March Madness Misogyny

[chiguirre]

I am appalled at the NCAA's treatment of the women who are playing in their NCAA Basketball Championship. The first straw was the weight room comparison:

Then came the catering:

Then the swag bags:

Seriously NCAA, these are not major budget line items compared with stadiums and hotel rooms. There is no reason that the women's "weight" room contains as many dumb bells as your average suburban home gym. There is no reason that the women are served an unappetizing take out dinner and the men get a buffet. The swag bags are ridiculous and, really, they couldn't spring an extra $20 to jazz them up a bit?

This is just insulting to the women's teams who worked as hard as the men to get to March Madness.

[Shoeless]

22 minutes ago, chiguirre said:

I am appalled at the NCAA's treatment of the women who are playing in their NCAA Basketball Championship. The first straw was the weight room comparison:

Then came the catering:

Then the swag bags:

Seriously NCAA, these are not major budget line items compared with stadiums and hotel rooms. There is no reason that the women's "weight" room contains as many dumb bells as your average suburban home gym. There is no reason that the women are served an unappetizing take out dinner and the men get a buffet. The swag bags are ridiculous and, really, they couldn't spring an extra $20 to jazz them up a bit?

This is just insulting to the women's teams who worked as hard as the men to get to March Madness.

They wouldn't even have to spend $20 on the swag bags. Most of that stuff is donated.

[Ausmumof3]

I haven’t really thought about misogyny in sport much because we aren’t huge sports watchers but I realised recently in tennis that the three sets for women is really frustrating.  With a five set match of a player has a bad couple of games it can still turn around by with the shorter matches you can’t really bounce back after a bad run.  It makes it much less exciting to watch.

[Melissa Louise]

A lot of people don't take female sport seriously. Sadly. 

[PinkTulip]

My best friend’s daughter is on a team that made it to the NCAA playoffs, and we have been following this closely and hearing about it first-hand. It’s absolutely ridiculous! 

[TravelingChris]

Unfortunately, most women sports don't bring in the money for the school athletics. It is football and 8n sime school's men's basketball that brings in the bucks.  And as all too many things in life, money talks.

[Laura Corin]

18 hours ago, TravelingChris said:

Unfortunately, most women sports don't bring in the money for the school athletics. It is football and 8n sime school's men's basketball that brings in the bucks.  And as all too many things in life, money talks.

I wonder about the historical structures that might underlie this. 

For example, in the UK women's football - 'soccer' - is not as well developed and profitable as men's.  That might not be the case if women had not been banned from professional football pitches for fifty years

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_association_football

Perhaps it's time to share the cash?

Edited March 20, 2021 by Laura Corin

[Carrie12345]

9 hours ago, TravelingChris said:

Unfortunately, most women sports don't bring in the money for the school athletics. It is football and 8n sime school's men's basketball that brings in the bucks.  And as all too many things in life, money talks.

I doubt their humanities departments bring in much money (😜) but I still expect men and women to access the same resources.

I’ve never really understood the money aspect of college sports, so I probably shouldn’t be saying anything anyway. Not that I’m anti-college sports.  I just think it’s weird that we don’t differentiate between college sport and sports college, particularly at public institutions.

[TravelingChris]

53 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

I doubt their humanities departments bring in much money (😜) but I still expect men and women to access the same resources.

I’ve never really understood the money aspect of college sports, so I probably shouldn’t be saying anything anyway. Not that I’m anti-college sports.  I just think it’s weird that we don’t differentiate between college sport and sports college, particularly at public institutions.

I read an article about University of Alabama sports a number of years ago (I have lived here 10 years and can't remember exactly when I read it) but it explained that Alabama football basically brings in enough money that it funds the other sports, including the woman sports, that don't bring in enough money.

And as to the humanities departments, they are often the first ones cut when the college is tightening its belt.  Follow the money.

[livetoread]

And part of the reason they don't bring in as much money is because they aren't valued as much. The two self-reinforce. Don't value as much so don't market as much so people perceive it as less than so they don't value it as much. If similar resources were devoted to women's sports, it's possible they will be valued more highly and then bring in more money. Marketing works, and nothing says this is less important and less valuable than being treated as such. But I'm another who questions the value we play on sports, especially football, so there's that.

Edited March 20, 2021 by livetoread

[Junie]

When I was in college I was an editor for the yearbook one year.  I remember for the sports section, someone had labeled pages as Basketball and Women's Basketball.  I pointed out the discrepancy and the pages were changed to Men's Basketball and Women's Basketball.

[TravelingChris]

1 hour ago, livetoread said:

But I'm another who questions the value we play on sports, especially football, so there's that.

I don't see what you don't understand. It isn't a matter of understanding why some people like some sports or,all sports and others prefer some other activity or hobby.  Those are people's own preferences for personal enjoyment.  I mean I don't like baseball but I recognize that many people do ( too slow a sport for me.  8 like fast team sports like hockey, football, soccer, bicycle racing)

[Annie G]

The women’s team we follow (University of GA) knew the weight room and meals wouldn’t be what they are used to and they arranged their own. Yeah, they have the funds to do that. But not all schools...even D1 schools...will put that kind of money out for their girls.  And they shouldn’t have to!
and yes, what TravelingChris says is also true at UGA- football brings in enough to cover other sports.  I benefit from that- season tickets for women’s basketball are almost free. Gymnastics season tix are dirt cheap, even though every home meet sells out. Volleyball is free to watch. 

[scholastica]

18 hours ago, TravelingChris said:

Unfortunately, most women sports don't bring in the money for the school athletics. It is football and 8n sime school's men's basketball that brings in the bucks.  And as all too many things in life, money talks.

Have they been marketed the same way? Are the marketing budgets equal? Has the tv coverage been equal? Are they played on days and at times that fans can watch? There are a lot of reasons that they don't bring in the same money. Most of those have to do with female sports having been an accommodation, not a serious investment for schools. If the NCAA and schools invested equal time and energy into sports for both sexes, things would probably be a lot more even. 

[TexasProud]

For a really long time Baylor Women’s Basketball was so much better attended than the men’s team because they were so much better.  I remember going to a women’s game and at half time the invited the men’s team and were begging for students and people to go to the men’s game.  That was before Scott Drew. 

[Stacia]

 

 

[Sneezyone]

1 hour ago, TexasProud said:

For a really long time Baylor Women’s Basketball was so much better attended than the men’s team because they were so much better.  I remember going to a women’s game and at half time the invited the men’s team and were begging for students and people to go to the men’s game.  That was before Scott Drew. 

Same at USC. Tons of Olympians and WNBA players before the men’s team ever got halfway decent. The women were/are legends in the game. Same at UCONN and Tennessee.

Edited March 20, 2021 by Sneezyone

[TravelingChris]

1 hour ago, happysmileylady said:

I do think this is wrong.  I think the swag bags could be done away with for both, I think the women's meals should at least be the same sort of catering as the mens and I think that the weight "rooms" should meet in the middle a bit.  I think it looks excessive for the men's but definetly way too skimpy for the women's.

 

Having said that, I don't know that I would classify it as "misogyny" so much as just apathy.  Misogyny seems like a more active type of anger/dislike/hatred.  This is just.....they flat out don't care.  They didn't care enough to look for the catering, they didn't care enough to take extra steps to be sure the women had the right weights, they didn't care to notice the swag bag difference, etc.  

I totally agree with this post.  I think the meals, weight rooms and covid tests should be the same or very similar.  But I also do not think it is misogyny but apathy.  I don't think they hate the women, just don't care.

 

 

[chiguirre]

Maybe it's apathy, but at a certain point (the Covid tests for me) not giving a crap has the same result as actively trying to harm women. 

The Covid test disparity isn't a matter of respect for women athletes, it's a matter of their health and safety. With the new virulent variants, the NCAA is playing with fire by not using the PCR test in the women's bubble.

[Dmmetler]

I'd be interested in seeing the comparison between Women's Basketball and other NCAA sports. My guess is that men in sports that aren't Basketball, Baseball, and Football probably get treated like the women do in NCAA-and that it's a sign less of misogyny and more that only Men's Major, large team sports are seen as important. 

 

L did competitive cheer for years, and one of the constant complaints in the cheer world is that cheer is considered "not a sport" by the NCAA, even though it is now a developing Olympic sport. But, there are also real concerns about it becoming a sport because right now, Cheer is generally seen as part of the football program, and is funded as part of that. This means that at many DI schools, a cheerleader is more likely to get a scholarship than an athlete in most sports that don't have "ball" at the end of their name.  It's kind of a two edged sword-Cheer gets little respect because it is not seen as a sport, but at the same time, it is actually more secure funding-wise BECAUSE it isn't a sport. Similarly, this has largely saved it at the high school level during COVID, when many schools are eliminating teams-because even if they had to completely take this year off, there are no discussions on eliminating football. 

 

One of my friends has a DS who is a talented gymnast,. and men's gymnastics compared to Women's gymnastics is kind of an other way around scenario-many schools that have excellent Women's teams do not have men's teams, and Women's gymnastics has a much higher following than men's. So, they have been really focusing his college search on schools that have teams, at least club teams, so he can continue training and has a team to do it with. Fortunately, he's strong enough academically that he's at least getting out of state waivers at the schools, because it's a really far flung search. 

 

I still think it stinks for the women. And that the COVID test thing is absolutely appalling. 

 

 

[Farrar]

The idea that not giving a bleep about women is somehow NOT a form of institutional misogyny is absolutely absurd. You don't get to excuse misogyny by saying, oh, but it's not that they really hate the women, it's that they didn't think about them or their needs. 🙄

And before we get into some sort of semantics off about the meaning of the word, misogyny is defined as, "dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women." 

[Dmmetler]

2 minutes ago, Farrar said:

The idea that not giving a bleep about women is somehow NOT a form of institutional misogyny is absolutely absurd. You don't get to excuse misogyny by saying, oh, but it's not that they really hate the women, it's that they didn't think about them or their needs. 🙄

And before we get into some sort of semantics off about the meaning of the word, misogyny is defined as, "dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women." 

The thing is, often you could say the same thing by comparing, say, basketball and track.  There are a lot of men in NCAA Division I programs who get treated as second class citizens because they don't participate in a money sport, even though their teams are bringing home national titles regularly.   NCAA Division I football, basketball, and baseball players are athlete-scholars, not scholar-athletes. They are basically paid by the school to play (via scholarships) and increase their visibility. All other sports tend to be scholar-athletes. There to attend school, and also to play their sport. The difference in treatment is dramatic. 

 

Having said that, there is no excuse for March Madness not being equitable, since it's the SAME tournament, just a different set of teams.

[Farrar]

6 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

The thing is, often you could say the same thing by comparing, say, basketball and track.  There are a lot of men in NCAA Division I programs who get treated as second class citizens because they don't participate in a money sport, even though their teams are bringing home national titles regularly.   NCAA Division I football, basketball, and baseball players are athlete-scholars, not scholar-athletes. They are basically paid by the school to play (via scholarships) and increase their visibility. All other sports tend to be scholar-athletes. There to attend school, and also to play their sport. The difference in treatment is dramatic. 

 

Having said that, there is no excuse for March Madness not being equitable, since it's the SAME tournament, just a different set of teams.

I agree that it's a complex issue in a general sense in terms of college athletics and that there are definitely things about the marketplace determining value and the need for men's sports for various fundraising and alum reasons going on... and also that there are legal requirements for equity and ways that colleges should ideally be pushing for change rather than perpetuating the problem.

But in this case, my only point is that the case was literally made in this thread to say it's not misogyny because they just didn't care about the women. But that is exactly what misogyny is by one of the most basic definitions. Like, it may be a complex issue... but it's a complex issue... of misogyny.

[Hyacinth]

Is saying “I’d rather watch men’s basketball than women’s basketball” a form of misogyny? 
 

[Corraleno]

 

2 hours ago, happysmileylady said:

I still don’t think this indicates an ingrained prejudice against women. You are free to call my opinion absurd all you want, doesn’t really change it.  I think others have made mention of things like how the other smaller sports are likely treated similarly to the women’s basket ball tourney (like seriously, how much do you know or care about the NCAA men’s lacrosse tournament....do they even have one?) and also how women’s gymnastics often sees more support than men’s gymnastics.  There are reasons to think there is something other than misogyny at work and because there are reasons, I disagree with your assertion that my opinion is absurd.  Different from yours, yes.  Absurd, no.

 

The claim that it's natural, or even inevitable, for female athletes, and even male athletes in non-revenue sports, to be treated as second class citizens is simply not true. At DS's university, men's and women's basketball share the same facility, have identical locker rooms, use the same conditioning and weight room, etc., despite the fact that the men's team brings in far more money. Men's and women's gymnastics, men's and women's fencing, and wrestling share another facility, and their weight room is massive and is even nicer than what the basketball team has. All varsity athletes have access to state-of-the-art training and rehab facilities, meal supplements, extensive academic support, etc., whether they're the lowliest walk-on on the women's synchronized swimming team or the star quarterback.  Every team, even the fencers and lacrosse players, get huge piles of swag every year (Nike clothes, hats, shoes, bags, equipment, etc.). It is neither inevitable nor acceptable that student athletes should be treated differently based on their gender or the amount of revenue they generate. 

And, yes, Men's Lacrosse is one of the 90 NCAA Championships held every year.

[Farrar]

Ignoring women's needs and not thinking of them or enjoying their sports as much are all ingrained prejudice. Not all ingrained prejudice toward women involves violently attacking women or sitting in a room making nefarious plans to make sure they never become CEO's. Misogyny can be casually not realizing what you're doing.

It's wild to me that anyone could see that Tiktok and think to themselves, oh, but I'm sure they didn't mean it and therefore it's not misogyny.

[Corraleno]

6 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

Please show me exactly where I said it's "natural" or "inevitable" for anyone "to be treated as second class citizens."  

 

I didn't.

 

In fact, I actually said it was wrong and pointed out exactly what I felt needed to change.  I said the swag bags could be totally done away with, the catering of the women's should equal the mens and the "weight rooms" could meet in the middle.  That's exactly how I think things should be adjusted.   I didn't say it was acceptable.  I only said it wasn't due to misogyny.  I don't think its about women basketball players being women.  I think it's about womens basketball being less important than mens.  And that's not about the gender, it's about the sport.

 

 

Fantastic...Mens Lacrosse NCAA tourney exists.  Their bracket has never made it up on the side of the JW Marriott in Indy.  Yet, the mens basketball tourney has a bracket so large it has broken records this year....and the record it broke was it's own.  

 

 

 

You said it's not mysogyny that men's and women's basketball players are not treated equally, because non-revenue sports of both genders are not treated equally to the revenue sports. And my point was that that is not true, and should not be true. The men's and women's basketball teams at DS's university are treated equally, with the exact same training and competition facilities, despite the fact that only one of them brings in revenue. The fact that more people like to watch men's basketball should have no bearing on whether the athletes are treated equally. These are not pro athletes, they are college students. NCAA totally screwed up here, it doesn't matter how many more people are betting on men's basketball — why should that have anything to do with female athletes being treated equally?

 

2 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

I have a sister who played softball in college.  

That's an understatement.  She received a full ride scholarship to play softball in college.  While she was playing in college, she also played with the women's national team in a tourney in Australia.  She unfortunately ended up playing in a time where softball was eliminated from the Olympics, but she could have been on an Olympic team and actually played with members of the last Olympic team.  

Never in her softball "career" did she receive a "swag bag" even approaching the image of the women's team swag bag pictured."  It's not because woman's sports were a problem, it's because no one, not even the olympics cared about softball or even baseball.  It doesn't matter how athletic softball actually is.  It's about the sport.

Do you think male basketball players get bigger Olympic swag bags than female basketball players? Or that the basketball players get more Olympic swag than dressage competitors, even though basketball tickets sell out while dressage stands are half-empty? The answer is no: everyone on the US Olympic team gets the same swag. If NCAA can't ensure that male and female athletes get equal treatment, they should just do away with the swag bags altogether, and just give everyone NCAA March Madness tee shirts — in addition to making damn sure the women have equal training facilities and food options.

[Danae]

Some of the men’s teams are bigger money-makers than others, but they didn’t set up tiers of amenities based on team popularity.  

[Hyacinth]

22 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Ignoring women's needs and not thinking of them or enjoying their sports as much are all ingrained prejudice. Not all ingrained prejudice toward women involves violently attacking women or sitting in a room making nefarious plans to make sure they never become CEO's. Misogyny can be casually not realizing what you're doing.

It's wild to me that anyone could see that Tiktok and think to themselves, oh, but I'm sure they didn't mean it and therefore it's not misogyny.

I agree that the women should have had the same workout facilities, meals, etc.  

But a spectator in the stands not enjoying a  women’s basketball game as much as men’s basketball game is an ingrained prejudice? It can’t just be a preference for, say, a faster style of play? It HAS to be a form of misogyny?

[Rosie_0801]

50 minutes ago, Hyacinth said:

But a spectator in the stands not enjoying a  women’s basketball game as much as men’s basketball game is an ingrained prejudice? It can’t just be a preference for, say, a faster style of play? It HAS to be a form of misogyny?

Unless the crowd is basically a mob of heterosexual women who are there to perve, pretty much.

[TexasProud]

20 hours ago, Hyacinth said:

I agree that the women should have had the same workout facilities, meals, etc.  

But a spectator in the stands not enjoying a  women’s basketball game as much as men’s basketball game is an ingrained prejudice? It can’t just be a preference for, say, a faster style of play? It HAS to be a form of misogyny?

Yeah, I completely agree. I find women's basketball boring to be honest.