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Author:  NACWAA

To Sports Leaders, Administrators, Coaches, Parents, Participants and Media:

Lost in the public outrage surrounding former Rutgers University Men’s Basketball Coach Mike Rice’s appalling mistreatment of student-athletes and the media’s broad coverage of this story is a critical issue that has received almost no attention or discussion: how society at large, particularly in sports, views and characterizes women.

Rice’s abusive language, recently exposed by the media, is obviously unacceptable, homophobic, belittling, and offensive. As an organization that advocates for and empowers women not only in intercollegiate athletics, but in all fields of work, NACWAA would like to address an important issue that has been missed—Rice’s harmful use of anti-female slurs. Among the rounds of physical attacks and homophobic slurs, an ESPN.com article references Rice using the c-word, b-word and p-word at student-athletes when they did not perform to his satisfaction. This language is particularly abhorrent when used by someone who is charged with teaching and acting in a position of power and authority to student-athletes during their still formative years. His words convey to his team that women are second class citizens.

This is not the first time that sexist language has been used to motivate young men in sports at all levels. It also is a reflection of society at a larger level. As Kate Fagan said in a recent espnW article, “the fact remains that the quickest way to cut a man down in sports is to call him a woman… some people might shrug and say this type of gender-bashing is bound to happen in a male-dominated environment. But, of course, we know there's more to it than that: it's a microcosm of how women are too often disregarded across society.”

As Kim Polese states in Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead: “views like these are all too commonplace and part of a pervasive pattern that belittles, demeans and marginalizes women.” As activist, feminist and NFL Hall of Famer Don McPherson has pointed out, our society does not so much focus on “raising boys to be men,” but “raising them not to be women.”  Despite the progress that women have made in society on many levels, misogynistic slurs and attitudes have persisted and become part of American culture, particularly in sport.

Some people may believe that the language surrounding sports culture is unlikely to change. We believe that for every person who makes a sexist remark, there are many more within earshot who have the capacity to stand up and send the message that those words will not be tolerated. In order to change the way people speak, we must change the way they think. And the only way to do that is for individuals to take personal responsibility in keeping this kind of language off the courts, away from the fields, and even out of the stands.  Women and men alike must not remain silent as 51 percent of the population is degraded and marginalized.

Please join us in promoting respect for women, especially in sport.

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