Female reporters’ jobs in the men’s locker room
The Star Tribune’s Rachel Blount, Rana Cash and other women reporters broke into the previously male-dominated industry of sports reporting, and it wasn’t easy or quick.
By Brooke Olstad | Royal Report
Star Tribune reporter Rachel Blount held her reporters’ notebook in front of her face. No one could accuse her of sneaking a peek at the towel-clad athlete in front of her. Her skill at jotting down notes and quotes at eye level developed quickly. The scrutiny of her professionalism in the locker room required it.
Bethel and Macalester students attended a viewing of Ricki Stern’s and Annie Sundberg’s ESPN documentary Let Them Wear Towels Nov. 21 an Macalester College. The students took the opportunity to question sportswriters Rachel Blount and Rana Cash about their personal experiences in the sports reporting field.
“It’s a constant fight.”–Rachel Blount, Star Tribune sportswriter
The National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Football League barred women reporters from entering men’s locker rooms when women first started taking sports beats in the 1970s. The presumed lack of professionalism of women in a setting like a men’s locker room drove the decision of those associations. Addressing the issue, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg directed the film Let Them Wear Towels in 2013 highlighting pioneer women journalists like Lisa Olson and Melissa Ludtke. In Stern and Sundberg’s personal statement on ESPNW they said, “We have a personal understanding and appreciation for the work of these early female journalists. Breaking into an all-male field and writing about all-male sports, these women and other early journalists like them focused a lens on workplace discrimination.”
“It’s a constant fight,” Blount says. Women reporters have battled for equal access to male athletes in the locker rooms since they broke into the world of sports reporting.
At times, Blount found management of professional men’s teams believed the women reporters only wanted to ogle the naked athletes. They even went as far as making the female reporters wait 30 feet down the hall to keep them from catching a glimpse of the nude men. Blount argues the fact that the confined spaces of the locker rooms reek of sweaty men and gear and no one would volunteer to spend time in them.
“It’s still the least favorite part of my workday is to go in any club house, but it’s part of the job. It’s where the stories are,” New York Times reporter Claire Smith said in the film Let Them Wear Towels. Yet they still booted women from the locker rooms and forced to them to wait down the hall away from the door.
In one instance in 1985, Blount waited five hours for a quote from Cornelius Bennett outside the locker room. The Alabama coach yelled at her and kept her from talking to the athlete after practice. After waiting patiently for a quote for five hours outside the locker room Bennett told her that he would give her five minutes, although Blount says he probably gave her 10 minutes.
“It’s hard to address a harlot dressed as a reporter.”–Letter writer to Robin Herman, New York Times sportswriter
After the passing of Title IX in 1972 — equality of the sexes in federally funded education program or activity — and pressure from newspaper editors backing the women reporters the rules changed. In 1975, the NHL allowed New York Times reporter Robin Herman into the men’s locker room, making her the first woman to enter a hockey team clubhouse. The MBL, NBA and NFL followed shortly after, and in 1990 all associations allowed women in the locker rooms. The admittance of women into the locker rooms did not stop the skeptics from harassing or sending hate mail to those female reporters.
“It’s hard to address a harlot dressed as a reporter,” Herman read from a letter she received.
New Star Tribune editor Rana Cash, who manages Minnesota Vikings content, says she receives hate mail in response to her access into the locker room with, “insults about [her] intelligence.” Cash deals with hate inside and out of the clubhouses.
“I know you wanna look,” said a Miami Heat player during one of Cash’s interviews with members of the team.
The lewd comments, personal questions and accidental back rubs become a part of the life of a female reporter, but they do not complain to their bosses. Reporters like Cash and Blount say if breathe a word of it to their editors they will likely be pulled off their beat . They consider losing their sports beat a punishment for the actions of the athletes and male reporters.
If they complained about the male behavior in the locker rooms they would be constantly complaining Cash says.
“You do not want to be the complainer for always bringing up what this person did and what that person did,” Blount said.
