I recently came across two posts by Salty Eggs’ staff writer Tara Nieuwesteeg that tackled the sport – particularly whether events like the one I attended – are feminist in nature. In the first post,  “Ladies Arm Wrestling is a Thing,” Nieuwesteeg writes:

It’s not completely clear why this is a feminist endeavor. Yes, it’s females doing something cool. As with roller derby, here are a shit-ton of like-minded people who probably feel very strongly on things like reproductive rights, equal work for equal pay, women’s healthcare, and a general message of promoting women as people. Don’t get me wrong: What they’re doing is awesome. But should ladies’ arm wrestling really take off (which I suspect it will), it would be nice to see these women use their collective arm strength for something not just awesome, but maybe a little bigger, too.

In the original posting, Nieuwesteeg’s commentary was prompted as a reaction to a NYT article that called the sport “feminist.” However, after hearing from participants, and supporters of CLAW and its chapters, she was still hesitant to apply the label, titling a follow up post, Is Lady Arm Wrestling Feminist? Yes, But…

As with many commenters on the original article I was unsure about why Nieuwesteeg questions whether these events are feminist in nature. She answered, in the follow up, by addressing commenters and arm wrestlers directly:““Calling something “feminism” just because it consists of women doing something fun and bad-ass isn’t enough anymore.””

The mission of CLAW is to “empower women and strengthen local communities through theater, arm wrestling, and philanthropy.”  Yet somehow, this mission falls short of feminism in Nieuwesteeg’s view because it is somehow not enough or perhaps too frivolous.

Here’s where I disagree with her – and with the “but” in the title. As I posted on twitter, there’s always room for any of us to do more or do bigger , but what does “bigger” mean? And what qualifies as big enough to be feminist? While CLAW is fairly young as an organization, it’s had an impressive impact in its short existence – and it continues to grow at a rapid pace with leagues springing up all over the country. (Boston is about to host it’s second “brawl” and has already had to switch to a much larger venue).

Poking around on the CLAW main site, and visiting the sites and pages of a few other affiliated chapters, it’s easy to see the reach the wrestlers and these events have had. During the inaugural event I mentioned earlier, the Boston arm wrestlers raised $2,000 for Elizabeth Stone House, a local charity that works with homeless families and helps victims of domestic violence. CLAW reports over $175,000 raised for charities ranging from domestic violence shelters, family planning advocates, rape crisis centers, LGBTQ organizations, and many many more.

I would argue that CLAW, and its spinoff organizations, are not about just fun and bad-assery (and even if they were, why does that exclude them from feminism). At their core, the arm wrestling events that CLAW puts on are about empowering women whether through entertainment or advocacy – and I fail to see what is not feminist about that. Moreover, womens’ arm wrestling is a subversive form of entertainment. Having attended a bout in my home city, I can say, confidently, that this is not anything near what you’ll find on main stream television – this is not male-gaze driven entertainment – it’s about women’s voices.

I find something inherently troubling and dangerous for feminism as a whole if, within the movement, we are questioning the identities of those participating in events like womens’ arm wrestling bouts.  CLAW provides a safe space for women to embody characters, satirize pop culture, politics and current events, while socializing and effecting meaningful change in their own communities.  Why, I wonder, does it seem to Nieuwesteeg that these things need to be exclusive?

While I don’t believe it was the intention, Nieuwesteeg’s posts are indicative of a problematic and exclusionary attitude prevalent in the overall movement today. Personally, I find it neither productive, nor helpful, to question the identity of anyone who self identifies as feminist or to infer that their own particular brand of activism is lesser because it does not meet some as yet determined standard.

As women (and feminists) we’ve got enough on our plates finding our own spaces and making our voices heard – does publicly diminishing the efforts of other women, by suggesting they “do more,” really help?  There’s a suggestion in here that the women involved in arm wrestling events do more – without really knowing, fully, what it is that they all do, or are inspired to do by these events, in the first place.

Our Lady of Sorrows gave a statement to ESPN explaining that the school bans co-ed sports and will not play a co-ed team because “proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty” under those circumstances. Despite the fact that it takes a lot of imagination to imagine boys and girls getting frisky on the basepaths or across vast swaths of outfield in full view of the public, Sultzbach and her team have been more considerate of Our Lady of Sorrows’ views than they have been of her rights to participate in sports programs under Title IX:

From early on, Paige tried to blend in, her mother said. When the coach referred to the kids as “guys and gals,” Paige spoke up and said that they all wear the same uniform, so the coach should just call them all guys.

Her teammates have stood up for her.

During Mesa Prep’s two previous games with Our Lady of Sorrows, Paige didn’t play out of respect for the opposing team’s beliefs, but that wasn’t going to be an option this time, Pamela said.

“We respected their school rule … but she took it hard,” Pamela said. “She didn’t like it and neither did her teammates. They went out and played the best they could because they wanted to prove a point.”

As depressing as this story is, it’s encouraging that Sultzbach’s teammates have supported her. The reason it’s important to let girls try out for their high school baseball teams, to have women in all arenas in public life, is not just because it’s nice for women. When 15-year-old girls play second base for championship teams, edit magazines and hold high office, sometimes men find that they like having women there. The more boys figure this out, and the more feminism becomes their cause too, the harder it will be for anyone go give credence to the idea that girls don’t belong on baseball fields or anywhere else in the public square.

As long as the Nets are allowing Jay-Z to call their marketing shots — what a shock that he chose black and white as the new team colors to stress, as the Nets explained, their new “urban” home — why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment? Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N——s? The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B—-hes or Hoes. Team logo? A 9 mm with hollow-tip shell casings strewn beneath. Wanna be Jay-Z hip? Then go all the way!

“I guess I won’t need my color TV anymore now that the Nets will be wearing black and white,’’ writes reader John Lynch. And reader David Distefano now wonders what’s left for the Nets to choose as “their alternate third-uniform to sell during nationally televised games.”

And his editors saw fit to let this get into print, which perhaps says more about their failings. If you can’t see Jay-Z — the guy who made it possible to be viably middle aged in hip-hop, a long-established businessman, a guy with a wife and kid — as anything other than an ignorant thug, you’re willfully blind in the same way as people who look at President Obama and insist on seeing a radical. No one who sees the world through lenses that distorted should be trusted to interpret it for the public. And it’s contemptible to make money off that kind of willful blindness and the pleasure people get out of casual racism. This column may be the consequence of Mushnick’s views being taken to their logical extension. But someone let him off the leash.

Georgia Dome

In the eyes of its inhabitants, though, the Georgia Dome is old, crumbling, and wholly inadequate, and if the Falcons and the city of Atlanta get their way, the Dome won’t stand much longer — even though it’s only 20 years old. According to new plans announced by the city of Atlanta and the Falcons yesterday, the Dome will soon be replaced by a $950-million, state-of-the-art facility with a retractable roof. The Georgia Dome — built a measly two decades ago — will be imploded, and taxpayers will be footing at least part of the bill, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:

The new plan comes with a higher price. A GWCC-commissioned study released Wednesday put the cost of a new retractable-roof stadium at $947.7 million, up from the $700 million estimated last year for an open-air stadium. Under either plan the public-sector contribution would be an estimated $300 million from an extension of the hotel-motel occupancy tax, passed by the Georgia Legislature in 2010, according to Frank Poe, executive director of the GWCC Authority, the state agency that operates the Dome.

The hotel-motel occupancy tax was originally passed to help finance the construction of the Georgia Dome. It was supposed to expire in 2010, but when the owners of the Falcons threatened to pursue a new stadium in the Atlanta suburbs, the Georgia legislature rushed to extend it so as to keep the team downtown. The extension included an agreement that the Falcons could pursue a new stadium on the same site. Less than two years later, they’re doing exactly that.

The recession and a sluggish economic recovery, meanwhile, crunched Georgia’s state budget and forced deep cuts into areas like education. The state owes local school districts more than $5 billion collectively — Atlanta-area school districts are millions of dollars short. In 2011, the state cut $403 million from its education budget after taking cuts of $300 million and $275 million in the previous two years.

The Falcons want a new stadium because they feel they’re missing out on the riches that come with new skyboxes and luxury suites — amenities the Georgia Dome lacks compared to newer NFL facilities. Still, the team’s value has increased nearly $300 million since owner Arthur Blank bought it in 2002. If the Falcons want a new stadium, they should build one. They just shouldn’t come to taxpayers asking for help.

Boston Herald graphic

Brown last month took the maximum $2,500 from Randy Levine, the president of the New York Yankees, according to newly released campaign finance records. “We’re happy to accept Randy Levine’s donation,” said Brown campaign spokesman Colin Reed.

Levine has rightly earned the enmity of Red Sox fans for years. He once accused the Red Sox of “riding our coattails” and attacked the club for allowing “an atmosphere of lawlessness…to be perpetuated” at Fenway Park. When the Yankees signed former Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens in 2002, Levine took aim at the Sox for “whining” about “New York’s century of success.”

The conservative Boston Herald is not happy with Brown for taking Levine’s money: “That’s right, the commander of the Evil Empire is helping to pay for all those Brown ads championing his support of the Red Sox.” “It’s one thing to be bipartisan, Senator, but this is taking it a little too far. There’s no compromising in baseball,” the paper’s Joe Battenfeld added.

Indeed, the tabloid’s cover today rips Brown for his “Bronx Cheer,” a reference to the borough in which the Yankees play:

The Herald produced another image (above right) mocking Brown by dressing him up as a Yankees catcher. Meanwhile, New York news site DNAinfo is not pleased with Levine for giving to Brown.

This is the second strike for Brown in as many weeks on the Red Sox. Last week, he ran a radio ad touting that he stood up to political opponents who wanted to move the Red Sox out of historic Fenway Park. But as it turns out, Brown was one of those people, trying to arrange a meeting to move the team.

“What’s next, a Derek Jeter endorsement?” the Herald asked.

HILL: As this [policy] applies to use of facilities, a female who identifies as a male, or a male who identifies as a female, may use restrooms or locker rooms of his or her declared gender identity after he or she has obtained a birth certificate designating the declared gender. This practice applies to student athletes as well.

The only way that most states — including Pennsylvania — allow for birth certificate changes is if individuals undergo sexual reassignment surgery (SRS), a costly life-changing procedure that many trans people never intend to pursue. Some states do not offer new or amended birth certificates under any circumstance. And as Pitt junior Alice Haas has pointed out in her outspoken opposition to the policy, SRS amounts to “forced castration” because it results in sterility. For the university to impose such expectations to safely use campus facilities is flagrantly offensive.

Further, as Hill’s comment alludes, the policy raises particular challenges for student athletes. As The Pitt News reported yesterday, the NCAA has rules requiring transgender students be allowed to play on the team with which they identify provided they’ve simply completed one year of hormone therapy — but that rule does not cover lockerrooms. So under the current policy at Pitt, a trans student can play on the right team, but can’t use the right lockerroom.

The policy also conflicts with the non-discrimination protections in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, which identify an individual’s gender by how it is lived and perceived by others. Pitt claims it does not discriminate on the basis of gender identity and expression, but it is essentially erasing an entire population of trans students who don’t — and shouldn’t have to — fit into an arbitrary mold of identity.

The Augusta National Golf Club, which hosts the tournament, has never admitted a woman as a member in its history, but its discriminatory policy sparked controversy this week after it decided not to extend membership to the new female CEO of IBM, which sponsors The Masters. Augusta has offered membership to previous IBM CEOs (all men).

Both President Obama and presumed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney have spoken out against the policy, as has South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R), but Erickson sees the debate over the prohibition on women as a “partisan” issue. “Who freakin’ cares?” he said during a lengthy rant in support of the policy:

ERICKSON: Who cares? Who cares that she wasn’t invited into the club? She’s a woman — women aren’t allowed! …. It is striking to me just how political the president wants to make everything. The war on women coming home to The Masters. Who freakin’ cares? [...]

I don’t care that The Masters are a male-dominated event. I don’t care that women aren’t members of The Masters. Frankly, I kind of like the idea that women aren’t members of The Masters. Good Lord, I don’t want to be hanging out at some women’s event! Can’t men go anywhere and just be men? There are plenty of places where women can be women. … You know what Mr. President, why don’t you just leave the partisanship out of golf?!

Listen to the clip, via Media Matters:

Erickson decries the partisanship of the issue, but even though Romney took an identical position to Obama’s, Erickson dismissed Romney’s opposition to Augusta’s policy by saying, “At lease he was smart enough to know that we don’t want to wade into the war on women with Augusta.”

Both President Obama and Mitt Romney have issued statements indicating their disagreement with the club’s policy. Meanwhile, club chairman Billy Payne insists that Augusta will decide for itself whom to allow in its ranks.

The golf writer for the New York Times, Karen Crouse, weighed into the controversy yesterday, telling GOLF.com in an interview that she would like to use her influence to bring about a change:

“If it were left to me, which it seldom is in the power structure of writer versus editor, I’d probably not come cover this event again until there is a woman member,” Crouse said Thursday. “More and more, the lack of a woman member is just a blue elephant in the room.” [...]

“I love the [Masters] tournament for the reasons the players do — the course is beautiful, the history is abundant,” Crouse said. “But I find it harder and harder to get past one thing that’s missing. [PGA Tour commissioner] Tim Finchem is not making a stand. High-ranking players with daughters are not willing to talk about it. Somebody has to make a stand. Why not me in my own little way?”

Crouse’s willingness to speak out about a discriminatory policy that affects her personally didn’t go over well with her employer. The New York Times’ sports editor Joe Sexton admonished her publicly:

Contacted by The Associated Press, New York Times sports editor Joe Sexton said the comments were, “completely inappropriate and she has been spoken to.”

Crouse deserves credit for being willing to stake a principled position on the issue, despite knowing it would anger her male colleagues and the existing power structure. As Alyssa Rosenberg has previously observed, women reporters are often subjected to double standards that devalue their opinions.

My alarm went off in my house while I was in it. 20mins later I saw cops checking out the scene. Went outside and they drew there guns on me

— Torii Hunter (@toriihunter48) April 4, 2012

They didn’t believe I lived here in Newport coast so they walked me upstairs at gunpoint to get my ID.

— Torii Hunter (@toriihunter48) April 4, 2012

When I showed him my ID, he said I’m an angel fan hope u guys have a great season. ARE U KIDDING ME!!!!!! Lol

— Torii Hunter (@toriihunter48) April 4, 2012

Angels pitcher CJ Wilson responded to Hunter’s original account, saying, “That’s racist.” Hunter responded, “lol… Now u know I can’t say that,” but the posts drew a litany of responses from Twitter users speculating that his race was a factor. About an hour later, Hunter returned to Twitter to stress that he wasn’t upset with how police handled the situation.

“Hey Twitterland! I’m not upset that the cops did their job today. I’m actually glad they were protecting home,” Hunter posted. “The cops that were here today had there guns drawn but pointed downward in for safety. Those guys handled the situation like trained cops.” He returned again even later to clarify his account of the events again, saying, “Gunpoint might have been a little extreme. Just guns drawn pointing down.”

Hunter is a winner of the Branch Rickey Award for service and a two-time finalist for the Roberto Clemente Award, which recognizes players for community involvement and sportsmanship.

As Augusta National Golf Club prepares to host the competition next week, it faces a quandary: The club hasn’t admitted a woman as a member since its founding eight decades ago, yet it has historically invited the chief executive officer of IBM, one of three Masters sponsors. Since the company named Rometty to the post this year, Augusta will have to break tradition either way.

Change comes slow at Augusta, a club that clings to tradition proudly and loudly, even if that tradition is full of discrimination. The first black player won his way into The Masters field in 1975, but Augusta ignored outside pressure to admit a black member for another 15 years.

Its response to women has been the same. It trudged on in the wake of the Burk protests, winning over golf fans (equality be damned) by airing the tournament with limited commercials after she pressured sponsors to pull out. Just last year, it banned a female reporter from entering the players’ locker room, drawing protests from male and female journalists alike.

Rometty’s situation, though, gives her leverage Burk never had. The CEOs of the other two Masters sponsors, Exxon Mobil and AT&T, are both members, and they’ll both be donning the club’s signature green jackets next week. If Rometty isn’t allowed to join them (and given Augusta’s history, she probably won’t be), it will send another message to the 6 million American women who play golf and countless others who watch it that even if they are capable of breaking every last one of corporate America’s glass ceilings, they aren’t capable of playing golf with the boys.

The Masters, as CBS likes to remind us, is a “tradition unlike any other.” This year, though, Augusta has a chance to break with one tradition it should have ended a long time ago.

And with it, the precise, efficient, and very sad phrases: #WeAreTrayvonMartin #Hoodies #Stereotyped #WeWantJustice.

The stadium deal, struck in 1996, built separate new facilities for the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals and the MLB’s Cincinnati Reds, but ended up costing local taxpayers far more than initially anticipated. The final bill to the county came in at $540 million, more than double its initial budget. The Wall Street Journal called the project “one of the worst professional sports deals ever struck by a local government—soaking up unprecedented tax dollars and county resources while returning little economic benefit.”

This year, Hamilton County is facing a $1.4 million budget deficit, largely due to debts incurred from the stadium deal. As a result, county officials are taking drastic steps to cover the shortfall, including selling a physical rehabilitation hospital for far less than it’s valued and withdrawing money from their rainy day fund. The Huffington Post has more:

If Hamilton County officials in Ohio were to post a sign outside Drake Center, a Cincinnati hospital the county plans to sell this week, the pitch might strike potential buyers as a little desperate: For Sale: physical rehabilitation hospital, valued in 2006 at nearly $30 million, available for $15 million cash this week. Must sell immediately. Local government has bills to pay.

Nearly 20 years after county officials promised that public financing for a pair of professional sports stadiums would help usher in a new era of economic vitality, the reality is somewhat different. The county’s agreement to build new stadium facilities for the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cincinnati Reds has been described as “one of the worst professional sports deals ever struck by a local government” by the Wall Street Journal. Now, the county is poised to sell Drake Center at a price that critics say is far too low, just to cover one year of stadium debts and related promises. Even the planned sale won’t stop the county from having to raid its rainy day fund to cover a $1.4 million budget shortfall.

To learn more about why stadium deals like these can end up fleecing the public, read this recent post about a proposed stadium using taxpayer dollars in Minnesota.

Joseph Williams

Williams is one of 18 Virginia students participating in a hunger strike — now more than a week long — to protest the poor wages paid to many of the university’s contracted service employees. The strike, organized by the school’s Living Wage Campaign, began on February 17 with the goal of getting a living wage for underpaid employees. “I know first-hand what the economic struggle is like for many of these underpaid workers,” Williams wrote in an essay explaining his participation:

In failing to implement a living wage for its lowest paid employees, the University of Virginia has also failed to uphold the moral standards to which it holds its students. We are engaging in this hunger strike to call attention to the administration’s moral hypocrisy and to finally produce results in the form of a Living Wage. Although I am exhausted, hungry, dry-mouthed, and emotionally taxed, I believe it is my responsibility as a member of the University community, and even more as a member of the human race, to stand up and speak for those whose voices have been silenced and whose livelihoods are marginalized by the policies of the current University administration.

Williams decried the pay disparity between “hundreds of contract workers who may make as little as $7.25/hour” and the university’s top administrators. According to the essay, six of the state’s 10 highest-paid employees are administrators at Virginia. Williams also told the story of one employee who, despite working 40 hours a week, couldn’t afford to pay rent or utility bills.

“We have taken every conventional route towards this goal, garnered wide student, faculty and community support – yet our pleas have been consistently ignored and workers are still paid unjust wages,” Williams wrote. Perhaps the hunger strike and the national notoriety it has received is changing that, though. According to local news reports, University of Virginia president Teresa Sullivan plans to meet with the strikers today.

In an egregious example of how professional sports can be little more than a “glorified real estate scam,” the owners of the National Football League’s Minnesota Vikings are about to fleece an unwilling Minnesota public for hundreds of millions of dollars, as they push to secure public subsidization of a new stadium. A deal is reportedly “imminent.”

Real estate developer Zygi Wilf and five partners bought the team in 2005 for a reported $600 million. (The franchise is now valued at $796 million.) From the get-go, Wilf and his partners wanted what every owner in the NFL wants: a new stadium.

The Metrodome opened in 1982 and is certainly not the newest and most lavish in the league, but there are eight stadiums that are older. And Minnesota voters clearly do not want to pay for a new stadium using public funds. A February 3 poll sponsored by KSTP-TV in Minneapolis found that a whopping 68 percent of Minnesota voters think the new stadium should be built “entirely with private financing.” Only 22 percent believed that any tax dollars should be used at all.

Even more astounding, these results came after a six-figure ad campaign paid for by the Vikings to try to drum up support for financing the stadium.

So leave it to Minnesota’s politicians to find a way around the public will. Gov. Mark Dayton (D) has been out front on the stadium issue and is doing everything he can to get a new stadium built. “We’re at the five yard line and its first and goal, and I think we’ve got a great opportunity,” Dayton recently said.

But in 1997, Minneapolis voters overwhelmingly passed a referendum stating that voters must approve any plan to spend more than $10 million on a sports facility. Given that a referendum today would obviously fail, how is the governor going to get a stadium built in downtown Minneapolis? By exploiting a loophole, of course.

In the latest stadium proposal, at least $300 million in Minneapolis taxes already devoted to paying off the city’s convention center would be diverted to pay the city’s share of the new stadium. And to circumvent the requirement that voters approve funding for the stadium, Dayton’s top stadium negotiator, Ted Mondale, explained that a newly created “stadium authority” would spend the city’s money, rather than the city itself.

So despite the fact that the Minneapolis public voted to require a public referendum before financing any new stadium, and has made it clear that it doesn’t want a new stadium in this case, Minnesota’s governor and state legislature appear poised to spend $300 million in taxes on one anyway by creating a new entity out of thin air that is not subject to the referendum law.

The NFL is making money hand over fist, but the public is expected to pay the costs of providing a (lavish new) place for NFL teams to play, socializing the costs of the sport while privatizing the profits.

The New York Times found what seems like at least part of the answer this week: Lin is of Taiwanese descent, and according to some coaches the Times talked to, “recruiters, in the age of who-does-he-remind-you-of evaluations, simply lacked a frame of reference for such an Asian-American talent.”

Racial stereotypes, taboo in virtually every other aspect of American society, still play a huge role in sports, particularly in how the media, analysts, and scouts evaluate talent and make comparisons. Analysts use adjectives like “crafty” and “intelligent” to describe how white athletes overcome their general lack of athleticism, while marveling at the sheer athletic ability of black players who supposedly lack the intangibles of their white peers. Whites are often touted as the tough-nosed, blue collar players; blacks, the ones who make it look easy.

The stereotypes then carry over to the comparisons we make between athletes. Analysts spent years looking for the “next Larry Bird,” putting the label on virtually every talented white player to reach the NBA. On a statistical level, though, the “next Larry Bird” was actually Kevin Garnett, a 6-foot-11 black forward who has been in the NBA since 1995, just three years after Bird retired. We ignore that black quarterback Donovan McNabb had a lot in common with white quarterback Mark Brunell, and that neither played much like white quarterback Dan Marino or black quarterback Warren Moon.

The same stereotypes are in play with Lin. Few other Asians have ever played in the NBA, and the majority have been tall centers like Yao Ming and Wang Zhizhi (Lin is 6-foot-3). The stereotype for Asian NBA players was easy, then: they’re tall, or they don’t exist. Now that Lin has proven that wrong, others persist. With no Asian to compare him to, analysts are matching Lin to the next closest thing — white point guards like Steve Nash who came out of nowhere to star in the NBA. That may be a compliment to Lin — Nash is a two-time MVP — but other than blossoming in similar systems and having lighter skin than most of the other players, Lin and Nash’s games bear little resemblance.

The stereotypes, many of which exist subconsciously, likely aren’t going anywhere. Which means whenever the next Jeremy Lin comes along, fans, the media, and even the biggest experts won’t see him coming.

“Given the fact that it’s a colleague of mine’s wife, I do apologize for saying that, because I shouldn’t have said that,” Jacobs said of Tom Brady’s spouse in an interview on “The Doug Gottlieb Show.” “It’s his wife and I should respect that just as much as anyone else.”…However, while Jacobs apologized for telling Bundchen to hush up, he refused to express any remorse about calling her cute, saying that Brady should “take that as a compliment.” “If he finds something wrong with that, then that’s his problem.”

Which means he really doesn’t get what he did, and why it was wrong. Jacobs’ comments were obnoxious not because he was impugning Tom Brady’s wife. They were obnoxious because they implied that the role of a woman was to be attractive, rather than to have opinions. The question is not whether Tom Brady has a problem with his wife being reduced to her looks. It’s whether Gisele does.

And I’ve honestly been dismayed by the idea that Gisele is obligated by contract or custom not to speak ill of her husband’s teammates or the team’s performance. Tom Brady is her husband, not her keeper. She is an independent woman who makes an income that does not leave her dependent on the Patriots. Whether she speaks publicly about his work is a matter for their marriage, not our judgement.

It’s an attitude that treats women who are married to athletes as if they’re like another set of women who are often treated as if they’re helpmeets first, and individuals second: political wives. No matter how accomplished Gisele or Hillary Clinton are in their own fields, as long as their husbands are or were preeminent figures in their fields, what Tom or Bill were up to was understood to be the priority—no matter what role those men feel comfortable having their wives take on. God forbid Gisele have opinions about football. God forbid Hillary have something to add on health care. I understand that it makes strategic sense, given the persistent and virulent sexism directed at women in politics, particularly those cast as if they’re malevolent powers behind the throne, for political wives to take on anodyne issues that are removed from the substance of the political mainstream. But that norm isn’t something we should be proud of.

Take the role of the sideline reporter. I don’t think it’s a problem for sideline reporters to be attractive—being physically attractive doesn’t inherently mean you can’t be intelligent, and television reporting of all kinds is one of the few professions where men have to meet at least some of the same physical beauty standards as women. But I think that sports networks and teams have created an environment where even intelligent female sideline reporters are treated as if they’re merely eye candy because there are enough cases where it’s impossible to imagine what other criteria a reporter was hired for other than her looks. And hiring in a way that suggests that appearance is the most important criteria gives the impression that either there aren’t qualified and attractive women available who can do things other than take rides on outfield trains and ask soft questions, or that even if said women exist, it doesn’t make sense to hire them to deliver the character fluff that is the designated role for women in sports commentary. If you’re hired (or expected) to be entertaining first and substantive as a bonus, people may react badly when you turn out to have ideas, or feel weirdly entitled to prioritize your role as an object of desire.

That kind of structural message means that within the context of sports, it’s apparently perfectly appropriate for men to behave in ways that women would be excoriated for. In a recent interview, Erin Andrews talked about dealing with harrassment from “fans” and detractors alike. When the Cleveland Plain Dealer asked her “On the college campuses, in particular, how do you handle the goofus—or 10—who yells, ‘Erin, will you marry me?’” She said, “Unfortunately, it gets a lot nastier than that. It’s why I would never bring my father or a boyfriend to the game. I’ve had security guards who followed me and said, “It’s bad that you have to listen to this.” I tell them, “I don’t. I have earpieces.’” If a female fan got all gushy over an announcer or player, it would be taken as a sign of their unseriousness—there’s even Baseball Boyfriend , an app that lets women store picks in a “Little Black Book,” and instead of trades and pickups, treats players you shed as your “exes.” But apparently you can sexually harass Erin Andrews and still retain the impression that you’re totally focused on the substance of the game.

And this is how we get to Gisele. She couldn’t possibly be upset about the game because she’s come to care about football, in addition to caring that her husband is upset. She’s just a dumb broad who’s ventured out of the spot that’s designated for her: looking cute in the owners’ box. I wish I could say that Brandon Jacobs was an isolated sexist and a weirdly sore winner. But his comments about Gisele are in line with the primary role designated for women in sports commentary: look good, and don’t have inconvenient opinions.