Patronizing Women's Violence
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posted by Women's Sports Blog An irreverent look at the news, issues, and personalities of women's sports from a feminist perspective. |
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Perhaps even more outrageous than Elizabeth Lambert's behavior in the New Mexico/BYU game, and it's the worst I've ever seen in women's sports, is the reaction of some men who rave about how 'hot' it is. This is the flip side of men's alleged obsession with lesbians. I say alleged because of course it has nothing to do with real women or their actual experience. It's about using women as a kind of theater which exists only to titillate men. In fact, men who are into this kind of thing tend to get quite angry and belligerent when they run into real lesbians, because their world does not in fact revolve around the male gaze. Indeed, the men are actually irrelevent. This is at the heart of a lot of straight male violence against queer women. In the same way, viewing a shocking set of violent fouls as 'hot' turns the real experiences of women into something that exists for men, something that isn't serious or dangerous because it's become pornography. Deep down, of course, these men are titillated by male violence as well, but by displacing it onto 'chick fights' they can objectify women and enjoy that impulse at the same time. If the world only consisted of this type of guy, Lambert's actions would never be taken for what they are: completely inappropriate and worthy of both the suspension she received and a trip to a psychologist to deal with her anger.
View Original Post at ftlouie.typepad.com/womensports
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- Filed Under:
- Soccer, Sports, SportsPLUS, Sexism
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Dr. Nicole M. LaVoi
To use a violent metaphor "you hit the nail on the head"...or should we say "you pulled the ponytail"? Thanks for putting this side of the argument out there. -nml
Monday, November 9, 2009 at 4:33pm EST