I recently read an
article published in Elle magazine that profiled the WNBA player Brittney
Griner. The article, entitled, “How Slam-Dunking, Gender-Bending WNBA Rookie
Brittney Griner Is Changing the World of Sports,” highlighted the difficulties faced by Griner and showed the
progression of how the WNBA has framed itself.
The WNBA in its early days tried to promote
the league in terms of its sex appeal, or as one campaign is described, “girl
power meets Playboy.” Since then the focus has shifted greatly.
The Elle article stated that “the league’s promotion has been influenced by
current data indicating that the competition itself is the top draw for fans,
as well as by a small but growing body of academic research suggesting that sex
does not sell,
at least insofar as athletes are used as endorsers to try to sell tickets to
sports events as opposed to hawk products from watches to razors. What has been
found to work, says University of Massachusetts Amherst sport management
professor Janet Fink, is highlighting a player’s ‘expertise.’”
The article goes on to
say the sexualizing athletes may actually lead people to think that they are
less skilled than they actually are because the focus is not on their
abilities, but rather their appearance.
This YouTube video that
shows highlights of Griner on the basketball court with the song “I enjoy
being a girl” shows the juxtaposition of Griner’s masculine play and the
lyrics about what it means to be a girl such as: “I am proud that my silhouette is curvy. That I walk with a sweet and
girlish gait” further highlight the difficulty for people in society to
identify her as male or female.
The author of the
article herself even had difficulty with identifying Griner as a female. As she
noted, “…some combination of sensory stimuli screamed boy to me.
So much so that I did a cognitive double take each time I heard someone refer
to her as she: Yes, yes,
Brittney is a girl, I’d think. She is a girl.”
Griner is tall and slender, has large hands and a low voice, and exhibits other traits that are
predominately identified with masculinity. If she is selected for the U.S. team
in the 2016 Olympics she may be required to do gender testing in order to
compete for these reasons.
Should this be required
of her? To put this in perspective, would a man ever have to subject himself to
gender testing in order to compete?
Abraham, Laurie. "HOW SLAM-DUNKING, GENDER-BENDING WNBA ROOKIE BRITTNEY GRINER IS
CHANGING THE WORLD OF SPORTS: Griner is
a slam-dunking, girl-loving phenom who proves there are a whole lot of ways to
be a woman." Elle. 4 Nov. 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
Obviously, it's ridiculous that even the possibility of Griner being tested in order to compete exists. Then again, it's not as if the Olympic committee is renowned for their logic.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, Griner's always intrigued me from a basketball standpoint. Prior to the 2013 NBA draft, Marc Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, said that he'd consider selecting Griner with a second round pick, or at least giving her a roster spot on the Mavericks' summer league team. For some reason, this sparked huge controversy. THERE'S NO WAY SHE COULD PLAY IN THE NBA, CUBAN'S JUST DOING THIS FOR ATTENTION and so forth.
What was most baffling about this outrage was the lack of quantitative evidence to support the claim that she couldn't play. That's not to say that she could succeed in the NBA, just that there's absolutely no way of saying, with any amount of certainty, that she'd thrive or flounder.
I have to admit I thought Cuban was just doing it for the attention, as he seems to love attention. But, yes, not all male players who are drafted can play at that level, and she may be able to perform just as well as some of them, or better. People like to throw around this argument in other sports as well, for instance, can Serena Williams play against men? I don't know, but I would probably watch a match between her a top male player just to see what happened.
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