Put Me In, Coach, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

August 13, 2016 Victor El-Khouri 0 Comments

It’s difficult to put into words how little I care about sports.  If you like them, that’s swell.  I’m in favor of more people enjoying more aspects of life.  If we are friends and you want to watch sports on television, I’m delighted to sit with you and knit.

(That’s what knitting is for.  Also, sweaters.)

I’m not watching the Olympics.  However, I do watch the news and read various newspapers, so I’m absorbing some of the stories by osmosis.  What really interests me is the way the media cover the events, not so much the events themselves.  And, as a result, my impressions are more meta than informed.

First, a confession.  It is most disturbing (to me, anyway) that I have discovered a new layer of my own racism.  The U.S. women’s gymnastic team consists of five young women, and three of them are not white.  When did this happen?  Why do I expect female gymnasts to be white?  I also kind of expect them to be blonde, and possibly of eastern European descent.  I don’t have these innate assumptions about my elected officials, or neighbors, or artists or musicians or any other people in my world.  Is it because female gymnasts are held up to us as feminine ideals, and I’m racist at that level?  And if only white women can represent this ideal, how do I explain Beyonce?

I tend to not watch the Olympics because I can’t stand the commentary.  I don’t like the way the people with the microphones only talk about the American teams, as if excellence by people from other places is not admirable.  Also, I don’t like the patronizing tone of a lot of the coverage of Americans.  In an attempt to humanize the athletes and make them relatable, the narrators give everyone a big, dramatic story, full of pain and challenge.  We all have pain and challenge.  Choosing to devote oneself to athletic glory is an interesting thing in and of itself.  We get it.

When the athlete is female, a whole new set of rules apply.  The coverage of female athletes is appalling.  Winning women are more likely to be defined by the men in their lives (whether coaches or fathers or husbands or boyfriends) than by their own talents and training.

Don’t believe me?  How do you feel when you read this?

In the grand scheme of thing, disrespecting world-class female athletes isn’t a major problem.  I’m sure that even those who are most demeaned will have a shot at making millions of dollars endorsing sneakers and soda and breakfast cereals.  Even if they don’t, they can take justifiable pride in having human bodies that can do superhuman things and do them better than several billion other people.

However, when we don’t take the experiences of women seriously, we damage our entire society.  This report shows how pervasive and punishing sexism is.  When a woman (whatever her color or education or occupation or class) cannot rely on law enforcement to enforce the law, we all suffer.

Just as we all hurt when law enforcement treats people of color as less than human.  Please don’t think I’m saying that sexism is worse than racism, or that racism is worse than sexism.  All forms of bigotry are related to each other, and all are poisoning.  It’s not a competition to see who suffers the most.

If you like the Olympics, I hope you enjoy the next week or so of coverage.  With luck, it will drown out the presidential campaign.

Media Goddess Martha Thomases used to swim competitively, and might still be able to do a flip turn.