It is no secret that men’s basketball has a larger audience. You can say “No! No! Really! Our high school girls team is the state champ! We sell out every game!” and that may be true, but deep down inside you know that this is an exception and not a rule. Men’s basketball does better at every level: little league, Jr. high, high school, college, professional and international.

I guess that is why FIBA – the International Basketball Federation, or Fédération Internationale de Basket-ball – is considering lowering the hoop in the women’s game.

FIBA wants to see if it will make the women’s game more “attractive”.

*seethes*

At the first ever women’s basketball summit they also discussed new uniforms to appeal to a wider audience.

Now, before I completely flip my lid, I should let you know that FIBA and the International Olympic Committee already have smaller balls for the women’s game.

The game as it is is a good game, but we have a large majority of women’s basketball players that don’t have that size and there are questions whether the game is as attractive as it really could be if you were able to play over the basket rather than under the basket.”

Karlovy Vary

Do people really believe that I watch basketball for the dunks? If that were the case I would watch the annual slam-dunk contest and just watch hockey for the rest of basketball season. NO! That isn’t why I watch men or women’s basketball. I watch basketball because I love the game. I buy tickets because I like basketball. Playing over the basket is great, but it is not going to determine where I spend my money.

When it comes to women’s basketball Jayda Evans always says it best.

Say what? To be frank, this has to be the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard at this point in the women’s game. What needs to happen globally is attention to coaching or maybe more cooperation with the WNBA so that more international stars could play in a league with the world’s best. Then skill would improve and that would draw more appeal globally.

Lowering the rim? For what? A cheap dunk? Please. FIBA should know by now that the game of basketball is more than dunking. A wicked crossover or three-pointer can be just as exciting — especially if in a close game that seals a victory. Just ask any Sue Bird fan.

As a feminist I am insulted. FIBA is suggesting that girls can’t handle the big balls (no pun intended) and women can’t play over the net.

Oh really? Let’s ask Brittney Griner.

I am not going to sit here and tell you that women and men are exactly the same, any five year old in a bathtub could tell you different. What I will say and what I do believe is that women’s basketball is doing just fine with the basket where it is. Lowering the hoop cheapens the ladies’s game.

I have a much better idea on a way to make the women’s game more attractive. Show it some fucking respect.

1) Forgetting to actually put the lunch you packed into your backpack.

2) Naming a child something ridiculous.

3) Hurting someone you love.

4) Volunteering for a really hard job at your kid’s school.

5) Locking yourself out of your house.

6) Replying all.

*

Choralis is a first rate community based choir in the Washington D.C Area. Besides being kind enough to let me in, they also provide scholarships to 12 students each year. Gretchen Kuhrmann is an amazing director and I suggest you come see us perform if you are in the area.

Of course if you can’t I understand.

But, I promised these people I would raise $100. Running a choir isn’t cheap, providing scholarship is expensive.

I figured that if I could get each of you to give $1 (or $5 if you are loaded or really into choral music) we could probably raise $100.

I know things are tight, and I know we aren’t curing cancer, but I figured you guys could all spare a dollar for a noble cause.

The paypal button below will let you donate directly to Choralis leaving out the middle man. If you feel more comfortable going through me, my e-mail address is goonsquadsarah at gmail dot com and I can get the money to the choir.

***

Last week skier Lindsey Vonn was in the news because some jerk in the media suggested that Vonn would have an advantage in the downhill events because she was carrying extra weight, so I was pleased when I saw this week’s cover of Sports Illustrated because I thought Vonn looked terrific.

See? Adorable. The assholes who said she was fat should feel stupid and mean. She looks great right?

This whole thing should be so exciting, women athletes rarely grace the front cover of Sports Illustrated. Hell, women rarely appear on the front cover of SI unless it is the swimsuit issue. I was very pleased when I saw this, a woman athlete, an olympic sport this close to the Super Bowl! Not that I am knocking the Super Bowl in any way. I love the Super Bowl almost as much as I love bacon but it was nice to see something different for a change.

Sadly, things just couldn’t stay nice. People can’t just shut up and be happy for a nice all-American skier, can they? Nope.

“Oh,” cry the women, “she is being objectified!”

No. She really isn’t.

That is what skiers wear. Yes, the pose is exaggerated but it is photography. The photograph is cool. If you see that magazine cover and think about sex maybe the problem lies within because when I see that picture I think about skiing.

As my friend Laurie put it when we were discussing Lindsay Vonn yesterday, “she can’t win, obviously – she’s either cheating to win because she’s fat or she’s hot bending over.”

Women athletes are objectified all of the time – don’t even get me started on Danica Patrick or Anna Kournakova – this is not one of those times.

Let’s all take a deep breath and be excited for the Olympics and skiing and Lindsey Vonn.

Just to set the record straight.

This is an example of Sports Illustrated objectifying a female athlete.

This is not.

See the difference?

]]> http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/2010/02/05/lindsey-vonn-sports-illustrated-and-objectification/feed/ 26 http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/2010/02/04/nobody-remain-calm/ http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/2010/02/04/nobody-remain-calm/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:25:06 +0000 Goon Squad Sarah http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/?p=4163 It isn’t even 5:00 PM yet and my county has already canceled school tomorrow due to Snopocalypse II:  Electric Boogaloo.

The kids are going ape shit. They already tried to wash the mirror with bright purple foaming kids soap.

My local twitter prognosticators are saying that school probably won’t be back in until Tuesday at the soonest.

I know that one to two feet is a lot of snow but wow.

When I was at the grocery store yesterday there was a huge run on hot dog and hamburger buns. I’m still fairly new to snow, is one supposed to barbecue during a blizzard? Is it like the Fourth of July? Because my plan was to sit on the couch with a blanket and read a nice book or something.

I just got a text that said there was a run on Spam at Costco. SPAM. It is a snow storm not a nuclear holocaust.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I understand we stand a chance of getting 24 inches of snow. I understand that 24 inches is an assload of snow, but can’t we all just calm the hell down and stay inside?

And by stay inside, I mean after school on Friday, and only until Monday morning.

Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.

My first reaction was to recite that to myself 800 times a day and see if it worked. I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting motivated to lose weight in the last couple of years. I thought maybe this would help.

Instead, it just made me realize how wrong she was. Here is a short list of reasons why Kate Moss is wrong.

• beer
• Doritos
• Pringles sour cream and onion chips
• bacon
• bagels
• a bloody mary
• macaroni and cheese
• foie gras
• french fries
• Anything from Five Guys
• brownies
• fresh strawberries
• cheese steak
• fried rice
• burritos
• beef stroganoff
• wine
• pizza
• fried chicken

See? Those are just off the top of my head. I didn’t even put any real thought in to that list. Just think if I had more time to expand!

Then I read this.

“Kate Moss’s comments are likely to cause many more. If you read any of the pro-anorexia websites, they go crazy for quotes like this.”

The slogan is adopted on various websites, including one called Starving For Control.

Green, 22, who is a size 12, added: “Millions of girls aspire to be like Kate Moss. These comments are shocking and irresponsible.”

Wait a second. Pro-Anorexia websites? There are multiple websites that support a disease?

What is this world coming to? Are there pro-polio websites? Are people hoping to successfully become alcoholics? Do we need websites to help us get sick?

Getting back to Kate’s motto, maybe I’m not the best judge of what being skinny feels like. The last time I was truly “skinny” I was recovering from mono, so to me skinny feels like a really bad sore throat and dying. I’m sure it feels different to her. Maybe to her it feels like millions of dollars.

I have no personal reference to how millions of dollars feels, but I bet it is pretty awesome.

It just seems to me like in this day and age (the day and age where I just became my grandmother by using that phrase) where even France has banned runway models that are too skinny and young girls are dying every day from anorexia we could try to promote more healthy concepts than “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”.

And in that top picture at least, skinny actually looks sort of painful.

I am trying to raise a daughter over here. I would love it if she can be spared the weight issues and self-esteem bullshit I have been dealing with since I was 12.

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.

If you watch this video it looks terrible.

A lot of people were shocked and offended when they saw this clip.

But this video looks different to me.

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.”

- Jane, Pretty Tough

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.

As usual, Laurie White says it best:

…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.

- Draft Day Suit

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.

Contributing Editor Sarah also blogs at Sarah and the Goon Squad and MamaPop.

At this point the best way to earn my vote is to promise to propose legislation to make all those damn automated phone calls telling me who I should vote for illegal.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah

ps – Stop calling my house after 8:30 PM, I have little kids. I hate you all.

Or I guess, most of the kids in the school will be watching it. This came home in the backpacks yesterday.

You’ve probably already seen these if you have school aged children, but I hadn’t.

I am 100% in favor of the freedom to opt out of things that you think are bad for your children, but what kind of parent signs this?

This is a speech about doing homework, responsibility and education. It was given to a group of students in Arlington. It isn’t a political diatribe. I thought the last administration was awful and the former President said a lot of things that I found personally offensive, but I would never think of  stopping my children from seeing George W. Bush speak just because I disagreed with him.

One of the great things about The United States of America is freedom of speech.

Just because you disagree with your leader doesn’t mean that it is a good idea to stick your fingers in your ears, close you eyes and say LA LA LA LA LA every time he or she comes on the television. It is important that we listen to ideas that are different from our own. How else does a person make an informed decision?

And how does a child learn to think for himself?

Hate President Obama all you want, but let your child listen and then when he or she gets home you can discuss it. You can even tell your kids why you disagree, but the man is our President and the office should hold some weight. Even if you didn’t vote for him, if you live here, he is your President too.

I believe that as a parent one of my most important jobs is teaching my children how to think critically. I think that in order to do that effectively I need make sure they get enough information to form their own opinions.

I’m not crazy, I’m not going to let them watch porn or “Saw” when they are five years old, but I want them to watch that speech today. How often does The President of The United States of America address school aged children? He was talking to them.

If you signed that form what were you thinking?

I think this is something that people have only been doing for four years tops because I had never heard of such a thing when I was with children.

Now, I realize that I was sicker than most people are, and that being pregnant with multiples is different than being pregnant with one baby and that I don’t know the first thing about being pregnant with one baby.

However:

What kind of lunatic would want to go on vacation when they were pregnant?

When I was 20 weeks I stopped fitting in my Honda Civic and some people get on an airplane and fly to an island? I couldn’t even sit through a movie without peeing seven times, and I don’t know that I could have physically been able to shut the door on an airplane lavatory.

Well, that and all of the barfing.

We flew to Tahiti with a friend (who had not planned on being pregnant on our vacation, but found herself in that predicament anyway) and she was only seven or eight weeks pregnant and the smell (it was a French airline, if you know what I mean) had her puking the whole way there.

It was a seven hour flight from LAX to Papeete.

I felt so bad for her.*

But maybe that is why I didn’t dare step foot on an airplane when I was expecting. I missed Thanksgiving at the beach and a good friend’s wedding because I was too sick to fly in my 18th week.

On the day of Allison’s wedding I felt awful that I couldn’t be there. Then I threw up four times in the grocery store and knew that I had chosen wisely.

I don’t mean to judge. If you went on a babymoon and enjoyed it, I am happy for you. But I am curious how you made it through the flight.

* If you ever want to make Erin vomit be sure and bring up a “pork buffet”. That should do the trick.