With the start of the March Madness and stories of “aggressive female athletes” making national headlines (i.e., Elizabeth Lambert, Brittney Griner), a question I have heard asked and debated a lot lately is–”Are females athletes becoming more aggressive?”

I don’t have the answer. The best I can say is a cautious–”maybe?” I don’t think there are any data to prove or disprove this question, but the fact the incidents are caught on video and replayed makes it seem like it is more frequent. I am hesitant to say overly aggressive acts of female athletes is on the rise at the risk of reifying outdated gendered stereotypes and double standards. The New York Times journalist Jere Longman, wrote a balanced piece which contained perspectives of some of the best critical thinkers and brightest sport sociologists. The story titled “Pushing Back Stereotypes” featured a particular quote from colleague and director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota Mary Jo Kane, which I thought was spot on. She stated,

“Only time will tell if this is an aberration, but what I think is a clear trend, as the stakes get higher in women’s sports, you see more pressure to win….This could be a natural progression to women entering into big-time college sports. You take the bad with the good; you take sold-out arenas with academic scandals. For us to think that women would enter the big time and have it be pristine and without controversy is naïve.”

What do you think about this issue? I wonder if the NCAA Women’s Tourney will conclude without any such incidents and ensuing media coverage.

View Original Post at onesportvoice.wordpress.com

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• Basketball, Sports, SportsPLUS, OpEd, W College Hoops, Sportsmanship

• Tags:
• ncaa
• womens basketball
• women
• female athletes
• New York Times
• gender
• stereotypes
• March Madness
• women & girls in sport
• Intercollegiate Athletics
• aggression
• University of Minnesota
• tucker center

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AnnGaff

The aggression may be on the rise but only in line with the rise in the number of female athletes competing in sports at a higher level. As Mary Jo Kane said, there is going to be a natural progression.

I think the media overreacts to visuals of female violence. Hopefully they will get over it in time, just like they "got over" the visual of women keeling over in pain at the end of distance races and finally allowed women to run further than 800m in the Olympics in 1972 (women's track and field events were first introduced into the Olympic program in 1928).

When I saw Brittney Griner punch Barncastle, I wasn't surprised. Barncastle had just whipped Griner around by the arm and I would suspect Griner gets treated like that all the time. She's a big target with her size and her ability and her hype. A person can only take so much.

Should it be considered a positive thing that she punched her? No. But it's also not surprising and it's forgivable based on the fact that it was provoked. But the media overreacted because she is a woman.

Monday, March 22, 2010 at 11:47am PDT