Hour 3 of last Saturday's Northern Alliance Radio show included a discussion of the University of Minnesota women's basketball team. The first 30 minutes of conversation inspired successive callers to refer to us as "courageous" and "appalling" and provoked two Ivy League lawyers to get off their pool side lounge chairs for the expressed purpose of telling us "you suck." In other words, the hour was a radio success. However, much more controversial than I would have guessed.
In my mind, our points were simple and not in the least extreme. In honor of the University of Connecticut's victory yesterday in the Women's Final Four, I'll reiterate them. Taken objectively as a big time sporting event, women's college basketball is not compelling. And it's a little bizarre, in terms of confused gender roles.
First, the sporting event aspect. The game action, as it were, is painfully slow and deliberate. Compared to the men's game, it actually appears as if they're all playing under water. And while the scores are often competitive and some of the fundamentals of the game are being executed to a reasonable degree of skill, due to the overall low standards of athleticism, any potential drama or excitement is negated, for the objective viewer.
For example, take Lady Gopher Janel "Big Momma" McCarville. Yes, she can score in the low post, even when closely guarded and that is ... interesting, I suppose. But even in her best moments, when she fakes one way, spins another, and drives for an easy lay up, she moves like she's wearing Cement Jordans. And I'm supposed to be enthralled at this, just because her opponent is not only wearing concrete sneakers, but also has 50 lb. barbells tied around each ankle?
Same with Lindsey Whalen, who is, admittedly, a good ball player. But her alleged eye popping, electrifying play is a product of context. She's only amazing because her opponents all play like they're under water, while she appears to have at least climbed up on the pool deck (which may explain the admiration given to her by the Power Line guys).
To restate my conclusion, as a sporting event, women's basketball is not compelling and on it's own certainly not deserving of the Pearl Harbor sized headlines, loving editorials, and special sections printed in the local papers.
Which makes one wonder why the general public is subjected to such things. After much deliberation, I'm left with the suspicion that the only reason to get behind women's basketball this enthusiastically, dare I say fanatically, is for its usefulness as a social statement. It's a tool for those advocating a certain radical vision of equal rights among the sexes. More bluntly, it's a advance for the cause of mainstreaming feminism in American culture.
Understand, my conclusion has nothing to do with the simple fact that women are playing sports functionally designed to be played by men or that they're getting equal opportunities for athletic scholarships. The former I accept without caring, the latter I endorse. But where the creeping, creepy feminism reveals itself is in the issue I mentioned earlier. The bizarre, confused gender roles on display and indeed embraced.
That was my very first impression after watching 5 minutes of Lady Gophers basketball. The women act like men. Like crazy, wild men of Borneo, at that. The players (and the coaches), snorting and barking and strutting and stomping. Lady Gopher icon Lindsey Whalen is an example of this.
After their victory in the regional final last week she was literally pounding her chest with her forearm and roaring like some gorilla who'd just bashed open the skull of an opponent with the jawbone of an ass--after touching a black gleaming obelisk of knowledge sent from outer space (approximation of Ms. Whalen's behavior shown here). Behavior like this is absurd from an adult man, but coming from a woman, it's freak show level antics.
Yet it's precisely this hyper masculine behavior that seems to be endorsed by the women's sports establishment. Celebrating behavior that is contrary to traditional, and I'd argue biologically mandated gender roles. All to advance the political belief that there is no difference between men and women. And any differences we think we see are the product not of biology, but of a patriarchal culture. I'd go further in suggesting that the desire to forward the belief supersedes even the universally agreed upon good of equal access of opportunity for girls. As an example, take an article appearing in this past Sunday's New York Times, entitled "Thanks to Title IX: Cheerleading Is a Sport at Maryland."
In order to match the number of scholarships offered to men and women (a traditional disparity in favor of men, because of football), the University of Maryland has raised competitive cheerleading to the level of a varsity sport, giving all the girls involved (the team is 100% female), athletic scholarships. A move that on its face appears to be entirely reasonable. Cheerleading itself is among the most athletically rigorous exercises one can engage in, as Maryland's coach attests:
People have to get past the idea that cheerleading is shaking pompoms and kicking your legs in the air," said Lura Fleece, Maryland's coach, whose team completed its first official season yesterday by finishing seventh in the National Cheerleading Association championships in Daytona, Fla. "Because that isn't cheerleading anymore. It's about strength and gymnastics and teamwork. We're athletes and now we compete. Just because cheerleading is all female and we're not mimicking some recognized men's sport, that means we're not a sport?"
Not it my eyes. Cheerleading is unquestionably a genuine sport. And one which women are naturally designed to be better at that men, because of their sublime femininity (sorry Trent Lott).
And if the point of women's collegiate athletics is to allow women to pursue their physical interests and follow their talents, while at the same getting their educations for free, who could possible be against giving cheerleaders scholarships? The presumptive leadership of the women's sports movement, that's who.
"Maryland had other existing alternatives with demonstrated student interest," Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation, said. "To try and manufacture a sport and put a round peg in a square hole is disingenuous. I am not demeaning cheerleading skills, but is it a bona fide athletic opportunity for women or a convenient one for the athletic department?"
I suppose Ms. Lopiano's personal aversion to putting a round peg in a square whole may be understandable, but the idea that cheerleading is illegitimate as a sport because it's "manufactured" is absurd. Especially when you consider the NCAA currently recognizes synchronized swimming, bowling, crew, and rugby as women's sports.
According to Donna Lopiano, cheerleading should not be supported as a women's sport, but no argument against women playing rugby. Could that have anything to do with the fact that women playing rugby is consistent with a political agenda, one which includes the blurring of traditional gender roles, while cheerleading tends to reinforce them? (Hint--yes.)
Then there's this from Mary Jo Kane, a professor of sports sociology and advanced feminism from the University of Minnesota (yes, she's one of us). She's also the author of such page turners as ”Sexual Stories as Resistance Narratives in Women's Sports: Reconceptualizing identity performance” and director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport:
"Advocates of Title IX have every right to be suspicious of this. We've had to fight and claw for every women's tennis or golf scholarship, but now all of a sudden there's been a conversion and people think cheerleading is the answer? Come on now."
Come on--what? Women want to be cheerleaders, lots of them. Yes, these women happen to be generally attractive and feminine and probably very popular in their social circles. (And people like Kane and Lopiano may have a natural disdain for these qualities.) But these cheerleaders are still women engaged in athletics, right? And advancing their interests should be the point of the Women's Sports Foundation and the Center for Girls and Women in Sports, right? Or is it only those women and sports that conform to a political agenda that count?
More from Kane, on cheerleading as a sport:
In principle, it's great," [Kane] said. "But I worry if it's done at the expense of other more traditional sporting opportunities for women, and what is the fallout of that?
Ah yes, she's worried about maintaining more traditional sporting opportunities for women. Like ice hockey and rugby.
Here's further insight into the mind of Mary Jo Kane and her agenda for women's sports, from an article about golfer Annika Sorenstam appearing on the men's PGA tour:
"What's interesting is what will happen if you start raising girls to believe from the minute they are born that their competitors are not confined to the same gender. People tend to rise to the level of our expectations.''
Yes, they do. And maybe if you tell women they're physically the same as men from the minute they're born, they just might start to act like that too. And wouldn't that be a wonderful world?
If people want to spend their spare time watching women's basketball or ice hockey or ruby instead of cheerleaders, that's fine by me. A 29 share rating for the Gophers Final Four tells me that a lot of people do. However, most of the core fan base for those "traditional" sports consist of politically radical women and the men who love them (yes, that's around 29% of the population in the Twin Cities). These folks, including the media, are generally aware of the feminist cause they're really supporting.
But there's that other supposedly blossoming constituency I wonder about. The average folks of middle America, the Ivy League pool side lawyers, and young fathers who don't know how to relate to their daughters. The type who might be vulnerable to latching on to the hype of "girl empowerment" as an excuse to substitute their own interests (sports) for their little daughters' real interests (princesses, ponies, EZ Bake ovens). Are they really aware of the atmosphere they're choosing to subject their precious little families to?
Well if they weren't before, they are now. Thanks to the courageous, appalling editorial stance of Fraters Libertas. To conclude, I present...
a tribute ...
to some ...
of the finest ...
athletes ...
in America.
Now that's empowerment. And entertainment.
No comments:
Post a Comment