What I did this weekend

I went to a hockey game! My first collegiate women's game of the season. Yea! My team lost. Boo! Also irksome was that it was the "Stick it to cancer" event which meant that everything was pink. Pink shirts and shorts and pj bottoms for sale. Pink programs--which I refused to even pick up. Thankfully my father snagged me a normal one. And pink tape on the players' sticks and socks. Oh, and pink scarves on the female coaches. The male head coach--no pink. What was interesting was that all of the verbal announcements in the pre-game ceremony, etc. only talked about cancer--not breast cancer. So either we're afraid of saying the word breast at a hockey game or this is a general fight cancer event which means the whole pink thing is even more bizarre.

And speaking of pink, when I saw this year's ball persons uniforms at the Australian Open I bet (only myself which isn't as fun) that it would take Pam Shriver less than one hour to comment on the color. And I won! (Again against myself--so only mildly satisfying.) Yes, Shriver commented that she was surprised by the pink shirts by Lacoste--which match perfectly the big Evian coolers on the courts--in such a masculine culture as Australia. Her expert fieldwork revealed that the one male ball kid she spoke with about the color kind of made a face. Note that there does not seem to be a lack of male ball kids and that if it was such a masculine culture how did the color even get through in the first place were issues left unaddressed. Aesthetically I think it looks kind of cool against the blue of the courts and the backdrops. But I would think it would be distracting.

So obviously I also started watching the Australian Open this weekend. And I have to say as much as I like Maria Sharapova, I am not going to miss that dress for the next two weeks.

Also on television this weekend: the US men's figure skating national championships. I like Johnny Weir so I watched. He placed third and is headed to Vancouver next month. Also read Jere Longman's quite amusing NYT column about the very uninteresting scene in US women's figure skating.

And there was also the Tennessee-Vandy match-up last night. I turned it on in the first half when Tennessee was up about 20 points and so changed the channel back to figure skating. But then I tuned back in toward the end of the half when Vandy had really turned it on. They stayed close in the second but couldn't pull out the win, which was disappointing. I was all about the underdog yesterday.

And tonight is UConn and Duke!

What will next weekend bring??

Pink stuff

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 from people with or recovering from the disease. A lot of them are just so over pink. But as one person notes "It's hard to challenge [the pink ribbon/awareness campaigns] without looking like a big meanie or a leftish wacko fringe."
So this post is about how loaded pink is. Last month Nicole at One Sport Voice wrote about pink hockey gloves as punishment. Punishment for boys. Female hockey players sometimes seek out these same gloves.
Laura Pappano wrote about the NFL campaign and other incidents of pinkness in sport.
Men wearing pink for breast cancer is ok. Otherwise it's a little suspect. And in sports it is especially suspect. A few years ago Radek Stepanek got a lot of ridicule for a pink shirt he wore (it also had a cutout in the back). His opponent Leyton Hewitt said after he beat Stepanek that there was no way he was going to lose to a guy wearing pink.
And this year at the French Open, Rafael Nadal wore a pink shirt that apparently caused an uproar. I read about the all the controversy the shirt engendered in the latest Tennis magazine. [I didn't hear about it when I was there during the first week of the tournament. That probably says a lot about "reality" and media.]
Some critics even said that the pink could have contributed to his (first) early exit from the tournament. Yes, it must have been the pink shirt and not the bad knees or anything like that. Nadal, to his credit, shrugged it off and said pink was a popular color in Spain.
Which raises another interesting point: things are completely different in Europe. And not just the fact that pink for men is ok. The Globe article notes that all this marketing of breast cancer--or of any disease ("cause marketing" it is called) is non-existent in Europe. I suspect it has something to do with socialized medicine. After all some of the biggest supporters of breast cancer awareness campaigns are the pharmaceutical companies.
I am sure there will be plenty to come this month--and it will come in pink. Be aware of what you are buying, where the proceeds go, how much goes where, and think about writing a check to a charity that you yourself have investigated and believe in rather than collecting yogurt lids. And think about what it means that pink has come to represent a disease that affects (for the most part) women and the metonymic relationship between women and their breasts.

Kay Yow: 1942-2009

The basketball world and the larger world of women's athletics lost a great leader today. NC State women's basketball coach Kay Yow, who earlier this season said she would not be returning to the bench for the remainder of the 2008-09 season, lost her long battle with breast cancer this morning. Condolences to the NC State community.

In case you live in a hole...

...I'm here to inform you that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Which means that it's also a good time to point out some of the...ummm...problems with all this "awareness." Awareness itself is not a problem, of course. It's the hyperconsumerism that seems to accompany this awareness that has become a problem. It's the consumerism disguised as activism disguised as progress.

And what does this have to do with sport? Well there is a sport angle. So many teams and events unproblematically sponsor breast cancer "activism" through a variety of means. Teams wear pink jerseys or sneakers or laces. Proceeds of various items or tickets go to "research" (on what exactly, a cure, drugs, other treatment is never revealed). Then there are the events that survivors and supporters participate in: runs, walks, triathlons, etc. The events sponsored by companies like Avon (which refuses to reveal the potential cancer-causing effects of its own products and their production) spend an inordinate amount of money on advertising and prizes, swag, and generally staging the event. We should question whether it might just be better to donate that lump sum directly to the cause.

Samantha King, a sport studies scholar, wrote a book that came out a couple of years ago that analyzes a lot of these events as well as some of the discourse around breast cancer activism. I probably have mentioned this before but in honor of all the awareness going on this month, I re-recommend, Pink Ribbons, Inc.

I am all for awareness. I am all for programs that involve getting more women to self-examine and get mammograms. And it's as good a month as any to get one (hint hint, BB). But please don't go out and buy the pink oven mitts and matching tea towels or the pink toaster oven. Or even the pink lemonade that they are selling on Northwest flights this month for $2--seriously. If you want to help the cause donate directly. Check out the organizations, what the money goes to, and just write a check.

Little* annoying things

1. The University of Utah gymnastics team held a "pink out" during a recent meet where they encouraged attendees to wear pink to raise awareness about breast cancer. Those wearing pink got in for free but were asked to donate the usual price of a ticket ($4) to the representative of the American Cancer Society who was at the meet.

I've said before that I think such events are part of some weird form of activism (because just wearing pink isn't really doing anything at all especially when only $1 of that shirt you bought for $20 in Target is going to an organization you don't even know the name of let alone what their practices and politics might be) that plays on gender stereotypes. I find it problematic that when women's sports teams engage in such events it's seen as something they're supposed to do. The Utah coach said "since we're a women's sport, it seems like the right thing to do." When men's teams use pink equipment (like hockey sticks or baseball bats) to raise awareness the focus is on how these manly men are doing such a great thing for a women's cause by taking on this feminine color.

Also I am starting to question the whole "raising awareness" rhetoric. There are very few people in the United States who are "unaware" about breast cancer. What they lack awareness about is the overt capitalism, the hypocrisy, the racial disparities in occurrence and level of care, and the many other crimes and misdemeanors committed in the name of raising awareness of the disease. What many are unaware about is that breast cancer isn't even the number one killer of women--heart disease is. And yet you don't see nearly as many races to cure heart disease, or red hair straightening irons on Walmart's shelves, or yogurt lids that you send in that give about 2 cents to the American Heart Association.

But I am sure the Utah gymnastics team looked stunning in their specially designed breast cancer themed leotards.

2. Ann Bartow over at Feminist Law Profs has a quick post on a recent NYT article about the sexualization of teenage male water polo players. Pictures of various players have been posted on gay male pornography sites and are often found next to pictures of naked men. According to the article, "some of the boys were traumatized and sought counseling." I agree with Bartow that it's wrong when anyone's image is sexualized in a way they never intended and beyond their control. She encourages us to remember the case of high school pole vaulter Allison Stokke whose image was plastered all over the internet often alongside comments of a highly sexualized nature.

I thought of Stokke immediately when I heard about the pictures of the water polo players. I don't want to belittle their situation but my first thought was: things like this happen all the time to young female athletes. Stokke's situation made national headlines only after months of such harassment. Don't forget either how adults--bloggers, the press, photographers, editors at her local paper--all participated in the continuation of her sexualization or "pornification" as some have referred to it.

The story about young boys becoming sexual objects for gay men made headlines immediately. And the implication is that the trauma is greater for young male athletes when they are sexualized by other men than when young female athletes are sexualized by adult men.

3. The word wussy. I hate the word wussy. I cringe when someone says it and if the someone is a person with whom I have a good relationship who won't accuse me of being a 1) feminazi, 2) member of the thought police, or 3) an overly sensitive woman I usually point out the problems of the word. And I have been able to convince some to eliminate it from their vocabulary.

Wussy, you see, is not just a demeaning term but one that has its roots in the degradation of women. It is a combination of wimp and pussy.

And it is especially infuriating to me when wussy is used in a sporting context. For example, I used to take a spin class with an instructor who regularly "encouraged" us work harder by telling us not to be wussy or wusses.

And then the other day I heard a runner describe someone who initially appeared to be competing with her on an adjacent treadmill by increasing his pace to hers for a bit but then abruptly slowed down much to runner 1's chagrin because, runner 2 explained, he was doing a training workout in preparation for a marathon. Runner 1 noted that only in "[town where I currently reside] are the men so wussy." I am not so pleased that women are throwing around this word so carelessly and with so little thought as to how it only serves to further their own oppression. Men use the word all the time, too: stand on the sidelines of any football practice (from Pop Warner through the NFL) for a mere few minutes and I am sure you will see what I am talking about. It's wrong to hold women to a higher standard when it comes to discriminatory language and I am disgusted whenever anyone uses the word--regardless of gender. Everyone needs a little consciousness raising on the issue of derogatory language, I just am so much more disappointed when I hear it come from women--especially female athletes.



* I don't really mean little when I say little. Mostly I am referring to smaller incidents (versus larger controversies or ongoing stories) that actually can reveal a lot about sport and culture.

Sports teams "Think Pink"

Did I really make it through October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, without blogging about the connection between sport and physical activity and breast cancer activism?
Apparently I did. Luckily this story out of Canada has come along and provided me an entry into this discussion. And actually, these days, most pink/breast cancer campaigns are not October-specific. For example, I could pick up a can of pink tennis balls to take to the court with me any time--and probably a pink racquet bag as well.
And in Toronto this weekend, proceeds from ticket sales from the games of University of Toronto's women's team are being donated to Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. It is the first Varsity Blues Think Pink weekend, the slogan for which is "Cheer Blue, Think Pink." Many schools are being encouraged to host Think Pink weekends.
I find it interesting that it's women's teams that are being asked to host these events. But, of course, I also have a problem with the paternalism that comes out when professional men's teams in the US have done breast cancer awareness events.
This is probably because, in general, I have a healthy amount of skepticism (aka cynicism) when it comes to breast cancer awareness events and products. I am not condemning this particular event because I don't know all the facts and realities behind it. It's possible that the CBCF is better than some of the American foundations that court the money of carcinogen-producing companies. It looks likely that the weekend event will garner more in proceeds than it spent in advertising (not always the case with breast cancer events and products).
But we don't really know until we ask the questions and do a little digging. And most of us would rather just go buy a pink product or run a 5K, think we're helping other women, and go on our way, in part because we don't know the questions to ask and we don't see how such campaigns have become big business.
If you're interested in knowing more about this, I cannot recommend highly enough Samantha King's book Pink Ribbons, Inc. which is full of statistics, empirical evidence, and frank discussion about the corporatization of breast cancer. It includes information about pink products and events like the Race for a Cure and other runs, walks, and sport/physical activity events. You should also check out the Think Before You Pink website.