Last night at the gym, I noticed a women’s soccer game was being covered on the evening newscast on ABC. Shocked and surprised because women’s sports, especially college sports hardly gets any coverage on ESPN let alone ABC, I looked up and saw that they were showing highlights of unsportspersonlike conduct of one player- Elizabeth Lambert -- of New Mexico during a playoff game.
This woman plays hard. But you know what, girls play hard. Way back in the day when I played I came home every weekend all banged up. We want our girls to play hard to compete. But there is a line and clearly she crossed it with the ponytail pulldown. All the other infractions shown just gear you up for the ponytail pulldown.
See for yourself.
The reason why this concerns me is how excited people are getting by this behavior. Here’s a piece of a post from Women’s Sports Blog:
Perhaps even more outrageous than Elizabeth Lambert’s behavior in the New Mexico/BYU game, and it’s the worst I’ve ever seen in women’s sports (and obviously this is not meant to be a commentary on how women should be held to different standards, but rather it’s still not as bad as some things I’ve seen in men’s sports), is the reaction of some men who rave about how ‘hot’ it is.
This video has gone viral (I just saw it on MSNBC again and different version on you tube have viewers in the millions) but seriously, is this what people really think that women’s sports is? Why is it the media only focuses on the bad behavior in women’s sports? Why is it only the catfights and outbursts like from Serena Williams at the US Open become the news? What about all the great plays that happen every day all across the country. How come this amazing article from a dad about watching his daughter play baseball didn’t go viral, but the pony tail pulldown is everywhere.
I’m not trying to excuse Lambert’s behavior. She has been suspended and who knows what will happen for her senior season. There are people calling for her to not only be kicked off the team but also kicked out of school. Let’s remember there is also about a young woman’s education. She probably gets a scholarship since it is a Division 1 team and she has one more year of school.
The point is that 35 plus years into Title IX we have young women across the country competing at incredibly high levels. They sometime lose their tempers and need to get some help to deal with their issues which probably are not just on the field. But to vilify this young woman or to think that violence on the field is “hot” is just fu**ed up. We have so much work to do with how we deal with women and sports and this is a perfect opportunity for parents to talk about sports and violence and this can be a lesson to educate all of us on acceptable sports behavior for both boys and girls.
Patronizing Women’s Violence (Women’s Sports Blog)
Title IX Dad (The American Prospect)
I just read about this in the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/sports/soccer/11iht-SOCCER.html?_r=1&ref=global-home), and agree with the author that the coach as well as the referee and assistant referees share some of the blame in not controlling the situation. Why did she not get a red card? That is totally outrageous.
Even more outrageous than that, is the response that such a behavior is “hot.” Womensportsblog hit it right on the head (I leave it up to readers to decide if this is a pun) when she said
“It’s about using women as a kind of theater which exists only to titillate men.”
Sometimes I feel that we haven’t made any progress at all.
Wow, I am surprised that this is even getting traction. I saw the clip on the nightly news, thought it was sensational, so that’s why they showed it, and then that was it. It always amazes me that people’s first reaction is to try to kick people off things. Unless they are alumns, students, and maybe parents, then it has nothing to do with them.
I’m going to take it many steps farther than you Melissa. They don’t just sometimes lose their tempers. I’m going to say they almost always lose their tempers. Why wouldn’t they? You are actively nursing all that aggression in you. I would argue that if you are not sufficiently fomenting a bit, then you are not playing well. That’s the nature of sports. And that is why you’re playing them, because you’re learning both to nurse that energy, but to also control it. So should she be suspended? of course she should! But I so do understand how that can get out of hand. It’s funny because the more outrageous thing to me was that the other woman didn’t get to her feet and knock that girl out! But not only is that unsportsmanlike, and you have to train yourself to keep it in the game, but as those things go, the refs never see the dirty hit, they usually see the retaliation. This didn’t seem too far off from what we did in high school, and that was h.s., and not college, and definitely not in a division that was at the height of competitiveness.
I mean issues? Why does any of this get more than a wow, that sucks, when we tolerate – even celebrate aggression in sports on a daily basis. This is what angered me about the Serena brouha; I had some spirited discussions with friends about it. We see men in sports do far worse. I’d say hockey alone, and that seems standard fare! :p But football players used to pull face masks until it was penalized because of the danger. Or what about sans-protective gear boxing? When we see serious aggression in sports, it has to be considerable before we get this kind of talk, and then they can still move on to potentially have careers in which they don’t lapse into that behavior.
I agree this is also a great opportunity to talk about this, but not just for parents and kids, for us in general to try to let go of the double standards that are still seething under society. This literally just happened in a Steelers game. A player yanked the hair of another (who is known for having long hair). And what happened? He received a penalty, and it was a highlight in the sportsnews reel, and that was it. Not completely identical, but see for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVO93amUv7Y
If people are really in an uproar, then I think it has to be because people are still holding on to antiquated notions of what women should be like, and this challenges it.
But the blog you referenced doesn’t help this conversation. While the writer may be dead on about a lot of things, she seems to shoe-horn this incident to prove it. I mean have guys actually said it was hot? And if so, in what context? Just like many women can like guys who mirror more stereotypically feminine traits, then it seems natural that men can like gals who do the same. If they think it’s hot, it could be the cat-fight thing, or it could be that they appreciate a more physically aggressive woman. And if it’s the latter, that’s not a bad thing. Without more info, it’s just not as black and white as the blogger makes it seem.
To be dismissive of this girls behavior is ridiculous. And to say that tempers and hormones flare on the field of play and use this as an explanation for horrible behavior is just stupid.
This girl should have been kicked out of the game and needs to spend time with a sports shrink at her school. She is an embarrassment to sport and to women athletics and its insane they let her stay in the game. I work in professional athletics with some of the top athletes in the world. If any of them – men or women – conducted themselves like this in a game or at an Olympic level – it would jeapordize their entire career – with sponsors, fans, teammates.
Sometimes the best way to learn a lesson is to be made an example of so others learn not to follow suit. If her antics continue again, she should be made a spectacle of by the media and kicked off the team.
Being “rough” on the field is one thing. Her behavior was maliciaous, deliberate brutality and on more than one occassion. Where was her coach in all this?