How do you respond to Gender Inequality?
In the last few days, I have scanned my regular newsfeed outlets only to be met with inbox suggestions from friends and acquaintances that I “respond” to the article about 10-year old African American female basketball athlete, Kymora Johnson.
Johnson recently attempted to participate with her all-male basketball team in a tournament. The result due to her inclusion; the entire team was disqualified.
While many responders in these forums reacted with shock and bewilderment, I was quite the opposite.
Rather than attempting to analyze the public’s redundant shock, I would like to reference another gem in the media that you may have missed, but is directly applicable to the struggles of Kymora Johnson and many young girls just like her.
Last week, world-wide sensation and UFC champion Ronda Rousey, was the talk of sports media when she took down Bethe Correia in a 34-second knock-out victory. A few days prior to this fight, Ronda Rousey’s Youtube video on the “Do nothing B*tch” or DNB aired and collected just over 2.7 million hits. In Rousey’s interview she stated;
I was intrigued by Rousey’s boldness and signature blunt presentation. Her comments were honest and to the point and I continue to be miffed at how anyone could think the UFC sensation needs to throw a punch to take someone down. Clearly, she is more than capable of doing it with her words.
While Rousey’s statements were specifically addressing critics of her powerful and muscular physique, she makes the point to defend female bodies in general who are chastised by the media for not fitting the stereotypical swimsuit model figure. However, what Rousey was talking about was way bigger than just a two-minute Youtube video.
Facebook and other online forums allow us to repost news articles and express opinions our on a variety of topics. However, we continue to be fooled that somehow our LIKE or our retweet will be serve as the sole fuel to the vehicle that creates change.
Yes, social media can be a single tool for making us aware that change is needed. However, typing our outrage in a comment section is absolutely and unequivocally no substitute for creating action items which ultimately lead to policy amendments and more importantly, culture change.
While it is no secret that Johnson’s story has garnished anger and gathered support for her and her teammates, what are your options for response? Flocks of FB posts exploded on the web and one mother posted the comment that “if it were my daughter I would be raising hell”.
Shouldn’t we be “raising hell” because it’s wrong regardless of whether Kymora Johnson is family or a complete stranger?
Rousey’s DNB term is spot on with how we lack response to injustice as a society where sexism is concerned. The DNB acronym which now has its own t-shirt to raise money for charity, is pointing out so much more in our society than we think, when it comes to our indifference. As we further engage in wanting to only talk about our problems, we become less and less versed on how to move from being outraged to a place of actual change.
If you are upset for Kymora Johnson, what will be your response? Will you write letters to the NTBA organization who disqualified her team, voicing your concern? Will you start a fundraiser for Kymora’s local area to support more girls playing basketball? Will you give a donation to advocacy organizations like Play It Forward or Champion Women? Maybe, but the odds for the majority of reactions remain that most likely, you will not.
In the event you have no interest in monetary support, might I suggest the contribution of arming yourself with the knowledge of the war on sexism. At the very least, when these conversations and topics arrive at your next cocktail party, carpool, school board meeting, educational districts, within your state and around the US, you will be able to swiftly and accurately contribute and educate the “shocked” constituency. While Johnson and her team are busy being penalized for her gender, here are some of the top battles in the war on sexism in sports and higher education.
- Several NCAA cases will begin shortly concerning institutions and their dismissal of female coaches on the basis of alleged sex discrimination.
- Our population of female coaches has dwindled where just 42% of women’s NCAA teams are coached by women.
- Campus sexual assault and rape is still being approached with kid gloves
- Alarming statistics continue to pile up over the lack of media coverage and unequal pay for female athletes
If you are concerned about any of these, you can do your part by arming yourself with information through sources like the Tucker Center Research for Women and Girls in Sport or The Women’s Sports Foundation.
Most will agree that stronger women in athletics, in turn, develops stronger women in society. This particular issue shines a bright light on the growing disease of the DNB population.
Consequently, The Washington Post article by Petula Dvorak on Johnson’s controversy, opened by stating;
“No, this absurd bit of sexism did not happen in 1963. This happened last weekend.”
If we really want to implement change we can stop immediately with referencing our choice decades within the history of our civilization that we regard as archaic times that are “behind us.” Unfortunately, even our most disturbing news stories fail to make us recognize how truly “in front of us” these issues are. Yes, white men DO shoot up black churches. Not because of mental illness nor because we have too many guns, but because they are racist and racism exists.
Yes, athletic organizations, schools and their memberships, DO exclude little girls from playing on boys teams because they are sexist… and sexism exists.
Here’s the good news: if both women and men make a commitment to stop wasting time gasping and being surprised that sexism exists and agree to avoid auto-pilot references to previous time periods, we can then open our eyes to see what is happening NOW. Once we recognize it we can absorb it, face it and then act.
While I would rather have Ronda Rousey personally question the basketball tournament’s decision to disqualify Johnson’s team, the author made a valiant effort to question the injustice.
In reference to the decades, back in 1996 I became the first girl in Maryland to play boys baseball. After 8 years of travel and summer baseball and two full weeks of high school tryouts, the county attempted to throw me off the squad because baseball was “only for boys”.
Keep in mind, this was nearly 19 years ago so one would assume if this happened today in 2015, the odds would be in my favor, right? Or, would they?
I was granted the right to stay on the team by Anne Arundel County and the Washington Post responded with an article raising questions about all the long term “repercussions” of allowing me to play.
“Boys trying out for girls softball and boys replacing all the members of the girls basketball team are among the scenarios local coaches and some state officials envision now that the baseball diamond is open to girls.”
The article also quoted a varsity baseball coach from a local high school about his opinion on the sports apocalypse that would inevitably occur as a result of my participation.
“People are worried about it, ‘Will guys go out for softball and try to dominate in that?’ or the question of boys playing volleyball.”
As you probably guessed, Maryland State High School Sports are still very much intact and no such athletics Armageddon has occurred with the exception of a few plugs now and then about a female football player or wrestler. My point is, while 1996 is not 1963, this mindset was legitimately prevalent then and is still very much alive today.
What you don’t know about the baseball story was that two years later, I was cut from the program as a junior. Instead of cutting me via the cut list posted publicly in the hallway, the coach/athletic director summoned me into his office to personally to tell me that it was too much unnecessary attention for the program and that as a result, I wasn’t going to make the team. The pro-Becky Carlson Baltimore Sun called my house a few days later wanting to know what happened. In my defense, I was a DNB teenager who did not know any better at that time and I responded politely and simply told them I did not make the team.
This, my first of many brushes with sexism, was one that I didn’t even internalize until many years later. If the process and reasoning for me to be cut was truly equal, why wouldn’t this coach have allowed me the dignity of being cut without a special explanation meeting?
These gender based decisions dressed as “sympathy conversations” happen behind closed doors every day in sports and in the business world and we need to put a stop to them. They are the same closed-door conversations most likely took place before they delivered the news to Kymora’s team, that they would be disqualified.
While we continue to celebrate the participation of female athletes who shatter glass ceilings and gender barriers, we cannot ignore the countless young women who are told they cannot. The sooner we realize this, the quicker we can assemble an army to fight for them.
We have no reservations about raking our millennials over the coals when it comes to a generational discussion within athletics and higher education. However, all our generations must rid themselves of the DNB mentality Ronda Rousey references, as well as the notion that we would fight harder if only it was “our own daughter”.
The equality movement will gain steam only when we start using our voices collectively and actively, to fight for the girl who is not our daughter.
#DoMoreThanLike #DMTL
