Just Because

Hi! I’m a journalist. But I can’t do sports.

I miss the basics, I trip over myself, and the terminology (yes, even the words) fly over my head like one of those speedy WW2 fighter planes.

However, as an individual that is far from sports-inclined, I couldn’t help but state the not-so-obvious: where’s the hype for women’s basketball?

Although this is common knowledge (I hope), the female perspective is far from popular — relative to their male counterparts — and it just prompts the question of why?

I took to Google for answers.

It didn’t take very long. I was beaten to the punch. So I wandered into the crevices of the internet to see what I could find — other than forums sprawled over with sexist comments. Then I found something interesting.

Last year’s take on the “why” — asking the very same thing, NCAA-style. It seems to almost be a psychological phenomenon, a societal impulse.

You watch men’s basketball, you’re with friends. They’re excited. You get excited. They scream. You scream. They laugh. You laugh. The brain takes the external stimuli, chews it up a bit, and sweeps it out.

Women’s basketball? Cricket chirps. Or, in my experience, long, anecdotal and misogynistic rants on female inferiority. And they build, and get more elaborate and nonsensical and illogical. I figured I needed new friends. And yet even now I never understood the “why”. Nor do I claim that this cognitive dissonance is the end-all.

I simply want to be in the know. So, disregarding the “JLM 312” portion of this (because, hey, I like to know things of my own volition), I looked more into women’s basketball.

I felt it was a necessity. And I saw some big-names come out of it.

Blair Schaefer.

Brianna Turner.

Alexa Middleton.

With tons (heh) more situated in the nooks and cranny’s of Google’s massive cyberspace.

I still have no idea what the words mean, but the games make for a fun time. I can’t deny that. Regardless of gender.