Thoughts and insights on sports and society from a Black perspective... By Charles Hallman
What is more outrageous, and typically sexist, is how major newspaper continually slap women athletes in its sports coverage.
Case in point: the Minnesota Lynx is in the middle of a playoff race. While today’s front sports page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune featured, ah, gasp — a Brett Favre story and a column on him as well, a Minnesota Twins post-game story, and a final installment of the paper’s five-part series on”cool sports jobs,” which coincidentally was about men working Vikings games as the ‘chain gang’ — those who hold the first down measuring sticks and down markers.
Meanwhile, a four-paragraph Lynx post-game story landed on the bottom of page two. Just to its right, and a couple of inches above, the remaining WNBA night recap – a 30-word paragraph, was included in the Star Tribune’s “briefly” section — how appropriate.
But today’s Variety front page, prominantly featured Lynx players Charde Houston, Candice Wiggins and Roneeka Hodges — billed as “three of the Lynx’s most fashion-forward players” modeling clothes, telling readers “about their love of looking good.” In an failed attempt to prove that it wasn’t an ogling-type piece, the three female athletes posed with basketballs in their hands.
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The lynx should be happy with any exposure they can get. Year in year out they have put non-competitive teams on the court. Obviously Brett Farve coming to the Vikings will get most of the coverage. This is one the the main sports stories in the country right now. The lynx have a hard time getting 2000 people to go their games, while a typical twins weekend game would have 30,000 people attending. I think the Lynx being buried in the sports section is a non-issue. As far as the Variety section article I agree it is a bit condescending but I think the term sexist is going overboard. These players and the team chose to have this photo shoot and it is not really different from the Vikings players fashion show.
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