Another All-Male Field Welcomes Mom
March 12, 2010
Izzy Lyman writes:
Doing the work men won’t do? I don’t think so.
— Comments–
Michael S. writes:
A couple of comments on the linked story:
“Randolph has been dealing with slights like that ever since she fell in love with football, a passion that led to a five-year career as a wide receiver for the D.C. Divas of the women’s professional football league…”
There’s a women’s professional football league?!? Why is there a women’s professional football league?
“The appointment… also prompted a modest amount of predictable sniping in anonymous comments on an online version of this story that a woman is unfit to be coaching a sport long dominated by boys.”
Of course, any criticism of the idea of a woman coaching a male football team is dismissed as “sniping.” Maybe if Alan Goldenbach actually knew what “sniping” is, and why it’s so difficult, maybe he’d be more careful in his word choice. But journalists tend to be lazy (and not as well-informed as they like to think). And what is this bit about describing football as “a sport long dominated by boys”? Does this mean we’re supposed to get ready for it to be a women’s sport, too? And why should we do that?
I personally am not particularly interested in football (or baseball, or basketball, or hockey, or… you get the idea). Generally, I’d rather watch curling than the Super Bowl. But I do recall being disgusted — offended, even — when female television sportscasters started appearing in the 1990s.
“The hiring of a woman to coach football is not unprecedented in D.C. public schools.”
Yeah, why doesn’t that surprise me? They’re of such all-around high quality, after all.
“It’s tough, but change has to happen. It’s going to take time. It’s up to each individual student and how they handle it.”
This is why I’m a conservative. I don’t worship at the altar of change for its own sake.
Laurence B. writes:
I don’t know if the title, Another All-Male Field Welcomes Mom is appropriate, because this Randolph doesn’t appear to be a mother at all, nor do I expect she’ll try to become the team mom, nor replace the patriarchal role of coach with a matriarchy. Rather, she’ll impose herself upon the patriarchy, and it’ll be ineffective. I wonder if this will make the normal Team Moms uncomfortable.[Laura writes: I don’t think there are many Team Moms in D.C.] Suddenly it’ll seem shameful and inadequate to brings orange slices and frozen grapes for half-time…now that the team mom might be team coach.
Not that it matters too much, but Randolph probably knows a fair bit about football. Knowledge of the game is not exclusively the realm of men, though its physical enactment, if to be taken seriously, should be. What is unfortunate is that, as soon as she delivers a pep talk in the locker room, players who endeavor to exhibit their bravado, wit, or guttural proclivities will probably make lewd comments about her. It’s a dirty, testosterone-induced scenario that appeals to the more bestial aspects of men (football, and other rugged sports I mean). While that in itself is not bad, especially because these tendencies are better exhibited in these sorts of controlled environments (organized sports), persons like Randolph create and existential problem to the physical exhibition of such sports by adding an unavoidable element of sexuality. As was mentioned, she’ll be very ineffectual at maintaining team discipline or respect, and since most of these boys won’t likely carry their exploits in football beyond high school, discipline and respect could have been the benefits they’d retain. It seems like a waste of everybody’s time. This could all be said about female commanders in the military, except that military benefits continue after one’s term of service. These boys in D.C. will, I fear, be nothing more than part of a PC publicity stunt, even if their team is successful.
Laura writes:
One of the best things about being a woman is that you don’t have to play or understand football. Why destroy that tradition? If that isn’t feminine privilege, I don’t know what is. I share Michael S.’ s disgust for female football announcers. They always inject a note of emotionalism in their announcing.
Elizabeth Wright writes:
Laura wrote: “I share Michael S.’ s disgust for female football announcers.”
As a fan of professional baseball only (and no other sport), I am growing more and more annoyed at being subjected to female voices in male sports. In addition to a female co-announcer for the Yankees on the radio (she does the “color,” not yet the play-by-play), there are now women hosting sports radio programs once reserved to men. I want to hear men talking sports, especially those that women don’t play.
I take delight in watching all that masculine activity on the field, and I consider it an intrusion to have to listen to high-pitched women’s voices running down the day’s events. Years ago, when the proposals were made for women reporters to do interviews with the athletes in the post-game locker rooms, I was so sure that the athletes wouldn’t stand for it. I thought they would purposely insult the women by remaining mostly undressed, as they did for the male reporters. But the pressure was too great and, of course, the feminists won the day.
