Yeah, not so much. Apparently the whole "the West is a bastion of freedom and democracy" is crap when it comes to hosting the Olympic Games. Amy Goodman, author and journalist and current host of Democracy Now was detained at the US/Canadian border when she went to Vancouver to give a talk about US health care and th...

OK so I probably wouldn't get quite the amount of attention as those other party crashers that continue to make headlines (I don't know which is worse all the hoopla over the party crashers or the previous hoopla over the fact that curry was served at the White House!). But I just found out the entire US Women's National Ice Hockey Team from the 1998 Nagano Olympics are being inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame tonight--in Boston! The whole team. (Well Cammi Granato isn't coming because she is about to have a baby--but she's already in as an individual; inducted last year.) But this includes some of the veterans that are still training for the upcoming Olympics. And heck, I don't have any plans. If only I could find out where it is happening... Anyway, the group is being honored for their contribution to women's ice hockey, for being pioneers in the sport, etc. Also, the late Frank Zamboni is being inducted, which is kinda cool.

It is with great sadness that I read about the death of LA Times sports writer Mike Penner who dies Friday at the age of 52. It is suspected Penner took his own life. Penner had been a sport writer since the 80s, covering multiple sports and events, but gained national notoriety when he came out as transsexual in the spring of 2007. He changed his name to Christine Daniels and continued to cover sports for the Times as well as keep a blog about his transition. The very public transition was quite brave. But some time in late 2008 Penner went back to writing as Mike and rumors abounded that he was experiencing transition regret, though he never confirmed. If it was indeed a suicide, it would seem that Penner never found a comfortable place along the gender spectrum and perhaps that is because too often it seems there is no continuum, but rather a binary. And thus the pressure to pick one or another and conform is huge, especially for those who have not had the privilege of being comfort...

An ESPN columnist has a profile on Brendan Burke, a college student who stopped playing hockey in high school because he was gay and worried about people finding out his secret. His father, Brian ( apologies, Patrick is Brendan's brother ) Burke, is a bigwig NHL guy and former player himself. The column tells Brandon's history in the sport, his current position as a team manager at Miami Ohio, and his coming out to all the people in his life. Brandon would like a career in the NHL and plans on going to law school. Good message overall but it was a little on the long side and unless one is Italo Calvino, one should not use the second person the way the columnist did. (In other words, he tried a little too hard.) And PS all the "no one cared, everyone was really supportive" lines are tiresome, ring a little false, and are problematic in that they erase a lot of the subtle homophobia that continues in athletics. I mean I am glad he isn't being targeted, but this do...

It's the day after American Thanksgiving and you know what that means... Time to talk luge. (What? Did you think I was really going to go the mall on Black Friday?) When I was in Canada a few weeks ago commercials for the Olympics were everywhere. Not so much here, but we should be getting excited at this point, especially if you are into luge. Because according to this piece , American women's luge could be an up-and-coming spoiler for all those veteran European teams like Germany where school children allegedly have easy access to the country's luge tracks. But to all my friends in their 30s who still harbor luge dreams, forget it. It's a youngsters' sport, at least here in the US. Apparently the average age of the US National Team is 21. Which makes sense; you have to have a certain teenage immortality attitude to shoot down a sloped ice track on your back, on a sled with sharp blades using only your feet to steer. More power to them! Hope they make a showing in...

...and yes it appears that her mother still has her on one of those leashes that we usually see (problematically) on toddlers in the mall. A link posted by Diane at Women Who Serve , tells us about the strange mother-daughter relationship (more implied) and that ever-so-lovely sport parent behavior by Samantha Stevenson. Never a fan of Ms. Stevenson myself for her "eeks my daughter is going to be accosted by lesbians in the locker room" statements in the late 90s when it looked like Alexandra was going to be something something, it seems she hasn't really changed--it's just that her daughter's profile has thus Samantha Stevenson doesn't quite have the same platform. [She was right about racism on the tour, but she discredited herself by coupling that with her homophobia thus burying any possible real discussion of subtle and overt acts of racism in the WTA.] It seems that even as Alexandra, ranked in the 200s now, perseveres at small tournaments, her mother pe...

Not too long ago I wrote briefly about Rusty Kanokogi who was dubbed the "mother of judo" for her lifelong dedication to promoting the sport in the United States including getting girls and women involved. It was largely due to her efforts that women's judo made it to the Olympics. Rusty made news then when the YMCA awarded her a gold medal for her participation in a the state championship match she took part in in 1959. When the officials found out she was a girl, they took her medal away. The YMCA rectified that mistake this year. Kanokogi was battling leukemia at that time, a disease she had been fighting for three years. She died of the disease this week. She will be inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame this April. Her accomplishments are many and some can be found in the above-linked article. She sounds like one of the unsung heroines of women's sports, the martial arts, and sport in general.

I have had many moments of frustration playing USTA league tennis over the years, from head case partners who enjoy hitting opponents as an intimidation technique to snippy opponents who don't remember the score and so you have to go all the way back and replay the third set to dealing with stacked line-ups. But today was a refreshing change--and not just because I won and not just because I won by one point! Though that did feel nice. But my doubles partner and I played against a very nice team. Not overly sweet nice where they try to talk to you all the time--'cause that's annoying too. But fair. They never questioned any call and there were some close ones. (We were playing fair too, though; but that's not the way it always happens.) It was a really close match and no one lost it or got snippy or slammed a racket (not even me!). And we ended up having to play a tie break to decide the third and final set (we had ten minutes left). At 5-5 in the breaker (first to 7 b...

Thankfully it appears that South African runner Caster Semenya is not mired in depression or confusion over the recent questioning and testing of her gender and sex and biology. Last weekend The Guardian ran a lengthy essay on what Semenya is up to these days: training. And included many photos of the athlete with her teammates and coaches. There was controversy over whether Semenya's conversations with the writer were on-the-record and if she knew that her talks with him would be included in the article. I have only glanced at the article myself so I cannot comment on its accuracy or fairness or sensitivity in covering all the attendant issues. This week the IAAF ruled that Semenya could keep her medal and her prize money, but discussions are stil underway about whether she will be allowed to compete in the future. The IAAF has allegedly said they will not reveal the results of all the tests they conducted. (Not an especially reassuring statement given how information has been l...

I hesitated to write this post because I did not want to be part of the continuing media coverage of the BYU/UNM soccer game in which rough play all around and particularly that of defender Elizabeth Lambert has gotten a lot of negative and other suspect attention. But this article, not a big one in the grand scheme of media coverage, set me off and lead to the above mentioned ponytail epiphany. It's not what was in it, as it was not adding anything particularly new; it was the title: "On the Lambert scandal." Scandal? It's a scandal now? Christian politicians living in communal environments in DC and sleeping with mistresses on the side engender scandals. Hiding information about alleged threats of terrorism from elected officials and the general public is a scandal. A collegiate soccer player engaged in on-field acts of violent behavior is not a scandal. So once again I was forced to ask myself, "What the heck is up with this story?" Seriously, when I was ...

NCAA basketball has begun. Now admittedly basketball is a sport that I have never truly embraced. It is probably the American sport I know least about. But I follow the women's collegiate game out of a sense of loyalty to female athletes. And, of course, I find it interesting from a sociological and cultural studies perspective. So here it is the first week of play and I am trying to jump in and be supportive right from the start this year. (This also serves a more solipsistic end: I know a little more when I fill out my bracket in March!) So last night, knowing the Tennessee/Texas Tech game was on, I kindly asked the bartender to put it on the big screen tv. And other people at the bar appeared to be watching. I was ready to have to fend of complaining whiners, but I didn't have to. Of course they may have changed the channel when I left at halftime but I did what I could. And this morning on my very early drive to the gym I caught the score of the UConn game on my local NPR a...

The IOC has stated that , in the wake of the Canadian appeal's court decision to uphold the lower court decision, it is pleased that it can now move on and focus on the forthcoming games. Yes, it must be nice when a legal entity says it cannot hold you responsible for discrimination. The IOC sure knows how to spin things. I was a little surprised by this statement from the organization: "As the lower court noted, the IOC has continued to demonstrate by its actions its support for women athletes and their participation in the Olympic Games." Hmmm....I didn't read the lower court decision, but the message I got out of it from all the coverage was not that the IOC was a great supporter of women's sports, but that it was a great discriminator and the judge regretted that it was beyond her power to hold them accountable.

The appeal, filed by a group of female ski jumpers attempting to get their sport into the Vancouver Games, was dismissed after two days of hearings in a Canadian court of appeals this week. The court agreed with the lower court ruling that it was the IOC that was at fault and the IOC can not be held to Canadian law. [I am not a legal scholar, and certainly not a Canadian legal scholar, but this decision would seem to set a bad precedent. They do have precedent in Canada right? I mean who knows what kind of outside entity can come in and shirk Canadian law.] The lawsuit, according to VANOC, which seems a little resentful for being involved in this at all, cost the organization "six figures." First, if they were so resentful, they should have put more pressure on the IOC to do the right thing, to take responsibility, etc. But it seems the IOC gets to be immune to all these things. They must believe that because they are in Switzerland, they are neutral. Second, how much exactly...

I have to say that I, despite my deeply entrenched cynicism, am surprised at just how viral this whole Elizabeth Lambert thing went. It's everywhere I turn. I feel--and this is just a feeling not backed up at all by evidence--that this situation has gotten more attention than Serena Williams's outburst at the Open. I could be wrong. I haven't sat down to chart the You Tube hits or count the articles, editorials, or blog posts but there just seems to be something about this story that makes it keep going and going and going. I don't think I have anything else to say about it myself but here's some of what others have been saying: From Christine Brennan, a column on how coaching factors into this situation. Coaching--or lack thereof--has been listed as one of the incredulities in this case. Brennan got the interview with Kit Vela, the UNM head coach who was questioned for her decision to keep Lambert on the field despite her actions. But Vela hadn't seen any of i...

In my ongoing effort to offer some support for the women (and men) who continue to fight for women's ski jumping in the Vancouver Olympics (less than 100 days away now) I direct you to this article from the Christian Science Monitor . It is quite thorough and lays out all the issues to date and going forward.

So I am forgoing a third post in three days about the Lambert-goes-viral situation to recount a recent moment of irk I had when reading Tennis magazine. It's been a while since I complained about Tennis so I was due. Said complaint comes from the US Open round-up which highlighted the top 5 stories of the 2009 tournament. And no, this post is not going to be about Serena Williams--directly anyway. Number 4 on the list is titled "The men can serve. The women? Not so much." Immediate grrr moment but I read on to discover that the theory behind this fact is that the women have more power due to improvements in equipment (like the men) and so they can achieve unprecedented pace (also like the men) but for some reason cannot generate the same amount of spin. No attempt at an explanation for this alleged fact. Also the new power racquets help the returner--again an effect experienced by both men and women. But apparently this switch makes has a greater psychological effect on t...

I was going to add a postscript to "10 lesbians walk into a bar" (I have to say I am just dying to see how that phrase affects my hits) based on the recent Graham Hays (of ESPN online) column about Elizabeth Lambert's actions last weekend. But I thought it was a good enough piece to stand alone as a post. (And possibly because I am feeling a little lazy this morning.) Hays is right on when he writes: This is how it so often goes for women's sports....Roll tape, ignore the context and let the criticism and mocking commence. And he is soooo right--unfortunately--that this conference playoff game will get far more attention from the likes of ESPN and other sports networks than the actual NCAA championship game. And he is right that the outrage reflects the belief that women's sports remain an inferior and less physical version of men's sports. [Please don't take away my feminist blogger's license for all this agreeing with a mainstream source.] But what w...

...and naturally frivolity ensues. (You thought I was going to make a joke, right? Nope; just getting your attention.) And then when we see the sports network covering women's soccer on the plasma televisions scattered around the bar, our heads snap up eagerly. Because we like women's soccer and we like it when sports shows cover it. And then we see the coverage is of University of New Mexico player Elizabeth Lambert and the egregious fouls she committed in a recent game against BYU. And we sigh because this is, after all, a group of critical, feminist sport scholars at a conference on sport and sociology. But because we have been thinking and critiquing for days, and because the segment ends quickly, we go back to our fun and games. Alas here I am back in the real world and these are things I think about. Said conference was in Canada, but I imagine American media covered this story as well complete with the repeated shots of Lambert's actions in which she 1) elbowed a pla...

I so appreciate the growing number of voices in the blogosphere talking about sport and gender. It means that when I just cannot muster enough snark to address the latest issue, there are others who will. So I have indeed read about the latest investigation by the US Civil Rights Commission into discrimination against female applicants to liberal arts colleges which are trying to prevent an even larger skewing of the proportion of female and male undergraduates. That some colleges are trying to increase their male students is not news. It has been known for a little while now. The Civil Rights Commission is investigating. But as some of my colleagues have pointed out, one of the strategies for male recruitment entails adding sports teams for men. But adding men's teams would likely result in adding women's teams in order to retain or achieve Title IX compliance. So now we have to talk about--as if we ever really stop!--whether Title IX should be altered. All in order to get mor...

[Apologies for the lack of consistent posting of late. I have serious blogger's block brought on by a myriad of other things I need to be doing. I expect to be back into the swing of things in a little over a week.] So remember how, a while back, Carolyn Bivens was ousted from her position as LPGA commissioner? And remember how there was significant speculation about who her replacement would be? Yeah, they didn't choose any of those people. The LPGA announced this week that Michael Whan will be the new commissioner. And he will be all about "grow[ing] the global brand." No word on what that will entail or the methods he will use to do so. I have to say--and this has nothing to do with Whan specifically--that I am a little wary of how the LPGA plans to increase its popularity. The nearly uncontested view that it is ok for the women in the tour to sell their sport using their (hetero)sexuality is a little worrisome. The article in the recent ESPN Body Issue, accompani...

President Obama got some flack last year for only doing a men's bracket during the NCAA tournament. (Ok mostly it was just me giving him a hard time.) This time he is getting grief for an all-male congressional basketball game. I heard about this but didn't pay much attention to it. The man already disappointed me with the bracket thing and the talking out of two sides of his mouth as he extolled the presence of female athletes on ESPN. So am I surprised that the game was all guys? Nope. 'Cause I am pretty sure that there were not that many women jumping to get into that game. Even if they are basketball players, it's pretty much a no-win situation for them. What if they are better than all the other congresspeople? What if they are worse? What if they tear an ACL during the game? It's all very fraught. But I thought this NYT article about the boys' club in the White House, much of which revolves around sports, was pretty interesting. The White House allegedly h...

Sorry for the absence these past two weeks. Little bit of travel and some pending deadlines have made me a little scattered. But the weekend is nearly here and if you are looking for something indoorsy to do (temps here dropped 30 degrees in one day--*sigh*--with rain the forecast) go see Whip It! I went a few weekends ago and really enjoyed it. Pretty light, puts you in a good mood, which I was quite in need of, and it's about roller derby. Like I said, not too deep but very woman-centered. Touches lightly on issues of class and age. Though it does not really interrogate the aggression required of and afforded to female skaters, it's obviously a big part of the movie. Acting was so-so. (I really hope Ellen Page can get out of her Juno-esque stereotype some day--yes, yes, I know there was Smart People.) I have heard next-to-nothing about the movie since it was released, but prior to the wide release there were a lot of articles about women's roller derby. Here are some of t...

If you have not gotten over Chicago's early-round loss on the Olympic site voting, well, in the words of Nike (who will certainly be a presence in Brazil) just do it. I, personally, was glad the US did not get another games so early on. And that South America (as in the whole continent!) has never had a hosting opportunity seemed wrong. I have to admit, though, that I was a little concerned about potential human rights issues, primarily the ousting of poor people from their homes to make way for various Olympic venues. But it's not as if every country has and has had in the past it's issues with human rights. This is why Human Rights Watch has asked the IOC to find a way to monitor the potential abuses of host nations. These issues arose, of course, in Beijing. They are anticipated on Sochi and, well, as I said--no country is acting angelic these days. (Perhaps ever, but that's a discussion for another time.)

I am a little bit tired of talking about cheerleading but I have acquired a critical mass of stories (i.e. three) about cheerleading so it seemed to indicate that a blog post was in order. USA Today ran a point/counterpoint editorial on the merits of cheerleading. Or rather whether cheerleading is a sport. Karen Durkin of the Women's Sports Foundation said no --it's an activity and furthermore, it is being used irresponsibly to get schools out of complying with Title IX. She does not rule out the possibility that competitive cheer could be a sport, but that it frequently is not truly treated as a sport despite a school's designation of it as such. On the other side was a Presswire reporter stating his thoughts about why cheerleading and dance should be recognized as a sport and count towards Title IX compliance and also receive the benefits of other sports. His version of the story centers around the fact that cheerleading is athletic, that they have tryouts and practice a ...

OK so I have tried several times this past weekend to buy the Body Issue so I can take a (good, more on that in a sec) look at it myself. But I cannot find it. Has my progressive town refused to carry it? More likely that I just haven't been to a big enough bookstore yet. Hopefully in the next few days during one of my layovers I can find it at an airport newsstand. I have seen it though. My gym subscribes to the magazine and the issue was in the magazine rack Friday. I quickly scooped it up and took it into the stretching area with me. Alas, I don't wear my glasses in the gym and saw while I could see the pictures just fine, I could not read much of the text without getting a little dizzy. The text, I think, is important for understanding context. Or at least for understanding what ESPN thinks the context is. Here's what I think so far: I think that Fat Louie at Women's Sport Blog is brilliantly concise in her assessment of the six covers. Also check out One Sport Voic...

...'cause they are going to figure out what sex is in ONE YEAR! Yep, since the Castor Semenya "situation" (which they handled poorly though I haven't heard any kind of admittance of regret--unfortunately), I guess the governing body of track and field has decided they need some better criteria for determining sex. So a committee has been formed and they are charged with determining the parameters of sex. Did I mention they are going to do it in one year? Someone give these people a book by Thomas Laqueur , please. (But not Solitary Sex --I don't think they will need that one for this particular project.)

...you're black. The pot in the title is Jacques Rogge who, along with other IOC members, are engaging in "quiet diplomacy" with three countries who the IOC does not feel is doing a suitable job supporting Olympic female athletes. Part of the quiet is the refusal to name the countries in question but it is not that difficult to figure out given that the IOC names the barriers as religious, cultural, and political. Two apparently are working with the IOC but the third, most likely Saudi Arabia which has never sent a female athlete to the Olympics, is refusing to engage. This country will face Olympic sanctions if there is no progress in the near future. Anyway the hypocrisy I see, of course, is Rogge standing up for gender equity for some women, and then denying other women the opportunity to participate a la female ski jumpers. Makes it seem like he is reifying the whole backwards Muslim stereotype that is so prevalent in the western world. He is definitely supporting th...

I attended a panel the other night of LGBT student-athletes and other athletic department personnel. Here's what I came away with: things are not good but people think they are getting better. And I guess they are if you look at from a certain point of view. And before I go any further let me say that my point of view is not one of current intercollegiate athlete. But the fact that people can come out without getting beat up these days is not really progress in my opinion. (Also note that people do indeed still get beat up for being gay.) The two female student-athletes on the panel (there were no out male athletes--a point well-noted and discussed and certainly indicative of the climate in athletics) talked about how their coming out was, basically, no big deal in terms of acceptance by their athletic peers. This was not especially surprising to me. But, after listening to them talk more, I realized it also was not completely true. Both of them talked about altering their behavior...

I got through one day of October--one day!--before feeling compelled to blog about all this pink stuff. (But haven't actually had time until today which means I had to stew through all this NFL goes pink and Tom Brady's pink cleats, etc, etc.) I have done the whole pink complaint thing before and thought I would just let it go this October. But, as we know, breast cancer awareness is a year-round campaign ('cause there might be an unaware person out there who is transformed by that pink spatula at Target) so sport teams--especially collegiate teams with trot out pink laces, shirts, arm bands, etc. during their respective seasons. And I have done that post before (perhaps more than once). And I have talked about the issues with breast cancer charities before. I was worried about being pro-breast cancer or anti-woman or something, but I read an article in the Boston Globe Magazine Sunday ( here's a television segment that goes along with the article) about pink backlash f...

...goes to Barnard College senior Lisa Lewis for her lovely anti-Title IX diatribe . I was going to let this editorial slide because I have a few ethical qualms about calling out college students (who are not actually taking my classes anyway and even then I try to be didactic and tactful about it as it is a place of learning). But Lewis used the term femi-nazis and thus all bets are off. The problem started when I thought Lewis and I were on the same page. Since the passing of NCAA president Myles Brand, I have been more than a little concerned about who his replacement will be. So is Lewis. But for very different reasons. Lewis believes the next leader of the NCAA needs to be in touch with the world we live in-- a world in which women now exceed men in college admissions and so she comes to this conclusion: Legislation of the 20th century, like Title IX, needs to be reevaluated in the light of the world we live in. I don't what they are teaching young women at Barnard these days,...

I saw a very cute, very French movie last night, The Closet . If you want to know the plot, you can google it, I am sure. The point is that one homophobic guy serves as his company's rugby coach. But he is on notice not to engage in anymore gay slurs because of newly out colleague. He gets the no-no when he calls his team sissies, then complains that sissy is not a gay slur--it's just rugby talk. I am not going to beat to this to death--like I said, it was a cute, light movie--but I find that a lot of the problem with homophobia in sport is the language that is perpetuated by coaches and players alike--and that is never called out. I am not saying anything new, of course. But there are other ways to say it and other perspectives and some of those are available this week! SUNY Binghamton kicks off its own gay pride week today and I think its notable that It Takes a Team director Pat Griffin is giving the keynote address. Tomorrow night (Tuesday) Griffin is moderating a panel of ...

I have to say that the more I read about ESPN The Magazine's Body Issue the more I am looking forward to its release next week. And I am not the only one. I think many are intrigued by whether and how this naked stars/serious message thing is going to work. Sure, many will be pick it up to see just how naked Serena Williams is going to be, or because they have pregnancy fetishes and want to see Jessica Mendoza's 8-month pregnant body. But I want to know if it's really going to work--the serious with naked that is. Not that nudes cannot be serious--I have spent enough time in famous museums with my hand on my chin pondering sculptures and portraits of the naked form. But can we take it seriously in the context of ESPN The Magazine? After all this project is not a new one. Annie Leibovitz has photographed naked and nearly naked athletes as well--with far less media coverage I am pretty sure. And as I mentioned previously, the co-ed aspect of the project does not make me any ...