Bonnie Bernstein, nervously, compared high school basketball players to Palestinian suicide bombers on a recent airing of the Mike and Mike in the Morning Show.
Jemele Hill recently was suspended by ESPN for writing in her online column that “rooting for the Celtics was like saying Hitler was a victim,” among other not-so-nice things.
And early this year, the Golf Channel suspended anchor Kelly Tilghman for two weeks for saying that young players who wanted to challenge Tiger Woods should “lynch him in a back alley.”
Ladies, we have arrived. But do we have to do everything our male counterparts do?
Yes, we want to play with the big boys. We want a shot at the top sports beats at the big newspapers. We want to saddle up next to John Anderson and Stuart Scott as we read sports to all of America from the other anchor seat. And we’re still looking for a serious shot at the mike in a major city (We would love the sound of the Anna and Anna Morning Radio Show).
And most importantly, we want to be respected for our C-erebrum, not our C-Cup.
But somewhere along the way, some of us took the saying “Anything you can do, I can do better” a little too far. After all, we don’t want to fart, burp, scratch or make other strange noises at will, do we? We’re ladies, after all.
Now, we’ve got a reel it in. After all, as women, we can’t nail Imus to the wall about dissing our fellow basketball-playing sisters, then turn around and do the same thing in print, on television, or over the radio.
Working in the sports industry is nothing new for women, but we shouldn’t be so comfortable that we begin to make the mistakes of our male counterparts. Besides, we don’t want to give the hiring folks (read: men) any other reasons to think we can’t handle the job. Tell me I don’t know my sports as well as the next guy, and I’ll call you a liar. But, if these folks were to pull out a column or a tape of some of my inappropriate comments, then he would have me dead to rights. It’s indefensible (although nobody’s perfect).
As women often say—including those who blog on this site—we don’t want to be treated like men. We wanted to be treated better!
But that starts with behaving better than them.
5 comments:
Ladies, and gentlemen: It is no great feat to stick foot in one's piehole. We're smart enough to turn phrases that don't have to "go there." And no, Paris Hilton is NOT fair game in references to a baseball player's slump.
Paris Hilton, baseball .... you don't see the connection?
Exactly.
a . nclude
I hope nothing but the best for women who compete in a "man's" world, but this is where they need to stop behaving like men and begin behaving like ladies.
I guess we've really arrived. I'm preparing my nails for a good scratching.
women rock! I wish robin roberts was back with espn.
And let's not forget ESPN's Dana Jacobson, the Susan B. Anthony/Rosa Parks of media misspeak, who got suspended in January for saying "F*** Notre Dame," "F*** Touchdown Jesus," and "F*** Jesus" in an attempt to talk trash to Mike and Mike co-host Mike Golic, a former Notre Dame football player at the radio team's celebrity roast.
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