“A successful woman athletes will continue to be scrutinized because the culture can’t handle the truth: that women can be powerful and still be women, can have different body types and still be successful, and can avoid femininity if they want it and don’t want it. be men. » – Everett Brown
The evolution of women’s basketball has come leaps and bounds from the sport that many of our great-grandmothers, grandmothers and mothers once played in skirts…if they were allowed to play at all.
On May 18, 2012, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) concluded its 16th regular season. The game between the Los Angeles Sparks and the Seattle Storm also marked the fourth year of his lucrative eight-year television contract with the ESPN and ABC networks.
Increasingly popular and profitable, the responsibility to advance the league and the role of women in sports is not lost on WBNA players.
“You’re not only looking out for your own name, but also for the reputation of the WNBA in trying to help it grow. To do that, we have to behave a certain way, as ladies…” WNBA guard Armintie Price said in 2007, her first year with the Chicago Sky.
As ladies? Hmm, that sounds familiar.
Just look further than the box office or the bookshelf to see how what it means to “act like a lady” remains a perennial topic in societal discourse.
But for female athletes, the unspoken expectation to excel in a “men’s” game while maintaining their femininity is an expectation that Title IX did not (and could not) protect women and girls, in addition to protecting their right, to participate fully in American athletics.
Price’s comment, made in a Chicago Tribune The article, which praised the “uniqueness” of the WNBA compared to the men’s league, sympathetically alluded to these pressures, offering fans a (compact) mirror allowing us to see the image that WNBA players are. supposed to defend.
As a girl and an athlete, I remember my surprise when some of my favorite players like guards Cynthia Cooper and Dawn Staley accidentally started wearing makeup around the same time the WNBA debuted.
“Um, that’s interesting,” I said to myself, too young to understand the dynamics at play.
What I failed understand at the time the incessant rumors questioning the sexuality and even gender of female athletes who did not exhibit overtly effeminate traits off the field.
Comments like “She’s definitely a lesbian.” “OMG, she looks like a man!” are heard too often while watching women’s sports and most recently during the women’s NCAA tournament.
For Brittany Griner a rising senior at Baylor University, a three-time All-American and 2012 AP Player of the Year and Final Four MVP, the review was particularly powerful.
Dubbed the WNBA’s next superstar, the young phenom’s power dunks have made her a Youtube sensation. And while Griner isn’t the first woman to dunk, she is what many believed she was, but the first to dunk…well, like a man.
Unlike the women’s dunk pioneers who came before her, collegiate and WNBA stars Lisa Leslie And Candace Parker whose model looks and feminine fashion sense contrast with Griner’s deep voice and androgynous style that makes many uncomfortable.
Why this discomfort? In a guest article for the Crunk feminist collective Summer McDonald Cross notes, “…if straight men don’t think they can beat you in a sport, they at least want to think they can have sex with you after the game.” »
Great point, but let’s make no mistake that this is all about sex, but more so about how men AND women, regardless of sexual orientation, perceive femininity.
As a heterosexual woman and feminist, even I am guilty of the same criticisms.
While watching the NBA Playoffs, I found myself commenting on the appearance of sideline reporter and Basketball Hall of Famer Cheryl Miller. More times than I’d like to admit, I’ve let a “Oh look, she finally did something with her hair” and “Ugh, I think Craig Sager told her to wear that blouse” slip from my lips. and my fingertips on Twitter.
Yet even with my blunders, I realize that the policing of women’s appearance and behavior continues despite the women’s movement, Title IX, three waves of feminism and monster dunks and that in truth, the perception of how a woman is supposed to look and act has not changed. It hasn’t changed much since the days when we were running around the courts in skirts.
Jamila Aisha Brown is a freelance writer, political commentator and social entrepreneur. His company, HUE, provides consulting solutions for development projects throughout the African diaspora. You can follow her on Twitter and interact with HUE, LLC.
