I'm still catching up on articles I missed while on hiatus. One topic that I have to touch on is the blatant examples of sports sexism shown during the Olympics. In case anyone forgot, the mass media is controlled by men...more specifically middle aged to old white men in corporate America. Although America is more progressive in terms of women's rights and privileges than any other place in the world, sports are still seem as masculine and more appropriate for women than men. This has somewhat manifested itself throughout the world, including the United States; take a moment and think of how many females you've heard say that women look like men when they start looking athletic. One consequence of this the perception that despite playing sports (a vigorous physical activity), they still need to look uber feminine while they do it. Part of me honestly thinks (well, actually knows) that those corporate fat cats I spoke about have a little bit of "dirty old man" to them. To them, men's sports are about who is the best performer or the most entertaining. For women, they're looking for the right combination of "Oh, she's pretty good" and "She's hot, I'll like to spend all night giving her an 'interview' at my hotel." For instance, in the little known sport of women's basketball, more people know balling beauties like Skylar Diggins (still in college) than Tina Charles (Olympic gold medalist) and Lauren Jackson (multiple time WNBA MVP) who are likely perceived as "butch". Even women who wear their hair in more appealing ways than the standard, "I'm working my ass off" ponytail gain notoriety, especially among male viewers. Hence, the 2012 tales of Lolo Jones and Gabby Douglas:
Lolo Jones
Lolo Jones (pictured left) is bad, super bad, somewhat exotic bad; for those who can't decifer the slang I just used, Lolo has undeniable beauty that transcends races. Those old corporate white men would probably get a stiffy (if they've taken their purple pills) just watching her stretch before practice in her tights. She's also a self-proclaimed virgin (she's 30) who can't seem to find a guy who will take her seriously without getting into her pants; Oh those pigs. She also happens to be a very good 100 meter hurdler who can't seem to put it together in the big meets; she's dominated everything except the big stages (Olympics and Outdoor World Championships). She came into the Olympics in 2008 in the best shape of her life. Unfortunately for her, she was in the lead, hit a hurdle throwing off her rhythm and ended up getting 7th. Cameras flocked to her looks of agony and disbelief and she sit on the track heartbroken over what had just happened; commentators poured out their sympathy for her unfortunate predicament. She was virtually inconsolable during her interviews. By the way, American Dawn Harper (pictured below right) was crowned Olympic champion in that race. In the years between, particularly the building for the 2012 Games, this put those responsible for the media, endorsements, and Olympic propaganda at a cross roads. Track is not a sport that can have many icons (like football, basketball, or others), particularly not two women. Thus, they are faced with an ultimatum who they want to make the female face of American Track & Field: the only American woman to win individual gold in 2008, Dawn Harper, or Lolo Jones, the hottie whom tragic befell in 2008? The champion seems like the easy choice. She rose to the top of the sport despite rocky and unenviable upbringing, like Lolo and others, did and won the Olympics. She won the 2012 Olympic trials, with Jones getting the 3rd and final spot. To the champion should go the spoils, right? Wrong. The word "hottie" would become the determining factor to those corporate decision makers; it's not quite a synonym to the word 'marketable' but it's getting close for women. Dawn Harper isn't some ugly chick or anything and she runs track, so you know she can fill out a dress or uniform. But she's very dark skinned and is not as naturally beautiful as Lolo. That's not an issue for me, but I'm not an older white guy. They don't provoke that stiffy for them the way Lolo does. Lolo Jones is mixed and passes the paper bag test (being lighter than a brown paper bag) which is about where pretty much any race still find Blacks or mixed women attractive (see: Halle Berry, Rihanna, Stacy Dash, Beyonce, etc); White, Latinos, Asians, etc aren't gonna flock so quickly to someone Harper's complexion. Even the
whitest of middle aged white women would call Lolo gorgeous if she was their sons' girlfriend. To make the decision easier for them, Lolo has posed tastefully nude (see pictured at bottom) and revealed the story of her virginity and struggle to find a man who accepts her lifestyle. Now in addition to her looks, she has a combination of sex appeal and innocence/purity that could feed that marketability. So, done deal. Thus she was EVERYWHERE (commercials, magazines, posters, billboards, talk show interviews, etc) for everyone to see while Harper remained largely unknown to the non-track community despite her success in 2008. Then in the 2012 Games, Harper gets a narrow silver, becoming the 8th fastest woman ever and only losing to a woman who broke the Olympic record. Lolo misses the medal stand, getting 4th, no fall, no drama, no sympathetic fan base. Then when provoked in an interview, Harper did what she had resisted doing for 4 straight years, got her feelings about the media decision off of her chest. She felt that despite being one of the more accomplished women ever in her event now, her success and her story had been overlooked for Lolo Jones's, more because of her looks and personal life than her accomplishments. Was it Lolo's fault? Absolutely not. Do I blame Lolo for not saying, "thanks for the offer, but you should have called Dawn instead"? Absolutely not. But does any of that change how Harper feels about it? Absolutely not. Track isn't a sport of massive salaries, you can be a successful track athlete on the track and still not be abnormally wealthy unless you have endorsements. So Harper sees the chick she's beaten at the Olympics and World Championships eating better than her and didn't like it. The media simultaneously highlighted the undeniable legitimacy of the bitterness while calling it a bad PR move for Harper (and bronze medalist Kellie Wells) to demonize her teammate. But hell, if winning the Olympics in 08 wasn't a good enough PR move to get Harper to fame and fortune, what is? Therefore, what does she have to lose getting it off her chest. Heart broken Lolo doesn't understand because the endorsements are nice but she wants the medal that Harper has. She never meant to spite anyone, she wanted to run track and live good understandably. That media spotlight is a bitch, ain't it?
Gabby Douglas
Gabrielle Douglas, the 16 year old sweetheart gymnast from Virginia Beach makes it to the Olympics and wins two gold medals. Her mother, who's sacrificed and scraped together money to get Gabby into some Olympic school in Iowa, is there at the Games to see her sacrifice all worth it as her daughter succeeds on the biggest stage. But all anyone has to talk about is her hair? See the foolishness to the left as an example of the foolishness that popped up online. The sexism comes into play here because (just like the successful basketball players we mentioned earlier who don't get as much attention), you being great at your sport isn't good enough in women's sports; you have to be good and you have to look the way they want you to look. If somebody likes their women with their hair down, long and flowing (you've seen all the teen movies where the girl is ridiculed for being geeky and ugly until she takes off her glasses and magically is the most beautiful girl in school all of a sudden), then that's how they want women to look while competing too. This isn't very practical in the world of sport. Unless your sweat glands are as blocked as Rush Limbaugh's arteries, you're going to sweat if you're strenuously competing. Furthermore, long hair, if not pulled back or put up, will inevitably get in your face while you try to compete. If you're a gymnast (making running, flipping, spinning, and jumping part of your competition), it's especially important to keep that mess under control. In the midst of her two gold medals, Twitter lit up with people mocking the greased back pony tail with many hair clips that the girl wore while winning two gold medals for America. Had I been on Twitter (you can check on old article citing reason why I decided against it), I would've made it my mission to ridicule everyone trying to ridicule her. Stuff like "You haven't done anything strenuous enough to sweat out your hair since the Clinton administration, I don't expect you to understand" or "Oh, I'm sorry, remind me again: What did you hair look like the last time you made history?" all over the place. To an extent I get some criticism for the straight hair populations, because they just don't understand. Black hair changes texture and volume when wet, so all those clips and that grease was needed to keep it under wraps when you're competing everyday. Plus, she now lives in an environment where she's the only Black girl at the gymnastics facility where she lives and was the only one on the Olympic team. Who understands her hair enough to do it for her while they're at competitions? Nobody she's traveling with. So while to an extent, I get why they don't understand, I think they should stop sweating the petty shit and appreciate her successes for her country. If the history of her sport serves as reference, even at 16 years old, this may be her last Olympic games (08 Olympic heroes Nastia Luikin and Shawn Johnson failed to make the 2012 team at ages 22 and 20). But to the Black community that was insulting the girl, your actions are deplorable and indefensible. Beyond the fact that she's the first Black woman to win the All Around gold medal, one of the two she won, SHE'S 16. While you were sitting at home getting fatter, you decided it was a good idea to attack a 16 year old in the midst of competition. You're scared to work out too hard or get freaky in the middle of the week because you don't want to ruin the $60 you spent at the salon getting your hair done, but you can't empathize with a Black girl trying to keep her hair as 'harnessed' as possible until the Games are over. If she showed up on the talk show circuit with her hair looking crazy, I'd understand. But she didn't, the competition was over and she got it done (see pictured below). So until one of you salt-throwing motha fuckas shows me how to make it throw Olympic competition without sweating enough to ruin a prom-like hairdo, politely shut the fuck up and recognize someone for what they do. Even though it was both women and men criticizing, it's sexist because it doesn't apply the same to men. Joakim Noah isn't badgered as badly as Gabby was and he looks like he doesn't even shower, much less worry about anything other that putting up his hair up. On a good day, he looks like Sideshow Bob from "the Simpsons". But it doesn't matter cuz he's a guy and we get over it. Stop Me When I Start Lying...
P.S. I saw that immediately after Gabby got her gold medal, NBC ran a commercial with a monkey doing gymnastics too and I didn't appreciate that covert racist shit neither. But that's a story for another day.
