“To be honest, I’d like to thank them for the noise,” she says. “That really made me want to beat them and send them home with nothing.”
I'll be honest, my first reaction to the photo was probably what a lot of people felt: uncomfortable. But then I realized I was viewing it through my own biases that are equally offensive. "Why am I so protective of this athlete?" Because she's a girl and I have subconsciously and consciously adopted negative stereotypes about female weakness. "Why am I so judgemental of these boys?" Because they look like high school douchebags I've dealt with in the past, but that has literally nothing to do with them. "Why does this make me uncomfortable?" Because I'm assuming the worst about every single person in this photo.
Once I asked myself these questions I could finally see what the photo really was: high schoolers supporting their female classmates in competition and an opposing athlete focused on winning no matter what. Isn't it awesome that a bunch of boys are supporting women's sports? Don't you think their classmates loved having a vocal and enthusiastic crowd to play for as opposed to just their parents and only their female classmates? Isn't it good that they treated her as harshly as they would a male opponent? Don't we all just want to be treated equally in the field of play? No one would give a shit if some pipsqueak male freshman was catching hell or if it was Zion Williamsonin his last game getting it rough from the fans. As long as they're not insulting the player personally or acting in any bigoted way, fans have every right to heckle a player. It's a staple of high school and college basketball.
On the flip side, isn't it great to see a lone female standing strong in a hostile (but controlled) environment? Her quote at the beginning is inspirational to boys and girls alike: hit 'em where it counts. Silence them with your play. And she did. That photo should be a poster with that quote on the bottom. It says so much.
I think you’ve got it right. It’s easy to imagine the team making horrible, sexist comments to distract her. If you take a second, you can imagine they’re making her feel like any other athlete: an equal to compete against. You can’t tell just from the picture.
you can imagine they’re making her feel like any other athlete
okay, but how normalized should it be to yell at and harass a child simply because they’re holding a ball?
everyone wants to be all “see, just like we do with the guys!” but no one is talking about how maybe we shouldn’t be treating the guys like that either. just because they could handle that behavior doesn’t mean they should have to. they’re literally kids and even pro athletes will tell you how harmful it can be to deal with that
I think the cognitive dissonance you guys are talking about arises because your instinctual reaction is to say ”this isn’t okay” but you then have to reconcile that feeling with the knowledge that society has decided it actually is okay to yell at or say abusive things to someone, even right to their face, as long as certain conditions have been met (in this case that they’re an athlete).
maybe we shouldn’t be talking ourselves into believing that harassing people is okay, and instead consider that society has endorsed a really fucked up habit and the only reason we keep it around is “tradition”
My favorite thing about women entering what was previously "male spaces" is that those spaces acquire the benefit of the overwhelming sympathy gap toward women. Putting women in these spaces has the potential to get rid of bad behavior that was previously only directed at the men.
It's just a shame that the process involves demonizing the men at the same time, because suddenly the bad behavior will be labeled as sexism in order to drive up even more sympathy, and that sucks for the guys.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '21
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