You don’t have to be attending BlogHer, you don’t have to be a woman, heck, I don’t even really care if you like sports but I do care that sports and especially women’s sports are undervalued in the media and have never even been discussed at a BlogHer conference.
My neighbor was picking up her daughter who was over here playing with Claudia when she told me that she was watching a power point presentation at work and there was a picture of me in it.
Strange? Yes, until the guy giving the presentation told her it was a picture from the BlogHer conference last summer.
You know what is even stranger than that?
While we were having that conversation our children were making robots and snowmen out of paper and drawing butts on them.
I wrote this piece about Elizabeth Lambert yesterday for BlogHer. I’ve had some negative feedback (which I anticipated) but I am wondering what you guys think. I do see soccer as a violent sport. Am I wrong?
As soon as I saw the Elizabeth Lambert video I knew that I would be writing about her this week. Elizabeth is the “mean girl” soccer player that was suspended for rough play this week. She is the girl who was caught on video punching another player in the back and pulling hair.
I am not saying that this excuses her behavior. I do not think that anyone (perhaps anyone outside of WWE wresting anyway) should be pulling other people to the ground using their hair.
What I am saying is that while Elizabeth Lambert certainly overreacted and was clearly unsportmanlike, her competitors were elbowing her too. Why isn’t anyone upset about that?
And have none of us ever watched a soccer game before?
Soccer can be a tough game and it appears that’s especially true in the Mountain West Conference. Footage of the conference semifinal game in Provo, Utah – where BYU beat New Mexico 1-0 – has been making the rounds and not for any of the right reasons.
Why is it that the only time women’s sports make the nightly news is when the players cross the line? Last summer, an on-court brawl between the Detroit Shock and the Los Angeles Sparks was front page news. Now, game footage of the BYU – New Mexico match is being rerun on ESPN and major network news shows.
The two teams in question combined for what would seem like a stunning 25 fouls, however according to The Sporting Blog, that’s actually not a huge number:
“In the three games of last year’s Women’s Final Four, there were 23, 24, and 33 fouls. The shocker is that only one yellow card came out in this game, which seems wildly out of proportion to the amount of brutality in the above video.”
See? I don’t want you to think that I approve of Lambert’s actions, but soccer is a violent sport. It is like the only things anyone knows about women’s soccer is Brandi Chastain in a sports bra and this Elizabeth Lambert debacle.
It is a fantastic image, but did anyone actually watch the game? Would anyone be freaking out if this was a men’s soccer game? I doubt it.
…I think a lot of times more force than necessary is used on athletic fields, but I’ve never been out there so I don’t know what it’s like. I do know that winning is a huge expectation in high stakes games and pressure drives people to crazy behavior. I’m not sure that’s always a good idea. And whereas I do believe strongly in accountability I think it’s sad that of all the things a highly competitive, talented female athlete can be known for in her collegiate career, it boils down to headlines with words like “dirty” and “violent,” and stupid, videotaped, aggressive behavior. I’m sure she can do way better. Let’s hope she does from now on, no matter who’s watching.
Elizabeth Lambert has been indefinitely suspended from The University of New Mexico’s athletics department and she has issued an apology.
I still think the issue is that the violence was done by a woman. This type of brutality is not at all uncommon in men’s soccer.
Soccer Hooligans are famous for rioting. I guess Americans just aren’t used to seeing this kind of thing from the ladies in their colleges. I think Elizabeth Lambert deserved to be suspended. I think she acted inappropriately, but I also think the outrage is coming from people who don’t watch soccer.
Note: Do you ever spend time on a writing assignment only to realize that you weren’t assigned the laundry post, you were assigned the post about messy bedrooms? No. Just me, huh? Whatever. Here is a post I wrote for BlogHer about how I am a laundry slacker.
My philosophy on doing laundry is entirely based on a two word phrase. “As needed.”
I’m not kidding. I wash my towels when they get yucky, I wash my sheets when they get dirty. I wash my underwear every time I wear it, but that is underwear. It touches my butt.
I mean it. I don’t have a laundry schedule. I have a big pile of laundry at the top of my stairs, a small pile of laundry in my bedroom and a medium sized pile in my laundry room.
My cats peed on the pile in my laundry room – this is how I know it is time to throw in a load.
See? As needed.
My mother loves to do laundry. I have no idea why. I guess we all have a pet chore. Mine is… okay maybe not everybody has a pet chore. I guess there is housework I hate less than the other domestic sciences, I don’t mind vacuuming. That isn’t to say I vacuum every day – or even once a week. Look – I hate housekeeping, that is why I hired a cleaning service. (This is also why I work so much, so that I can afford the aforementioned cleaning service.) The thing is that they don’t do my laundry. (or my dishes now that I think about it, but I would definitely pay more if they would. I hate doing dishes too.)
This brings me back to the whole “as needed” thing. I need to do the wash because my utility room (fine, basement) smells like cat urine. if my laundry room smelled reasonable I might wait until somebody ran out of underwear.
I’m not a total wash slacker. Once I actually get down to it I separate lights and darks. In fact, I usually have a white load, a black load, a blue and green load and a red/pink/purple/orange load. See? There is a benefit to waiting a long time. Load specificity.
Whatever it takes to justify it, I suppose.
Listen, it isn’t as if I am an organized human being with a laundry deficiency. I have no aversion to washing clothes I am just a generally lazy person and a procrastinator. I don’t have a schedule for anything – grocery shopping, car maintenance, doctors appointments, sex, writing, dishes, exercise, gardening, changing sheets – all as needed.
I come back from BlogHer and suddenly I have nothing to say.
It is almost like I feel as if I have already told you everything.
In person.
I did forget one to tell you one thing. Claudia got her first loose tooth while I was in Chicago. I know it is completely unreasonable, but I feel like I should have been there.
Okay, I don’t want to talk about that anymore.
Look a these pretty pictures.
No, I can’t explain how I have 247 pictures and none of them are of me and my roommate.
I won’t even try to recap the week. It has been done already. Suffice it to say that I somehow avoided the swag mobs and I was so moved by my peers that I want to be a better writer. Don’t let anyone convince you that BlogHer isn’t worth it. I have been four years in a row now and I have gotten something different out of it every single year.
I mean that in a good way. These women inspire me. I don’t mean to be overdramatic about it, but I think the Community Keynote may have actually changed my life.
And unless my brother or my sister-in-law (who both got engaged this weekend – congratulations, guys) plan one of their weddings on August 7th (please don’t plan your wedding on August 7th) I’ll be in New York for my 5th BlogHer.
