Former NOW president defends FSU, takes on critics
The following is a statement by Patricia Ireland in response to a December 10 column by FanHouse.com columnist Michelle Smith on Florida State women’s basketball web site promoting the team:
More and more women student athletes have emerged this new millennium as strong young women who are becoming leaders in sports, academics and life — slashing insidious stereotypes that insinuated women who compete in sports somehow forfeit their womanhood.
This encouraging record of progress is why I am so disappointed that a modern, edgy Web site celebrating the Florida State University women’s basketball team – and their dynamic and diverse lives in the classroom, on the court and in society – has generated shallow, knee-jerk criticism in the mold of Don Imus’s disgusting comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team.
Writers such as Fanhouse sports columnist Michelle Smith, who attacked the site in an article headlined “FSU: All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go,†claim that the site and its images are objectionable. What is truly objectionable is the fact that FSU is a top-10 basketball team that’s undefeated, but reporters like Smith would rather talk about pictures of them in dresses.
As someone who has devoted my career to advancing women’s rights, I believe Smith’s criticism is wholly counterproductive. There is nothing wrong with being glamorous — but everything wrong with placing women in a box where they’re expected to conform with someone else’s expectations. Women fought long and hard for Title IX so we could put on a uniform and compete on the court — without having to sacrifice being women.
We didn’t fight against dresses, but did fight against the fallacy that said if you wore a dress, you couldn’t be a competitor. To now suggest the opposite — that if you play sports you shouldn’t wear a dress — is the same kind of backward thinking that in the past attempted to block women from full equality.
We should accept these FSU women athletes for who they are and celebrate their achievements on and off the court. And we should support them not by criticizing what they choose to wear, but by attending their games, supporting their teams and honoring their competitive spirit.
To see the FSU women’s basketball team web site visit http://www.seminolehoops.com.
Around the Web:
- FSU: All Dress Up and Nowhere to Go (Michelle Smith, FanHouse)
- Women’s hoops media guides and web sites getting sexier (Jayda Evans, Seattle Times)
- Women’s Basketball Media Guides: Lipstick, Yes. Lesbians, No. (Pat Griffin’s LGBT Sports Blog)
- We are FEMALE athletes (Chantelle Anderson, WomenTalkSports.com)
2 Comments
I disagree.
No one is saying that women athletes shouldn't wear dresses. But read the subtext here, and throughout the history of women's sports marketing: Women are being sold for their looks–specifically, their performance of sexiness and femininity–more than for their athletic skills.
No one is criticizing FSU women athletes for what they "choose" to wear. But who chose these get-ups for their media guide? This is, once again, an example of "apologetic" behavior. "Yes, we're athletes, but look at us, we're still girls!"
Do male athletes ever have to apologize for their athleticism by, say, dressing up in fancy suits? They may enjoy wearing those suits, but they don't have to prove anything by doing so. They prove their masculinity on the court. Women are forced to prove their femininity off the court.
Danica Patrick must have extraordinary musculature to be a race car driver. Ever seen ads focusing on her muscles? No, Patrick is being sold as sexy and feminine. What a surprise!
Patricia Ireland, check out the research from women's sports academics on apologetic behavior and then reread this media guide–you might see something quite different.
I am nearing 60 and I would have objected to this media guide 35 years ago. Why? Because it reinforced the stereotype that women were expected to be decorative. Now I see it as so many things that we have reclaimed. I used to hate it when a man held the door for me. I knew that same man would bar a boardroom against me.
Now it is a different world and I smile when someone holds the door for me. Men used to be offended if you held the door; that is no longer the case. And we can look at those women in the FSU media guide and know they are not "pretty girls," but scholars and athletes. What could be more beautiful?
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