Tag Archive for "football"

Posts Tagged football

ESPN announcers drool over quarterback’s girlfriend, illustrate football’s culture of entitlement

So there was a big football game yesterday. And while I boycotted it, apparently ESPN announcers Kirk Herbstreit and Brent Musburger had some time between plays to devote to ogling the Alabama quarterback’s girlfriend. Some real classy stuff:

“When you’re a quarterback at Alabama, you see that lovely lady there? She does go to Auburn, I’ll admit that, but she’s also Miss Alabama, and that’s A.J. McCarron’s girlfriend. Wow, I’m telling ya, you quarterbacks, you get all the good looking women. What a beautiful woman! Whoa! So if you’re a youngster in Alabama, start getting the football out and throw it around the backyard with pops.”

This is some pretty standard objectification. So common–especially in the sports world–it’s almost not worth ...

By Alexandra Brodsky • 11 years ago

Boycott Notre Dame v. Alabama

Tonight, the University of Notre Dame’s football team will play Alabama’s in Miami. I don’t know anything about sports (other than girls’ high school cross country, it’s a vicious world) but I get why a clash between the two top ranked college programs in the country would be a big deal. But I’m still confused why we care more about the game than the many women who found rape and administrative cover-up at Notre Dame.

Dave Zirin has a strong piece at The Nation on why the response to Penn State and Notre Dame’s cruel responses to sexual violence on campus have been so different. He writes:

As unbeaten Notre Dame prepares to play in tonight’s national championship game against ...

By Samhita • 11 years ago

NFL star stands-up against homophobia

Professional sports doesn’t always have a great reputation when it comes to homophobia, associated more with bullying and perpetuating limited ideas of masculinity. Football, in particular, is often known for the bravado of it’s fans and even studied for it’s relationship to domestic violence. Which is not to say that athletes and their fans are all a bunch of sexist pigs drenched with machismo, but that the culture of sports can often cater to a specific brand of masculinity. But, as Maya mentioned in the Weekly Feminist Reader, this culture is slowly shifting, the most recent example, powerful letter sent last week by Vikings punter Chris Kluwe.

He was responding to a Baltimore delegate that had sent an angry ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 11 years ago

A woman ref will officiate an NFL game for the first time ever this week

Photo via the Los Angeles Times.

With the NFL and their regular referees locked in contract negotiations, the league is relying on replacement officials this pre-season. And on Thursday night, for the first time, one of those refs will be a woman.

Shannon Eastin is on the verge of becoming the first woman to work as an on-field official in a game, as she has been assigned as a line judge for Green Bay’s exhibition game Thursday at San Diego.

Eastin has been a referee for high school games in Arizona as well as in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, which includes Bethune-Cookman, Coppin State and Howard University.

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing that the replacement refs in general aren’t up ...

Photo via the Los Angeles Times.

With the NFL and their regular referees locked in contract negotiations, the league is relying on replacement officials this pre-season. And on Thursday night, for the first time, one ...

By Katie Halper • 12 years ago

From Katie, some of the countless best of the year

1)Up with Chris Hayes drops systemic analysis on Penn State

Because the post highlights a much-needed critical, thoughtful perspective, which challenges the sensationalism and irresponsible journalism which dominates our media and manages to focus on2) because Jos becomes the 438th person I know to claim Chris Hayes as her boyfriend.

1)Up with Chris Hayes drops systemic analysis on Penn State

By Jos Truitt • 12 years ago

Up with Chris Hayes drops systemic analysis on Penn State

Chris Hayes, my morning talk show boyfriend, dedicated an hour of his Saturday show to the Penn State sexual abuse scandal. Hayes is joined by a great panel: The New Yorker writer Rick Hertzberg, University of Texas visiting scholar Victoria M. Defrancesco Soto, former Brooklyn District Attorney and Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, MSNBC political analyst Michael Eric Dyson, and The Nation‘s sports writer Dave Zirin. They look at the way powerful institutions breed this sort of corruption and evil, drawing links with the scandal in the Catholic Church. There are also smart explorations of some of the class and race dynamics at play. The full hour is an important contextualizing of this scandal within some larger systems of power. There’s certainly more to discuss, including about the ...

By Lori Adelman • 12 years ago

Penn State riots for rape

Starved for worthwhile causes for which they can take to the streets, the Youth of Today have chosen bravely, nay heroically, to take up that most honorable of riot-inciting aims: the defense and protection of an alleged enabler of serial sexual assault and child rape.

It’s hard to know where to start or what to say when faced with events like these.

I could talk about the chilling effect of massive, violent, and public shows of support on the willingness of victims and survivors of sexual assault to come forward with their stories.

Or I could quote my friend and fellow member of feminist group Permanent Wave Heidi Vanderlee, who wrote last night in an incredulous email about the ...

By Lori Adelman • 12 years ago

Michael Irvin poses shirtless for equality in Out Magazine

Michael Irvin, the former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver, has posed for the cover of Out Magazine to show his support for equality. In the feature interview, he addresses equality, women, football, masculinity, and religion.

Aside from his football skills (he is in the Hall of Fame and, along with Emmit Smith and Troy Aikman, comprised the all-star group known as the “triplets”), Irvin has previously been known for his flamboyant fashion (he famously showed up to his arraignment on drug charges in a long fur coat), drug use, womanizing, and trouble with the law, including accusations of violence and sexual assault — some of which are still pending in various stages.

So I was surprised to see him featured on ...

Aside from ...