Women's Athletics and Equality - Responding to my First Comment

Well this is exciting. I've received my first comment, by someone I don't even know. What's even more exciting about it, is that it teases out differences in agreement. Helen and I share an interest and passion for women's athletics, particularly it seems, the WNBA. She had some interesting points and some points I disagree with, so this post is about exploring this issue further.

1) Women in the WNBA make less because it's a business and that's what their business model can afford to pay them. (This isn't exactly what Helen said, but I think it's the point she was getting at.)

I don't think there's any disagreement in this theory. The analysis is really about why is there such a disparity? Let's talk t.v. and media coverage. I'm a Seattleite. The Storm are my team. One year a win during the play-offs did not make the cover of the sports page. Instead it was something about some male sports team in the off-season. Seattle also apparently has some of the best coverage in the WNBA. The standard response to this kind of critique is that news is a business and they are printing what people want to read (side note, I disagree with this premise, but will, for the sake of discussion accept it for this discussion). That argument creates a chicken and the egg debate. Are people not interested and therefore news doesn't publish stories, or are people not interested because the news doesn't publish stories?

I think don't either answer would be completely correct. From my own personal experience, I will say the more I learn about the ins and outs of the league and my team, the more invested I am in the season (having had season tickets since almost the beginning, and even when I haven't had season tickets, going to almost every game, I know that some seasons I care more about making every game). When I understand the importance of a game, a match-up, etc., it's more exciting. Understanding all of this is largely dependent on being told. I was pretty much anti-professional sports prior to the Storm, so my learning curve is steep. Not as steep as it would be if I hadn't played basketball at some point in my life. Getting this information can be challenging.

It is hard it is to watch the games or even listen to the games when I'm not at the game. I don't get AM radio in many places, I can't stream the online version at work (my work doesn't filter, I just can't seem to make the radio station play and the WNBA pass online to watch it doesn't work, and not really going to ask IT about it). Unlike the MLB, there's no app I can purchase on my iPhone to hear all the games (although the ESPN app is awesome).

The easy to access information (i.e., a local paper), barely covers the local team, let alone providing information that could allow you to get excited about the league. My dad tries to track the NY Liberty because Lelani Mitchel is a Washington native, and there are never any articles about any team other than the Storm (and limited articles about them, but always the box score) in the Tri-City Herald (for non-Washingtonians, this would be the south eastern side of the state, which is more rural/small city).

In contrast, I could care less about the Seattle Sounders (soccer) or the Seahawks (football), but it is impossible to avoid knowing how these teams are doing. Their wins sometimes make the front page of the entire paper, not just the sports page. I know (though don't waste the memory cells) which male teams make it to the March Madness Final Four (the fact that I even know there's a March Madness speaks volumes). I do not know, without extending effort, which female teams are in the female equivalent (in fact I don't even know if it's March or what it's called) (I'm not really into college ball, but because of my love of the Storm, I have actually toyed with the idea of at least going to a few games).

2) Title IX
Title IX is my pet law. I love Title IX. However the improvement over the past 10 years cannot be attributed to Title IX. The reality is that Title IX has been a law since 1972 (we could even use 1975 as the date, since that was when schools were supposed to be in compliance). Assuming kids enter the school system when they're 5, women who are 39 grew up with Title IX in place. If you acknowledge that it's probably about middle school where sports begin to get serious, theoretically, anyone who was about 13 in 1975 grew up with Title IX in place (i.e., 48 year olds).

That theory aside, NO school has ever had equality (which I would define as proportionate spots available, so if you had a school of 100 and 60 students were female and 40 were male, for every 6 out of 10 athletic positions available would go to female athletes). In fact we've never even had 50-50 compliance. As of 2000, there were only four colleges in "compliance" with Title IX which at that time was essentially that female athletes represented 40% of the athletic population. The regulation the Bush Administration passed through evolved the "meeting athletic interest prong," which was modified to allow schools to fill out a survey (with no guidelines on how that survey would be filled out) and if women didn't seem interested they wouldn't need to make any effort to provide female athletes opportunities to compete.

Between that and all the backlash against female athletes based on a mis-guided blame for the loss of male sports on Title IX, throughout the last 10 years, female participation opportunity in colleges athletics is actually taking a bit of a hit. This is why, even though without Title IX there is no way we would have the WNBA, Title IX cannot be attributed to the improvement in the league.

In fact, I believe the league is what can be attributed to improvement in the league. The fact that girls who play basketball have something that inspires them, is huge. The fact that putting in the time and energy in high school and college might actually lead to a career doing something the love is huge. I still remember playing hoops the first time after I watched a WNBA game (sadly I was away at school for the ABL season, so I missed all their games). For the first time in my life, I shot hoops envisioning myself at the buzzer of an important game making the winning shot. Representation is huge.

3) Doing Something Else/Comparison to the Past
It's hard to figure out how to respond to this because there's so much embodied in it. First, one of my main points is that professional female athletes should be able to play the season and not have to do other things (other than all those endorsements and whatnot involved in professional athletics). So saying they could do other things is a non-sequitor. The women playing for the WNBA are getting to live a dream. Allowing the inequality to end the league would achieve the opposite of what I think we both want.

Second, I don't think that the commitment of today's WNBA players should be pitted against the AAU players. The reality is that both leagues are fighting the same fight. Female athletics would not be where it is today if girls and women had not always been fighting for opportunities to play. The WNBA is carrying that torch.

4) Success. The comment of how I'm measuring success misunderstands what I mean when I said that female athletes will be seen as inferior. I bet fans of the NBA have never had to sit near other spectators at a game who claim that it's not a real sport and they aren't real athletes. When I said inferior, it is the lack of value female athletes receive for the athletic achievements because they are not male. I don't think I will see a day where female athletes are seen as real athletes by most men, and a lot of women. Sadly, I think until we reach a society where sexism does not run as rampant as it does in our society, female athletes will always be treated with a bit of a patronizing tone. I also think as the gap between men and women and their success in the public spheres increases, that sports will be held on to as firmly as possible as the last bastion of male superiority (and this isn't an original thought, there's a great book called The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Love Football that explores this in more depth).