I know this blog focuses a lot on gender issues with women in sports, but hey, I’m a girl. If you want to talk about men, write your own.
Which brings me to my next topic: after downing 3 cups of coffee and finishing my homework in record time at 2:00 in the morning, I was not going to sleep anytime soon. I headed off to the gym for a late-night work out and turned on ESPN2 before I hopped on the elliptical. The show Sports Nation was on, which is hosted by (a woman) Michelle Beadle and (a man) Colin Cowherd, and usually features guests: athletes, former athletes, sports commentators.
One part of the show, Michelle presents a statement made by someone in sports culture and Colin and the guest decide if the speaker should “Shut It” (that comment was unnecessary/dumb/pointless/basically they shouldn’t have said it) or “Shout It” (that comment was justified/they had a right to say it). At one point the comment in question was football-related and Michelle’s opinion differed from the guest, a former football player. The guest then went on to say, “That’s how I know you don’t know anything about football”.
“That’s how I know” meaning this woman’s statement reaffirmed your suspicion that she couldn’t possibly know anything about football? It caught me off guard—and Michelle appeared slightly uncomfortable for a moment, before she had to play it off with a quick comeback.
Do you think this guest would have made a comment like that to Colin, a fellow man? My guess is no. So why is it that men assume that women know nothing about sports? I’ve heard arguments that it’s because women try talking about sports they’ve never played/never could have played. Nice try, but if that’s the case, the man with the huge beer gut that loses his breath during his halftime waddle to the kitchen is not allowed to talk about ANY sport. There goes half of the male-sports-fan population.
In reality, I think this belief is probably so prevalent simply because women haven’t been involved in sports as long as men have. In fact, there used to be laws preventing women’s participation in sports. After the first televised sporting event, it took 35 years for a women’s event to be aired! And when television stations begin hiring female sportscasters (only because they were forced to) they were former beauty queens and cover girls—who usually didn’t actually have much knowledge of different sports; even though there were definitely knowledgeable female sports fans at the time, they weren’t openly displayed.
I think that it’s been a struggle for women to gain respect in sports because sports have been dominated by men for so long. Men assume women don’t know anything about sports because they think we’re new to the game (pun intended). But that’s an outdated view; we’re out of the kitchen, we know our stuff, and our opinions deserve just as much respect as men’s do.
Battle of the Sexes 
I totally agree with you. I have an older brother, and for years I was forced to sit and watch him and his friends playing baseball in the backyard while I couldn’t join in because I was a girl. One day I finally convinced them to let me try it, and i knew more than half of the boys that were playing with them!
I am one of those girls that understands sports. I have a fantasy football team, and I knew more about football than my boyfriend when we started dating. I hate when guys assume we don’t know anything about sports just because we are women. My fantasy football team is in a league with all guys, and guess who’s in first place? 😉
I love this post and agree with you 100%. I am such a sports fanatic and I hate the stigma that women can’t like sports. I play rugby, and I probably watch more football than your average male tailgater. I’ve always been a huge football fan, and I can list off baseball stats like a pro.
You’d think most guys would appreciate a girl who would rather watch ESPN than TLC, but I’ve actually had guys lose interest in me BECAUSE they found out I liked sports. It’s like they hate it when their girlfriends interrupt the NFL game, but when we want to actually watch it with them they don’t know how to handle it. I think our society is still raising people to believe women should be these little Barbie dolls who love baking and wearing pink, but I’d rather be the girl with the #1 fantasy team (to steal a reference from peacelovemusic11) any day of the week.
Too true. Women can have just as much knowledge about sports as men can, I think people just have this image of girls in their ballet outfits with beauty pageant makeup and it’s ridiculous. SERIOUSLY it’s 2011. Get with it guys, girls play sports. Don’t make us embarrass you by showing we know more about a male dominated sport than you do. Sorry bout it.
Sadly, I have no interest/knowledge about sports but I do know a lot of girls who do! Some of my friends in my high school dance team were much more passionate about football and focused on the game than a lot of the guys who came to the football game to just watch the cheerleaders or chill with their crew. These girls knew all the rules and had no trouble explaining the game to me. Some of them actually go to the Texans game religiously and own multiple jerseys and other fan gears. As a woman, I am angered by the football player’s comment on the show to Michelle and his comment just showed how ignorant he is.
yes and i also think there are two different ways of having knowledge about sports….you can know a lot about professional sports, the names of players, the scores of all the games, but then you can know a lot about how to play a certain sport, the best strategies, and also how to maintain top-performance shape, how to eat healthy and lift weights. I love that line you said about the beer belly because people like that know all about professional sports but nothing about what the athletes do to get that good. I get made fun of sometimes because i literally know nothing about professional sports, i hardly know the sports teams, and i could care less. But I know a hell of a lot about track and feild, injury prevention and healthy eating, so give me a track team, even a boys team, and I could coach them and make them a super good. Not many beer-belly dudes could do that.
i love Beadle! I watched this show after work everyday during the summer and came to the conclusion that michelle knew way more than Colin. And most of her predictions were correct as well. I never look down on women commentators though. They worked hard to get to where they are at. And they all do a pretty good job
Whenever I see a woman sports broadcaster, it makes me so happy! I love seeing women with a legitimate career in sports, especially sports analysis. It shows that we too can voice an informed opinion of sports.
I love that ESPN has so many female sports broadcasters. As an avid sports fan I think it is inspiring to see females on TV talking about football, just like any man could. As a girl who wants to be the next Erin Andrews when I grow up, I appreciate this post!