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On the heels of Caitlin Mostacella's insightful post
on double standards and warped cultural values when it comes to female
athletes, here's some beauty news on Caster Semenya to curl your teeth (via Broadsheet):
The 18-year-old appears on the cover of You
magazine with her cheeks rouged, lips glossed and nails painted.
Instead of her yellow-and-green tracksuit, she dons a sleek black dress
that covers up her washboard abs; gold jewelry, not sweat, drips from
her neck; and her cornrows are combed out into a bouncy coiffure. The
South African glossy declares in a headline: "Wow, Look at Caster Now!"
Also: "Athletics star Caster Semenya as you’ve never seen her
before—transformed by YOU from powergirl to glamour girl." ... (Read more at DoubleX)
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Last month, the International Olympic Committee announced that the 2012
London games would be the first to feature women’s boxing—and India is
gunning for the gold. Somini Sengupta reports in the Times today on how the boxing ring “represents a new kind of freedom” for Indian women ... (Read more in DoubleX.)
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Via Deadspin, the most baller pre-teen of the spring baseball season is a lady:
The taunting rings in your ears and burns like fire, and will for
years. A girl pitched a perfect game against your Little League team,
and you struck out three times. Nelson Muntz approves.
On Tuesday Mackenzie Brown
became the first girl to throw a perfect game in Bayonne Little League
history. Her reward? Today she gets to pitch for the New York Mets.
She'll throw out the first pitch before the Mets take on the Washington
Nationals at CitiField—finally Jerry Manuel has a reliable starter—as part of a whirlwind publicity tour that has included newspaper and
TV interviews and a mention on SportsCenter.
Yeah, McKenzie! Ignore the "taunts"—a perfect game (27 up, 27 outs) is even cooler than a no-hitter. I played Little League (not softball) for five years back in the day (HPK represent!) and while I was a decent batter, the few girls that did play with me alternated between second base, catching and the outfield—and were definitely not allowed to pitch. So props! Enjoy throwing one more strike tonight.
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While I enjoy March Madness for the entertainment of watching the earnest, last-gasp efforts of talented young athletes, I didn’t fill out a bracket for the men’s tournament this year. And even though I consistently watched one of my best girlfriends play hoops throughout college, I didn’t even consider filling out the women’s bracket. Martin Johnson has an interesting piece in the Root telling me why. I pretty much exhausted my knowledge of college basketball while recording our weekly podcast (give it a listen; you can tell). But I buy his analysis—that there is some weird stigma still attached to women’s basketball in particular that is not present for say, women’s tennis, or women’s swimming, or even women’s golf.
Here’s my armchair psychologist’s take: The female players are not overexposed. Call it the Imus effect? Basketball is all long shorts and sweatbands—even male athletes have only their arms (sexy!) to rope with elaborate, distinguishing tattoos. During last year’s Olympics in Beijing, there was much to-do about half-naked women athletes winning press coverage not for their high level of achievement but for their (obviously) slammin’ bodies. And anecdotal experience suggests that hot, female “on-the-court” television anchors are as much of a draw for men’s sports-watching as the games themselves. Perhaps dudes, subliminally accustomed to a little tittilation with their sports fix, take a pass on lady hoopsters, and speculation—and general spectatorship—for the female Final Four falls.
That’s not terribly well-reasoned as much as it's provocative. (Though, searching around to try to pin down how many more men watch sports than women, I found that “Since the 1999 regular season, nearly every NFL team has implemented a series of classes meant to educate female fans. NFL 101 Workshops for Women invites women to increase their understanding of football's history, offensive and defensive strategies and how to decipher game officials' signals.” Nice.) Any other theories?
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Just wanted to flag this great piece in The Root about Venus and Serena Williams—not simply because my sister and I played competitive tennis as youngsters, and were constantly being compared to the Compton-born phenoms—but because author Jewel Edwards is preaching hard truths about standards of beauty when it comes to athletics. Extra points to this piece for subtlety; it took me a while to realize that Edwards is male! His awesome point:
Black female athletes, on the other hand, are put in the unique position where developing their bodies makes them the object of spectacle. For female athletes, the perennial insult is, "You look like a man." As a result, any girl—black or white—involved in sports has to make choices that a boy never has to make.
That’s a very important insight; and the tough calls faced by female athletes extend not just to physical appearance but to lifestyle choices, such as when to have a baby, get hitched, or embark upon puberty.
Samantha brought up Michelle Obama’s guns getting lots of attention on Tuesday evening. (I thought that going sleeveless in February was a bit gauche—but that’s another tale.) Obama looks great, but that kind of positive reinforcement is a stark counterpoint to the ogling and snark that attends the biceps of the decorated Williams sisters. It’s clearly hurtful:
Serena, when asked about her body yet again, said, "Just because I have large bosoms, and I have a big ass [laughter], I swear, my waist is 30 inches, 29 to 30 inches, it’s really small! I have the smallest waist, but just because I have those two assets, it looks like I’m not fit."
Imagine that! You are the most dominant person in your sport in the world, but you consistently have to defend having your curves. Listening to commentators persistently speculate and scrutinize Serena about her weight and fitness—which are metaphors for her body—is like having the buttocks and breasts of Hottentot Venus debated for public consumption.
Yes, imagine that. More extra points for bringing up Saartje Bartman—made famous once more by inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander in this phenomenal work. But in terms of beauty norms: Really, what’s the difference between upscale yoga arms and those that can bench 200?
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