When the Texas A&M women's basketball team won the NCAA tournament--and by extention, the National Championship in the most visible of women's sports--it prompted me to watch the WNBA draft for the first time. Two Aggies were invited, and I was curious to see if they'd get picked.
As each pro team announced their pick, the all-female team of ESPN commentators would discuss why the chosen player was a good fit for the squad. It was, for me, a jarring experience. Not because I wasn't used to ESPN showing women in commentator roles (though that it certainly an anomoly on that station), but because of their choice of words. They admiringly said that the player was a "big girl." Her brawn and toughness was widely praised. She was lauded for being agressive. She "threw her weight around" the court. All the adjectives you might hear in reference to a football player--on the defensive line.
They meant all these things as compliments, of course, and once I got over the initial surprise, I stopped thinking of it as rude. "Finally," I thought, "ESPN is giving balanced coverage to women's sports...even if it is just 1.8% of their on-air time."
Just as that thought crossed my mind, they did a profile on the top draft choice getting ready for Draft Day. Maya Moore was an All-American. She won the 2007 and 2008 Naismith and the 2009 John Wooden Awards. She scored over 2,000 points in her college career and led her UConn team to two National Championships. TWO.
So of course the feature was all about her getting her hair done, having makeup applied, and posing for photos. And people wonder why we don't, as a culture, take women's sports seriously.
I love this post. :)
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