I don’t do this much over here, but I wrote this for Draft Day Suit and I thought I’d like to talk to you guys about this too. Don’t forget to click more or you will miss Danica Patrick in a bikini.
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.
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.
Well, I was tricked into signing up for Tae Kwon Do.
Let me back up a little bit.
My five year old son has been dying to take Tae Kwon Do ever since he found out that his best friend at preschool was taking it. I finally got around to signing him up for it a couple of weeks ago.
There was a special where you got your first four lessons and a do-bok (that is how you say little white outfit in Korean) for $79. It isn’t cheap, but he was all about it and my husband and I both thought he would get a lot out of it especially in the area of body control.
You know how little boys are always running in to things.
After two lessons (which he adored) his twin sister decided that she might like it too. So I signed her up.
Last Tuesday I took them in for his fourth lesson and her second lesson. Before the class even started I was whisked in to the office where the Master sat – not one of the underling masters but The Master, the main man, the guy that owns the joint.
It was time for the hard sell.
I don’t have the exact figures but signing the two of them up for a year came to somewhere around one million dollars.
Okay, it was significantly less than one million but also significantly more than I had in my bank account. In fact, thinking about it makes me want to vomit, but I knew it was the right thing to do. Both children love it, it is marvelous exercise and a lot of their friends from school are in there.
Then The Master says to me “What about you?”
I am thinking: There is no fucking way. There are like four other adults here in the kids classes and they all look like gigantic tool bags.The last thing I need to do is spend another $800 to look like an asshole.
My subconscious has a filthy mouth.
I am saying “No. I really can’t afford it.”
Then The Master drop the bomb. “I will give you one year for free if you take the class with the children. It helps them learn at home and stay involved.”
Oh Shit. I think. How can I turn down a year of free Tae Kwon Do? This would actually give me something to write about on Loser Moms.
The Master said that he would give me the free year, but I actually had to show up. If I didn’t actually take the classes he was going to charge me.
So I said yes.
But I was scared.
Really. I didn’t want to do it. My kids were through the roof excited, but I was very apprehensive.
I didn’t want to look like an idiot.
What if I sucked at it?
What if it was hard?
What if all of the five year old were better than me?
But I had committed to this.
So yesterday I had my first lesson. It was awkward. I had no idea what the lady was saying. Some other parents I knew were there watching their children. But when we broke up in to groups I knew everybody in my group. It was me, Ian (5), Claudia (5), Paige (5) and Emma (6).
I think I probably did look like a tool, but it was kind of fun.
And I wasn’t too bad at it.
And Emma’s mom was really nice about it. She gave me a thumbs up and everything.
So yeah.
My name is Sarah and I am a white belt in Tae Kwon Do.
My sister-in-law is getting married in September. She has done me the distinct honor of asking me to be her matron of honor. It is in this capacity (and also due to the fact that we only live about 20 minutes apart form each other) I get to do awesome things like getting to taste different kinds of wedding cake.
Mmmm. Cake.
This is no joke. Some people might think going to the florist and the photographer and helping pick out music and stuff like that is a chore but I honestly enjoy doing that kind of stuff.
I used to work in event planning and I think if it had paid better I wouldn’t haven’t minded staying in that industry.
But that isn’t why I am telling you about this. I am telling you about this because today, while tasting cakes, I saw the most awesome thing I have ever seen.
A Ray Lewis carrot cake.
This is no joke. I saw the picture and I started freaking out. Here is why:
It looks exactly like him!
Fortunately, my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and future brother-in-law are used to me freaking out over stuff like this. I may have taken the wedding planner and the lady who made the cakes slightly off guard.
Kendall (from Kendall’s Cakes who made this cake) asked me if I wanted to keep the copy of the picture. I said yes please and then did what any good blogger would do and said “Can I put this on the internet?”
AND SHE SAID YES!!!
A Ray Lewis carrot cake, and it looks like Ray Lewis. This is a sports bloggers dream come true.
Oh, and I sampled the carrot cake and it was good.
And I don’t even like carrot cake.
Unless it shaped like Ray Lewis.
Evidently.
My birthday is in two weeks. I wonder if she can make one that looks like WarrenSapp?
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.
