— Comments —

Lydia Sherman writes:

My son went to a Christian college one semester and came home for a break. Out of his bag spilled numerous text books. I picked up one called “Core Values” with a picture of an apple on the front I began to read this and noticed the photographs. To describe them, all I have to do is refer to your current photograph. The caption read, “Some people vent their frustrations through abusing alcohol.” I objected to this less than holy scene being shown in a book in a Christian college. I explained the suggestive power of images to the professors and the president of the college. They gave the run around. The more I read, the more subversion and sediton I found in the text book–even a naked woman and prostitutes. It degraded women, especially, I thought. What was this book doing in a Christian college? It was hard to figure out. Apparently the professors had never even read it. The college bid for the entire psychology department and got the textbooks, and staff to move to the college. They worked independently as change agents in that Christian college, under no authority. I e-mailed back and forth for several months and my husband telephoned them. Finally, the book was removed. Looking at your recent post reminded me that photographs make things seem normal to impressionable youth, and that women, who used to be held in high honor because of their position as wives, mothers and homemakers, are now pictured as fun loving free thinkers, free to smoke and drink and act like men.

Laura writes:

Photographs like this and others of the Canadian women’s hockey team are enormously powerful, normalizing behavior that was once considered even unacceptable in public for men.

Lawrence Auster writes:

Laura wrote: 

“Photographs like this and others of the Canadian women’s hockey team are enormously powerful, normalizing behavior that was once considered even unacceptable in public for men.” 

It seems to me that the Canadian female ice hockey team’s behavior is not the thing that normalizes bad behavior; it is itself the bad behavior that has been normalized. It is not something to be regretted only because it will lead to bad future things; it is the bad thing that has happened. It is the full blown fruit of our culture, not merely the seed. 

Also, leaving aside the feminist angle,it is pretty stunning that Olympics athletes behaved like this, in public, after winning the Gold, at the site of their victory, showing total disrespect for sportsmanship and for the Olympics in which they had just become victors. If they are not severely disciplined, the Olympics will be degraded, significantly more than it already is.

Laura writes:

Yes, I suggested it was the photographs themselves that are the problem. That is not so. The behavior itself is already with us. In fact, it’s important to document it.

And, as Larry says, it isn’t simply the fact that it is masculine behavior that is objectionable. I’ve never seen Olympic athletes drinking and smoking cigars upon victory and of course they should be disciplined. However, I wonder if the women were doing it in part to make a point, mimicking the worst behavior of professional athletes after a victory in order to say, “See, we’re no different.” And I wonder if this behavior will be overlooked so Olympic officials can say, “See, they”re no different.” By sanctioning this behavior they are proving that women are different, held to different standards of sportsmanship than men.

Sean writes:

Moving away from the impropriety of the team’s celebrations following their gold medal win, I have to ask: why is women’s hockey even considered an Olympic sport?

Outside of Canada and America, there is next to no interest by women in playing hockey on an organized, competitive basis (or rather, no social pressure by certain groups to ensure that some women play hockey). In many countries, the number of active female hockey players is literally in the dozens and there are no team or leagues outside of the Olympic apparatus. This leads to the Canadian and American Olympics teams clobbering their opponents and winning their games by scores with spreads of more than ten or fifteen points, which is unheard of in professional hockey. Look here to compare the goal spreads for the men’s and women’s teams – they speak for themselves.

The women’s hockey team pictured above beat Slovakia by 18-0 in their first game of the Olympics – what a joke! Meanwhile, the equivalent two men’s teams played in the semifinals last night, with Canada winning 3-2. Even during the Canada-Russia men’s matchup on Wednesday, when the Canadians decisively beat Russia, the score was only 7-3 and two of the goals against the Russians only happened because the coach made a serious mistake and failed to switch up the goalies when the first one wasn’t performing. That game, if you saw it, is how hockey should be played – fast, competitive, physical, and tough, qualities which naturally do not favor women.

Anyway, there was a non-debate in the media during these Olympics over whether women’s hockey should be included in the future, particularly when women’s ski jumping was disqualified due to “lack of depth in the competition.” Naturally, every commentator agreed that despite the extreme lopsideness of Olympic women’s hockey, we need to keep it in to ensure “equality” in the hockey world. Give me a break. Hockey is not a woman’s game and it is just one more symptom of how all-pervasive feminist ideology is that Olympic women’s hockey is promoted as equivalent to the men’s.

With that said, as a proud Canadian, I look forward to the men’s gold medal game on Sunday against the States. We’re out for revenge after our loss to you last Sunday, so watch out!

Laura writes:

So these women were celebrating a victory that was almost a shoo-in from the beginning. What a farce. I agree about women in the game, but then women’s basketball seems very much the same; it just isn’t as much fun to watch as men’s and always seems like a form of play-acting. There was an unsuccessful civil suit in Canada about women entering the ski jump this year. These efforts are the work of a fanatical and miniscule minority.

It’s going to be heartbreaking for Canada when it loses on Sunday. I send you my condolences in advance.

Mabel LeBeau writes:

I am not a sportswoman, nor imbued with any idea of sportsmanship–such as someone else that works hard to obtain a degree of physical prowess. People that train very hard day by day, without participating in Olympic games might be offended by the cavalier celebratory tone embodied in the photo or may be interpret it disapprovingly as a typical depraved attribute of current Olympians. I don’t know. All I know is that winning an Olympic event must be terribly thrilling, and if ever anyone deserves a shower of champagne, that is the time for it.

Now, as for women in ice hockey. Let me demonstrate more of my ignorance.

When I was in high school I lived further north than most Canadians. In the fall we played field hockey. In the winter we skated, skied, and played ice hockey. I’m sure there was no women’s hockey sport competition in schools for mainly two reasons. Overwhelmingly the school system support of mens’ hockey ensured enough members on a team, and a facility to practice. Whereas, women hockey was not promoted as rigorously, and both the facility for training, and support was not available.

Development of ice hockey skills first requires a strong ability to skate which one can possibly pick up at the beginning of winter season. When training season began, I remember the boys skated from 6 a.m. before school, then after school, and there were enough boys to make a team. Girls’ hockey would require a facility, equipment, training, and enough girls to make a team, so it’s quite an investment, whereas there generally are more boys involved because if there’s limited resources to support ice hockey and there are two teams, the men are going to receive the support. It’s a resource-driven for involvement of one of two sexes. That is my guess.

Girls would not practice with boys similarly to high school football teams. Individual skating for girls could be encouraged, with going out of state for special training if need be, or an all-year rink downtown. Ice hockey competition for girls would be deemed a hobby at best considering a whole team of girls would be required. We girls that were strong on our ankles and possessed requisite skill at staying upright certainly participated in friendly competitions in gym class and with friends. My reasoning about the lack of women ice hockey players internationally is based on the idea that ice hockey requires use of an all-year rink at a special facility, and there might not be enough women to make up a team. I daresay that it’s not like volleyball or basketball, that ice work can be replaced by a whole lot of cross-training of other muscle groups .

As far as I know, skaters have to have their frozen ice and special skates, and hockey players have to play together as a team. Slovakia is not that rich of a country. Sure, it has a National Orchestra in Bratislava, but its climate is very similar to the Czech Republic (moderately warm in summer) with similar natural wealth, not particularly favorable to keeping an special elite (womens) ice hockey team going year-round.

In essence, I’m saying that based on my personal experience, I enjoyed playing ice hockey as a kid, but year-round ice hockey is expensive to maintain, and given a choice in a country with limited resources, it’ll probably be easier to maintain a group of men for a team, than women. I may be wrong.

Laura writes:

A shower of champagne is fine for Olympians in private not at the place of victory.

Mabel makes a good point about the serious financial limitations for cultivating women’s hockey as an Olympic or professional sport. Male teams already have a hard time getting enough rink time even in countries as affluent as ours. It also seems women’s hockey should be played in a different way and with different rules so that it is less of an aggressive contact sport. I don’t know enough to say whether it currently is.

MarkyMark writes:

I didn’t watch women’s hockey during this Olympics; I didn’t see much of this Olympics, period. That said, I do know this.In the previous Winter Olympics, the women played a prep game against a top, boys high school team from Minnesota; even then, they had trouble beating the high school boys! As for my other thoughts on women in the Olympics, you can read my post here. By the way, the links in my blog go to the official Vancouver 2010 Olympics pages. If women didn’t have have their own events, they wouldn’t be at the Olympics. Why? Because they’re simply not the best athletes there! No matter what event you look at, the men simply are better when it comes to physical prowess.

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