The Monday morning quarterbacking was all about the Patriots' second half demise yesterday. Nothing about the battle of the locker room bullies. (That I saw. If there was any kind of comment--please send me the link!!) Apparently I was the only one who saw the intrigue in having one team whose harassment of a female reporter made national news twenty years ago take on another team whose harassment of a female reporter made national news just last week.
I guess karma really isn't a bitch.
Anyway, that's not really what I want to be talking about.
I wanted to go back to the Erin Andrews/Ines Sainz comparisons made in the aftermath of Sainz's statements that she had been subject to inappropriate comments in the Jets locker room. The discourse was about whether Sainz was more self-sexualizing than Andrews. And I come down on the "it so doesn't matter"side of the debate. Why? Because our culture is doing a fantabulous job sexualizing these women all on its own.
Here was my highly refined sociological experiment: I googled each of them.
The results on the basic Google search include a series of thumbnail photos that one can click on for the larger version and original location.
The thumbnail photos are eerily similar. Both include shots of the respective reporters posed on bikinis. Both have shots in which the women's chests are clearly supposed to be the eye-catcher. And both searches contain respective ass shots: no heads; just backsides and both are from when these women were on the sidelines DOING THEIR JOBS. Most of the photos--outside of the bikini poses--were taken when Sainz and Andrews were working. So what if Erin Andrews is wearing a sweater that doesn't reveal as much skin as some of Sainz's tops?--the photos are focused in on the same body part. The intent is the same.
So let's stop with the whole "who's more pure" discussion and start looking at the purity level of the photographers, media outlets, and viewers.

View Original Post at afterata.blogspot.com

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• Football, Sports, SportsPLUS, OpEd, Media/Marketing, NFL, Sexism

This post is related to the following ongoing stories:

• Female Reporters in the Locker Room