When Don Imus called the Rutgers University women's basketball team a bunch of "nappy-headed hos," he crossed the line regarding decent things to say in a public forum. As a public figure, he shouldn't have said anything along those lines. That said, his remarks should not be immediately cast off as narrow-mindedness, even though, at first glance, that's what they seem to be.
In actuality, his words represent an innate attitude toward women's sports in general. Imus' comments about the NCAA women's basketball tournament got more media coverage than the tournament itself. A syndicated pundit made a slur against a team and it brought more attention to the team than it would have if they had won the national championship. In fact, it's safe to say that Imus' comment has brought the most attention the entire sport of women's basketball has seen since the formation of the WNBA.
It didn't matter that these girls had played the best season of their lives; all that mattered was that one person made a derogatory comment about their appearance. That's the problem with women's sports - nobody cares unless there's controversy. That's not the way that it should be, but that's the way that it is, and Imus' comments have only brought these issues to light. There's no question women should be given a fair opportunity to excel in sports, but it's extremely difficult for women's sports to be successful in a market that is driven by and aimed primarily at men. Organizations like the WNBA aren't bad ideas, they're just unpopular. Unpopularity isn't intrinsically bad, but it is when you're trying to sell tickets.
So why are women's sports so unpopular? Imus vocalized the pervasive thought that essentially defines female athletics by attacking the appearance of the team as opposed to their ability: If you want to be recognized, you have to be pretty. It's shallow, but it's the underlying mindset.
When Anna Kournikova was playing tennis five years ago, she mostly played like she forgot to string her racquet. But her playing style or her win record weren't factors in the fact that she was the most recognizable tennis player in the world. All that really mattered is that she often posed for magazines in bathing suits and short tennis skirts and appeared scantily clad in several awful Enrique Iglesias videos. It didn't matter if she lost a match so long as she looked pretty while she was losing the match. Right now, the most recognizable figure in open-wheel racing is Danica Patrick. Even though she's never won a major race, she's the first woman to successfully break into the male-dominated sport, and by doing so, she has become even more popular than her male counterparts. Her popularity is partly due to the fact that she has a lot of skill behind the wheel, but it also has a lot to do with the fact that she's good-looking even while wearing a flame-retardant jumpsuit.
Other female athletes like Michelle Wie, Natalie Gulbis, Mia Hamm, Maria Sharapova and Jennie Finch have all enjoyed success and attention in their relative sports because they are all smoking hot.
The fact is that the majority of the people who are the consumers of the sports world (read: men) don't want to see "nappy-headed hos," they want to see competing bombshells. There's a reason why the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated is the perennial best-selling issue. Appearance supersedes performance.
Don Imus' comment was uncalled for, but really, wasn't it just the assertion of the sad state of the attitude toward women in sports?
Write to Paul at pjmetz@bsu.edu
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