Uuuuhhgg.
Sometimes I feel so helpless, women in the world are just shit on, all the time, and shit on each other. I was having a conversation at breakfast this morning with D about the WNBA ’s latest move to give their players makeup and fashion training in order to market them better. Being the practical dude D is, he says “Yeah, no one watches women’s sports, they can’t make enough money.”
AGH! Why that response? Why is that the practical response, and not the absurd one?! I mean, it’s true–professional women’s sports can’t make enough money. But it just kills me that it seems like the practical next step for the world is for them to get sexier. And to seal it off, D offered the perfect example, women’s tennis–really fit women running around in really short skirts, it’s a good business model.
Which brings me to my point. The only way a sexier sports player is going to start bringing in the same kind of money as massive male athletes is if a majority of her fans are men. Making women’s sports into such a ridiculous sex show IS NOT going to create more female women’s sports fans, in fact it’ll likely turn off those who are already watching.
The problem is that there just aren’t enough female sports fans who like WOMEN’S SPORTS! Sure there are plenty of women sports fans who like male sports, but just like with the femjock situation, these women have conformed their tastes to what the majority taste is in order to succeed in sports-fandom, which is to like aggressive, beefed-up men’s sports.
So where are the female women’s sports fans? Even in writing this I realize that I don’t watch much professional sports because I’m not interested in how violent hockey, football, and even men’s basketball is. And when I think about the women’s sports I’ve watched, I remember that I enjoy them: women’s tennis (NOT because of the skirts), women’s soccer, women’s Ultimate Frisbee.
What we’ve got on our hands here with women in professional sports is that we just need to make women’s sports more about women, with female fans who will provide ratings and money, and less about getting male sports fans into it.
Becca
phantomcity
thehumble1
uppitywoman1
I’m not a big sports fan, but my old roommate is. He likes pretty much anything, but he doesn’t like women’s basketball, because the style of play is pretty dull (below the rim). He does like women’s tennis, and doesn’t like men’s tennis, not because of sexy outfits, but because men’s tennis is too dependent on power serves, so there aren’t good rallies. Not everything that appears to have roots in sexism does (which is why giving makeovers to WNBA players isn’t going to change anything in terms of numbers of fans).
I think that not everything that appears to have its roots in sexism has its roots only in sexism. For instance, it is important to check out what the play is like in different sports too. But that doesn’t make the sexism and misogyny a moot point–the conversation shouldn’t be shut down in other words.
Exposing sexism wherever it is, in conversation with other factors (but ultimately regardless of excuses) isn’t simply an agressive move towards blaming, it’s a way to open up a conversation that is rarely had in discussions even about justice and social change.