0:03

Welcome to stuff mob never told

0:05

you. From how Supports dot com.

0:12

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

0:14

and I'm Caroline. And today, since

0:16

the Super Bowl is right around the corner,

0:19

we're going to talk about women sports

0:22

reporters, and specifically we're focusing on

0:25

football, Yes, American football.

0:27

Apologies to listeners outside the

0:29

United States, but chances

0:32

are, Caroline, when we watched the Super Bowl, or

0:34

if we watch the Super Bowl, I probably

0:36

will because I enjoy the dips go

0:38

along with it. The only

0:41

women were going to see on screen will

0:43

be cheerleaders, female

0:46

halftime performers. I don't know at the moment who's

0:48

performing, and if it's not Beyonce,

0:51

so why'm I'm not probably gonna just change the channel.

0:54

But the only other women will be sideline

0:57

reporters. Right. And the thing about

0:59

sideline report, as you would think that's great, right,

1:01

getn't getting women into sports reporting

1:04

because women know just as much about sports and

1:06

care just as much about sports as guys do.

1:08

I mean, this is not a solely male domain.

1:11

Yeah, I mean, when we had our episode

1:13

on female football fans not too long ago,

1:16

is well established there are rabid

1:20

female fans out there and a lot of

1:22

them. Yeah, and so these these female

1:25

sideline reporters, they know their stuff, and

1:27

so that's that's a positive thing. Right, Well,

1:30

they're not necessarily, as we'll

1:32

talk about, used correctly

1:35

exactly. Um, But first

1:37

of all, let's establish that when

1:39

it comes to sports journalism, and yeah,

1:42

we're narrowing in on this sideline

1:44

reporting issue since

1:46

it's the Super Bowl, but when it comes to women in sports

1:48

journalism is tough out

1:50

there. For instance, we we got

1:52

a couple of choice quotes to kick things

1:55

off. Sports broadcaster

1:57

Frank Gifford once said to Melissa

2:00

lud Key, who is a very

2:02

important woman in the evolution of women

2:04

in sports journalism, as we'll get to, he

2:06

once commented to her, you

2:08

know a lot of sports for a girl,

2:14

and and to play devil's

2:17

advocate and give the bright side of that. Gifford

2:20

did invite lud Key to ABC where

2:22

she met Billy gene King. It's not like

2:24

he just you know, craft on her

2:26

head. Yeah, but that was him

2:28

be impressed with

2:31

with the knowledge. But then next

2:33

thing, we have Andy Rooney and

2:35

he's more talking about the

2:38

sideline reporters, and I'm

2:41

talking about Andy Rooney, the Late

2:43

sixty Minutes guy who

2:45

said, the only thing that really bugs

2:47

me about television's coverage is those

2:50

women they have down on the sidelines

2:52

who don't know what that they're talking

2:55

about. And he didn't say that

2:57

in he

3:00

said that in two thousand five, and then I think

3:02

it was last year. Charles Barkley,

3:05

who is now you know, professional basketball

3:08

player now turned commentator, equipped

3:10

that if you are an ugly woman, you're

3:13

never going to get on television for

3:15

sports reporting. So there's

3:17

just a mess of stuff happening.

3:20

Yeah, and and it starts with just

3:23

the fact that generally sports

3:25

reporting is a pretty heavily

3:27

male domain. You've got people

3:29

the top who are mail, people in the middle who are mail, people to

3:31

the bottom who are mail, all hiring more male

3:34

humans to do more of the sports reporting.

3:36

So there was a report

3:38

on race and gender diversity from the Institute

3:41

for Diversity and Ethics and Sport that

3:43

found that among one hundred and fifty newspapers

3:46

and websites, nine four

3:48

percent of sports editors were men and

3:50

eight point three percent of sports

3:53

reporters were men. Yeah.

3:55

Of the eleven women who were sports

3:57

editors, six of them worked

3:59

for ESPN, So

4:01

that leaves just five out there among

4:04

one d and fifty newspapers and

4:06

websites. And I dug around and tried

4:08

to find comparable statistics for

4:10

sports broadcasting, but

4:13

wasn't able to get any hard

4:15

data. I think because sports broadcasting

4:18

is even more overwhelmingly male,

4:21

that the line you just hear over and over again

4:23

is anecdotally like, I mean, just look at the faces

4:25

on the screen. It's always the

4:27

tables full of those guys

4:30

and those massive suits. That's so big.

4:32

Suits are so huge, and I mean they're

4:34

pretty big. Yeah, I mean a lot of them are

4:36

like x NFL players, but the

4:39

shiny ties and

4:41

they've all got their bling rings from their past

4:44

wins. And it's just it's it's

4:46

just guys talking. It's a lot of guys

4:48

talking until you get down to halftime,

4:51

when you have twenty seconds of

4:54

the female sideline reporter talking

4:56

to a coach who would rather be doing anything else.

4:59

Yeah, And I'm wondering, you know, we we we gave

5:01

you those those two terrible quotes

5:03

about women in sports, and

5:06

and I'm wondering if that attitude

5:09

that it's okay to

5:11

continue to say things like that. It's

5:13

because maybe these men who are in these

5:16

positions of reporting or hiring reporters

5:18

or whatever, um, they just feel

5:20

like it's comfortable, like

5:23

like there aren't even any women around, so I

5:25

can just talk however I want. I think it might

5:27

be some of that. I think it's also just the culture

5:29

of sport and the hyper masculinity

5:32

that often goes along with that, especially

5:34

since we're talking about professional football, which

5:37

I say is probably the worst

5:39

out of all of them.

5:42

Um. And so today there's

5:44

this problem for women

5:46

who are sports journalists who

5:49

really want to be reporting

5:52

on sports and be calling games

5:54

and analyzing games, and there's

5:56

this desire for credibility

5:58

in a market that really just

6:02

wants I Candy, or at least just downplays

6:04

them to just being I candy. Oh well,

6:07

yeah, like Brent Musburger,

6:09

who in January about

6:11

a year ago called

6:15

Holly Row sports reporter smoking.

6:18

Yeah. I mean then right after

6:20

ESPN was like no, no, no, no no. He said

6:22

that the the sporting event she

6:25

was kind of reporting on was smoking.

6:27

But Musburger was not

6:30

helping himself out because he had

6:32

previously gotten a wrist lap

6:34

for ogling a college

6:37

quarterbacks girlfriend for

6:39

an extended period of time during the BCS

6:42

Championship, wouldn't shut up, like,

6:44

wouldn't stop talking about her, even to the point where

6:46

he's like, hey, little boys out there

6:48

watching TV, you better go play with the pigskin

6:51

in the backyard dad, so that you can get

6:53

a girlfriend like that. Yeah, Or it's just like

6:55

can we talk about football? Can

6:57

we talk about some football? Um?

6:59

So there was a study though, driving this

7:01

point home. There was a study female

7:04

sports Journalists, Are We There Yet No?

7:06

Published in two thousand five by Marie

7:08

Harden and Stacy Shane, which found

7:11

of women working in sports journalism,

7:14

this is not just the sideline reporting type of stuff. This

7:16

is sports journalism on the whole feel

7:18

as though they're not seen as equals because

7:21

of their gender. And

7:23

Rachel Nichols, who's a CNN sports

7:26

reporter said just

7:28

kind of backed us up. She said, when I meet players for the first

7:30

time, they can be a bit guarded right off the bat,

7:32

based too, you don't know what you're talking about. It's

7:35

harder to get the story sometimes. And

7:37

speaking of harder to get the story sometimes,

7:40

just researching. Doing basic

7:42

research for this podcast was

7:45

a little bit challenging off the bat because

7:47

when you look up women's

7:50

sideline reporters. You know what Google

7:52

gives you. It gives you about a million

7:55

galleries of the hottest

7:57

sideline reporters sexiest

8:00

sex spots on the football field. For

8:02

instance, there is one of I'm

8:04

sure many over a bleacher

8:07

report written by Zach Pomerantz

8:10

who said, quote, whether they possess

8:12

impeccable journalistic skills or look

8:14

amazing in a tight skirt, these broadcast

8:17

beauties are all ready to instill chaos

8:19

on camera. Well,

8:23

it makes me sad because

8:26

already it's you know, women

8:28

are being told, you know, you're

8:31

not wanted, You're not welcome here.

8:33

You know, this is this is a safe space for

8:36

men, and we're going to talk about you

8:38

however we want, you know, And it's

8:41

it's I think that much more impressive for the

8:43

women who have broken through. Do

8:45

have that credibility, Are you

8:47

know, able to call games,

8:50

whether you know, in any sport? I

8:52

think it's not much more impressive that they've broken through and

8:54

become successful. Yeah. But at

8:57

the same time too, with that success, they

8:59

also have to deal with being pitted against

9:02

women who have been hired

9:05

by broadcast network specifically

9:07

for how they look. You

9:10

know. I mean, if you think about football and

9:12

the fact that who's on the field

9:15

who are women, it's cheerleaders,

9:19

and then sometimes these women

9:21

who also are doing Playboy spreads,

9:24

it's it's like setting it's setting us

9:26

up for for this kind of problem.

9:28

Um. But the the history though of

9:31

women in the sideline reporting

9:33

is kind of fascinating, and a lot of this is

9:35

coming from an article in the Washington Post and

9:37

also the study the Credibility

9:40

of Female Sports Broadcasters by

9:42

Amantha Gunther, Daniel Cowts, and

9:44

Alison Roth, who note that

9:47

in the nineteen thirties and forties, a

9:49

woman named Mrs Harry

9:51

Johnson just a fact that we don't even ever

9:53

first time and I searched for it

9:56

and it is lost to history. She's

9:58

just necessary. Johnson was

10:00

a sports commentator during

10:03

her husband, Harry Johnson,

10:05

we can only assume, during

10:07

his broadcast for Central States Broadcasting

10:09

in Omaha, Nebraska. And she's considered

10:12

kind of the first female sports

10:14

broadcaster. Mrs

10:17

Harry john Oh, Mrs Harry um

10:20

been in the mid sixties. You have Jane

10:22

Chastain, who became the first woman to conduct

10:24

play by play coverage of a live sporting

10:27

event. In Miami. But

10:29

in the nineteen seventies, that's when stuff really

10:31

starts happening, because in nineteen seventy

10:34

two you have, for instance, a passage of Title

10:36

nine. And also around this time you have

10:38

The New York Times in Washington Post being hit

10:41

by gender discrimination class action

10:43

suits and being legally

10:45

forced to bring on their first

10:48

female sports writers as a

10:50

result. And so then

10:52

in nineteen seventy four, CBS

10:55

brings on the same Jane Chastain

10:57

as the first female NFL announcer

10:59

and Leslie Vissi as the first

11:02

female sideline reporter. And

11:04

Leslie Vissi is a

11:07

huge pioneer, should have a ton of

11:09

first in terms of NFL

11:11

reporting, and she's considered

11:13

one of the legends. Yeah.

11:16

Well, then right away you've got

11:18

the that back and forth between

11:20

do we hire someone who knows her stuff

11:23

or do we just hire someone who's pretty.

11:25

Not that you can't have both, but there is that dividing

11:28

line there. Uh In, CBS

11:31

hires former Miss USA

11:33

Phyllis George as a sportscaster as

11:35

part of this new trend to hire

11:38

former beauty queens and cover girls. Yeah,

11:40

I mean that also reminds me this is a total

11:43

stuff. I've never told you, Tangent, but it

11:45

reminds me of in our

11:47

episode on Barbara Walters when

11:49

she got her slot on the Today Show. And I don't

11:51

have the year in front of me, but how

11:54

notable it was that she got that role on

11:56

camera because before

11:59

that it had all been beauty queens,

12:01

because actresses and just people

12:04

who were there to be a pretty face. Yeah, I mean, because these networks

12:06

are being run by guys who

12:09

you know, assumed that that's what the

12:11

consumer wants to see right on the TV

12:14

um. But then in nineteen seven

12:17

we have a big event. This

12:19

is when Melissa lud Key, the woman

12:22

who was told that, you know, a lot of sports for a

12:24

girl. She was working for Sports

12:26

Illustrated and her the

12:29

publisher Sports Illustrated Time, Inc. Sued

12:31

Major League Baseball for not

12:34

allowing her to enter into male

12:37

locker rooms, and the Major

12:39

League Baseball commissioner at the time said,

12:42

well, we haven't been able to pull

12:44

players wives about whether

12:46

that would be appropriate, so lud Key can't

12:48

come in. Well, also that he was saying

12:50

that their children, these players children would be made

12:52

fun of at school. I

12:55

have no idea, but lud Key one. Yeah, probably

12:58

because that's sort of a laughable defense. Um,

13:00

but she won, and this was this was

13:03

a huge deal at the time. And uh,

13:05

a lot of these professional sports

13:07

teams would bully and I mean,

13:10

the sad thing is this did not stop

13:12

in the seventies, but these teams would

13:14

bully women and also put like

13:17

a sexual spin on it, saying that,

13:19

well, women wouldn't be able to handle it if they went

13:21

into locker rooms, because that's when men are, you

13:23

know, in various states of undressed, and it's

13:25

just you know, oh, they wouldn't be

13:27

able to contain themselves. Whereas these sports

13:29

writers like lead here saying,

13:32

seriously, I don't want to have to go into a locker

13:34

room. It's disgusting and smelling

13:37

in there, But this is part of my job.

13:39

It's like, if if you want to scoop

13:41

somebody or get a hit a deadline, you

13:44

gotta be in there right after the game. Yeah.

13:46

Well, there were a lot of instances of like team

13:48

managers and people saying, fine, nobody

13:50

can come into the locker rooms at all. And so then

13:52

you have that that heated, that

13:55

anger between the male reporters and the female

13:57

reporters being like well, you've screwed us all and

14:00

it's you know, just simply to keep women out

14:02

of out of locker rooms. And the following

14:04

year, in nine, we have another milestone

14:07

with Jane Kennedy, who replaces

14:09

Phillis George, becoming the first African

14:12

American woman to host a network

14:14

sports TV broadcast. Um,

14:16

but Kennedy was another one of

14:19

the pretty faces. I think she also ended

14:21

up becoming the first African American

14:23

woman to be on the cover of Playboy,

14:26

for instance. So it's still

14:28

that kind of trend happening, and

14:30

I hate that because that's a it's a great

14:32

first in a way with the you know, the first black

14:35

woman to be doing the sports

14:37

broadcasting, but then it's

14:39

only continuing this I

14:42

candy factor. Yeah,

14:44

I mean, I think it's I

14:46

just don't like that from the get go, the

14:50

sexiness has to be paired with the

14:52

woman being a sports reporter, like

14:54

from the very beginning that those

14:56

two things go hand in hand. Yeah,

14:59

m there was The NFL did bring

15:01

on one female announcer

15:03

at the end of the seven

15:06

season. Gayl Syrians

15:08

called a Chiefs Seahawks

15:11

game for NBC, and

15:13

when The Washington Post published

15:16

this article, I think it was in two thousand nine

15:18

all about its legacy of

15:21

women being relegated to the sidelines. The

15:23

NFL stock response that they gave

15:25

was quote, the NFL network certainly

15:28

will consider these and other female broadcasters

15:30

for future play by play roles based on their interests

15:32

and opportunities to do play by play on

15:34

the NFL network, which at this point

15:37

is very limited, Which basically says

15:39

it just shut up and let us play football.

15:41

You know, we don't really care. Well,

15:44

as Kristen said, the

15:46

harassment that these women reporters

15:48

faced was not limited

15:50

just to the seventies. In the nineteen nineties,

15:53

we have sports writer Lisa Olsen who

15:55

ended up becoming so fed

15:57

up with player harassment, particularly from

16:00

a New England Patriots players, she eventually

16:02

left for Australia. And that harassment

16:05

was a result basically, you know, she

16:07

had she had been subjected to some

16:09

pretty horrible stuff in the locker rooms,

16:11

she sued. The Patriots

16:14

were fined and individual players were

16:16

fined also, and the fans just like

16:18

couldn't handle it. They The

16:20

harassment that she ended up facing

16:23

resulted in her moving to a different

16:26

continent. So that wasn't too long ago,

16:28

Caroline in the nineteen nineties,

16:30

and as we move into the situation

16:33

for women's sports reporters and especially

16:36

female football announcers today,

16:40

things have changed and yet they

16:42

haven't changed so much.

16:44

And we will get into that when we come

16:46

right back from a quick break and

16:49

now back to the show. It's funny

16:51

how some have said, well,

16:54

you know, we have all these women being allowed

16:56

into male locker rooms, but what

16:58

if a male sports writer and to go into

17:01

female locker rooms, to which

17:03

one female sportswriter once

17:06

quipped, well, we would love for

17:08

you to come into women's locker rooms.

17:10

But the problem is that, you know, women's

17:12

sports are often also

17:15

relegated to the sidelines in a way

17:17

because people typically don't care

17:19

about them nearly as much as they do

17:21

men's professional sports. Come onto the locker

17:24

room, come on, come on in and interview

17:26

our players about the sports

17:28

that they just participated in. The Please

17:31

talk to us about athletics. Um so,

17:35

again and again and again, we have this issue

17:37

of women sports reporters

17:39

when it comes to football, especially

17:42

being stuck in these sideline

17:45

roles where you have the conundrum

17:47

of the credibility versus the eye candy. You

17:49

have some people asking whether or not

17:51

they should even be there, whether sideline reporters

17:54

have any value whatsoever, and

17:57

whether or not women are ever going to be able

17:59

to get up into the announcer

18:02

booth. And Lori Orlando,

18:04

who is a senior vice president for ESPN,

18:07

said to Washington Post,

18:09

quote, women have historically moved towards

18:11

sideline reporters because that's what has

18:13

been acceptable. The industry is changing,

18:16

and of course this tool will change. That

18:18

wasn't two thousand nine. Nothing

18:21

has changed. Yeah, nothing

18:23

has changed. And and you know, her quote is

18:25

so nice

18:28

to read, but it's it's

18:31

you know, we've people have talked about

18:33

this, the issue just solely

18:35

of sideline reporters, women sideline reporters

18:38

since there have been sideline reporters,

18:40

and really not much has

18:43

changed. People still look to those

18:45

reporters as being just

18:48

eye candy. Yeah. Um.

18:50

It was interesting to Pam Ward, who

18:52

has been an ESPN sideline reporters since

18:55

two thousand, very well respected

18:57

in her field, said quote,

18:59

more than of women who asked me

19:01

for career advice want to do

19:04

sidelines because that's what they see as

19:06

possible. They see it as a female

19:09

role. And she almost feels

19:11

bad for encouraging them

19:13

so much to get into sideline reporting because

19:16

she realizes experientially that that's the

19:18

ceiling a lot of times. Yeah,

19:20

it's it's unfortunate, like to picture,

19:22

you know, women being funneled. They're going

19:24

up the funnel from college into their careers

19:27

and they just sort of like go to the

19:29

side, like literally in this case, sideline

19:31

reporters instead of continuing up the

19:33

pipe into the more

19:36

coveted sports reporting positions.

19:38

Yeah. I mean, and someone like Andrea Kramer,

19:41

who, like pay Word, is a very well respected

19:44

football reporter. She

19:46

argues that there is a value

19:49

in sideline reporting because of all

19:51

the action going on on the field. But if you know your

19:53

stuff, if you have institutional knowledge

19:56

of a team, that you really can ask the

19:58

right questions and really be able to

20:00

inform the commentators,

20:03

the play by play callers in the booth

20:05

of what's going on

20:07

on the field and whether or not momentum is

20:09

changing. But I

20:11

mean, she's having to argue against a lot of people who

20:13

are saying that the job really isn't necessary

20:16

because a lot of times sidebutin reporters

20:18

are given what three thirty

20:21

second slots one in the first

20:23

half, one in the second half, and one at halftime

20:25

when they're like chasing down a coach who's not going to

20:27

say anything to them, right, and so what your

20:29

only question is like, hey, coach,

20:32

what are you planning for the second half? And

20:35

he's like, keep winning or

20:37

try to score more points. Yeah,

20:41

I can see how you. And I mean I as someone

20:43

who really does not watch football. When

20:45

I do watch football, those sideline reports

20:47

are cringe inducing and I hate

20:50

it because I'm like, Oh, she's just this beautiful

20:52

woman and like a really beautiful jacket,

20:54

and they're just putting her down there to fail.

20:57

And I mean, I think, you know, Kramer and others

21:00

argue that sideline reporters are

21:02

very valuable because, like you said, Kristen, if

21:05

you know your stuff, if you're able to read lips

21:07

and you know, kind of observe what's

21:09

going on and funnel that knowledge up

21:11

to the booth, then you're earning your keep.

21:14

But I would have to then agree

21:17

with other people's assessment that like, if you're

21:19

not even allowed to do that,

21:21

if you're just hired because you're pretty faced and you

21:23

don't have that knowledge of the game of

21:25

the team of what's going on. If

21:27

you don't even know the right questions to ask, then

21:29

you're set up to fail and you're not going to be

21:32

contributing the way that people would like to see.

21:35

Well. Unfortunately, it also makes

21:37

all of those more earnest sports reporters

21:39

look bad in a way. Not that attractiveness

21:42

and uh an in depth sports

21:45

knowledge is mutually

21:48

exclusive at all, but this is

21:50

something that Isabel Markham, who is an

21:52

aspiring sports reporter, was writing

21:55

about over the Daily Beast and she called it

21:57

the beauty Premium and said that it's

21:59

aspired its damage excuse me

22:01

to aspiring sports reporters

22:03

like her. And when she interviewed

22:06

espn W reporter Jane McManus,

22:09

um mcmah has made a really interesting

22:11

point which was quote, it's definitely

22:13

a job that pits two different kinds

22:15

of journalists against each other, and

22:18

that does not happen to men

22:20

in our industry. Basically the

22:22

the I candy versus the more

22:24

hard nosed, credible journalist.

22:27

Yeah. I feel like with men, there doesn't have

22:29

to be that the dividing line.

22:31

It's like, well, you're a man, so you know football

22:33

and so. And that's another thing that these reporters are

22:35

coming up against, which I think we we kind of highlighted

22:38

earlier with that quote as far as just like you

22:41

just look at me and I'm a woman and he's a man,

22:43

and you just automatically assume that he knows

22:45

more than I do. You know, when you might

22:47

have a mediocre male sports reporter

22:50

and a fantastic educated

22:52

in the no female reporter and she's just

22:54

not going to get the same scoops sometimes

22:56

that her male colleague would get. Right, And

22:58

then in terms two of

23:01

the beauty premium for women in broadcasting,

23:04

I mean, unfortunately, this is a

23:06

snapshot of the

23:08

broader fact of the matter

23:11

where yeah, I mean, prettier faces

23:13

for women are often going to

23:15

get jobs more often. Because when that

23:17

Musburger thing happened where he called

23:20

Holly Row smoking, so many jokes

23:22

were made about like, well, Musburger

23:25

certainly isn't smoking. Look at all of these

23:27

men calling the the plays

23:30

in the booth that we're having to see their faces and it's

23:32

not like they're on the covers of g Q.

23:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

23:37

And then we have the issue of the

23:39

fact that there's just very little racial diversity

23:42

as well. Um, this is coming

23:44

from a study called on the Sidelines, Sex and

23:46

Racial Segregation and Television Sports

23:48

Broadcasting, and they point out that

23:50

people of color are not gonna

23:52

really be in the booth either. They said

23:54

they're most likely to be found doing competition

23:56

level reporting followed by studio

23:59

analysis. They're less likely to work

24:01

as play by play announcers. Well,

24:03

there is one analog to the

24:05

issue for female sports reporters of

24:08

the looks versus the credibility

24:10

issue that was actually brought up in the comments section of

24:13

that Daily Beast piece by Isabel

24:15

Markham, which is that now you're seeing

24:17

more and more ex professional

24:19

players automatically being

24:21

moved into those massive suits

24:25

and calling games and not necessarily

24:27

being so good at it. So some would

24:29

say, well, you're seeing the same thing.

24:32

It's these it's these like huge dudes

24:34

who are just being given jobs by

24:36

virtue though of their actual experience on

24:38

the field. I don't feel like it's a valid argument,

24:41

and it's still part of the system. Yeah, and by the

24:43

system, I mean like the capital s system. So

24:46

yeah, that's not not equitable.

24:48

And this might seem like a

24:50

frivolous issue to spend an entire podcast

24:53

episode talking about but if there's

24:55

one thing that comes up over

24:57

and over and over again, whether it's

24:59

something like women in sideline

25:01

reporting or women in stem

25:04

vincibility makes a big difference, you

25:07

know for sure. And

25:09

there are there are some big names

25:12

that that we should talk about as far

25:14

as women who have played

25:16

a big role in sports reporting. UM.

25:18

One is Mary Carrillo, who

25:20

will be serving as an Olympic correspondent for

25:23

the upcoming Winter Olympics in so She

25:26

but she's a former tenant pro tennis player

25:28

who did an incredible job as

25:30

a tennis analyst. She was

25:32

actually named tennis's top analyst

25:35

by Sports Illustrated. She's won two

25:37

Peabody Awards for her work on sports

25:39

documentaries looking at women's participation.

25:42

UM, I mean, you know, she she has made

25:44

quite a mark. Yeah. I feel like tennis is

25:47

one of the rare exceptions in pro sports

25:49

where you are a lot more likely to

25:51

see Mary Carrillo, Billy Jane King

25:53

women commentating.

25:56

And I'm not exactly sure why that is. Maybe

25:58

it's because they're maybe

26:00

men and women have more of an equal playing field with

26:02

tennis. Maybe because of Billy jen King winning

26:04

the Battle of the Sexes against Bobby Riggs

26:06

and proving that women, you know, have their

26:09

stake in that game. I don't know, but I would argue

26:11

that tennis is completely devoid

26:14

of the culture that surrounds

26:16

football. Like there's no

26:19

I mean, I don't when

26:21

I when you say picture tennis fan, I

26:24

don't immediately picture a man necessarily.

26:27

I mean, I just picture someone wearing white. Try to

26:29

picture a Wimbledon dip, you

26:31

know, Wimbledon wings. Sure,

26:34

yeah, no, no, but I mean wings.

26:36

I picture wings and I am happy. But

26:38

no, I mean, yeah, it's it's it's not

26:40

that same. But also you

26:43

have to think about, like I feel like football

26:45

is like this American macho,

26:48

stereotypical, dude like

26:51

kind of culture around it, whereas tennis

26:53

it's all over the world. It's men and

26:56

women playing. You know, it's

26:58

it's just you can it's apples to orange almost

27:00

and so well, it's fantastic

27:02

that tennis has more female commentators

27:05

and announcers and all that stuff. Um,

27:08

it's not the same. Yeah, it's not necessarily

27:11

as impactful, at least speaking

27:13

to you know, American audiences

27:15

for girls who might want

27:17

to be sports journalists. You

27:20

know, I mean, it's like the quote from Pam Worde

27:22

where like all of the women she talks

27:24

to, or of them at least aspire

27:27

to be sideline reporters as as good

27:30

as it gets, it's like, no, think bigger,

27:32

I think bigger. Well because in a lot of ways too,

27:35

I mean, football is such, uh,

27:37

you know, one of the last bastions of

27:39

just like exclusively like

27:42

men stuff. You know, you don't have

27:44

female football teams. You night have like

27:47

I mean, you have cheerleaders on the field

27:50

and that's it. So and and

27:52

the laing Arree League which doesn't count.

27:55

But for that reason though, it is great

27:57

to have role models like a

27:59

LA's Leavis or who we mentioned earlier, who

28:01

was the first female beat reporter to cover

28:04

the NFL, the first female member of the

28:06

Monday Night football announcing team,

28:08

the first woman's sportscaster to preside

28:10

over the post Super Bowl presentations

28:13

being of Super Bowls, of the events

28:16

Lombardi Trophy, and even the

28:18

first female sportscaster took

28:21

carry the Olympic Torch. What hasn't

28:23

she done because she actually is one of the rare women

28:25

who has called an NFL game.

28:28

Leslie, Leslie, I know, and

28:31

then you know we mentioned Andrea Kramer earlier,

28:33

and she uh is actually working with the

28:35

NFL network focusing on player health and

28:38

safety issues, and she's worked

28:40

on more than twenty Super Bowls. Yeah,

28:43

it's a lot of Super Bowls. I remember growing

28:45

up watching Robin Roberts, who is a lot

28:48

better known now for working I

28:50

believe, with Good Morning America, but

28:52

she got her start on Sports Center that

28:54

I used to watch back in the day with my brother. I

28:56

always enjoyed to the women on Sports

28:59

Center. Robin Roberts

29:01

had what was her catchphrase?

29:04

It was something like, go on with your bad self.

29:06

Yeah. Yeah,

29:09

anyway, Well, then you also have Hannah Storm.

29:11

She's the first woman to buy herself

29:14

host a national show for the

29:16

Major League Baseball from thousand.

29:19

She's with ESPN SportsCenter now,

29:21

but she's covered the NFL, NBA,

29:24

and Wimbledon. Yeah, I mean. And the thing

29:26

too about this is that even though we've talked

29:28

over and over again about football, specifically

29:30

American football, this is not just

29:32

an issue with football.

29:35

If you watch an n C double a basketball

29:37

game, if you watch the Master's golf tournament,

29:40

if you watch NASCAR, if

29:42

you watch baseball, you know,

29:44

if even if you watch soccer or football,

29:47

depending on where you were listening to this podcast,

29:50

it's still overwhelmingly men

29:52

who are who are calling the game. And you also

29:55

too with European football you

29:57

have the sexy sideline reporters

29:59

as all. Yeah,

30:01

so I mean, I think you know, we we can

30:04

hammer it over your head. So we've talked about it before.

30:06

But just visibility, visibility of visibility.

30:09

I mean getting girls, little

30:11

girls to dream bigger and

30:13

and aspire to be the

30:16

sports editor, the one who does

30:19

the hiring, the one who goes out there and gets

30:21

all the stories and something

30:23

to watch out for, aside from the commercials

30:26

in the Super Bowl. So, female

30:28

sports fans, especially when I hear from you, I mean,

30:30

what do you think about this sideline reporter

30:32

issues? It frustrating to see women always

30:34

relegated to the side. Is it frustrating

30:37

to see women obviously

30:40

maybe being on camera because

30:42

they are very pretty? I mean a lot

30:44

of them are very attractive, great hair, great

30:47

hair. I love their jacket and I said,

30:49

oh man, and then also getting hit in

30:51

the head sometimes by football's tough out there.

30:53

Tough out there. Yeah,

30:56

So email us mom stuff

30:58

at Discovery dot com. You can also tweet a some mom

31:00

stuff podcast or messages over

31:02

on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages

31:04

to share with you right

31:07

now. Well,

31:11

I've got a Facebook message here from Laura

31:13

in response to episode on women and Hunting,

31:15

and she lives in central Wisconsin,

31:18

a place, she says where deer hunting is of

31:20

the utmost importance to most people. Seriously,

31:23

I almost typed something that most people

31:25

live for here rights. Here are

31:27

a few things that you might find interesting,

31:30

by which I mean problematic. Number

31:32

One, in my middle and high school, parents could

31:34

sign permission slips that would allow their child to miss

31:36

school during the first part of the gun deer season,

31:39

and many of them did. Attendance was

31:41

often so low during those days that those

31:43

of us that did attend got to watch movies.

31:46

Number Two, there's widow's weekend, which

31:48

is a term used widely by most people

31:50

in the media to describe the first weekend of the gun

31:52

dear season, when women will go shopping, or

31:55

go to the spa, or do other girly things because

31:57

their men are out hunting. And the

31:59

number three one of the things you didn't really

32:01

touch on in your podcast is the fact that many women

32:03

participate in hunting as a way to bond

32:06

with the males in their lives father's,

32:08

brothers, boyfriends, etcetera. Some women

32:10

genuinely love these interactions. However, some women

32:12

and girls will pretend to be more into hunting

32:15

than they actually are because they think it makes

32:17

them a cool girl slash wife

32:19

slash daughter. When I was a teenager, many

32:21

couples went deer shining, which is when

32:24

you drive around with a large light and try to spot

32:26

deer as a date. I'm

32:28

not sure how many of the women actually thought this was

32:30

romantic, but it was definitely

32:32

a pervasive part of the teenage

32:35

dating culture in my small

32:37

town. So thanks for those insights,

32:39

Laura. Deer shining. I

32:42

can't say that I would have been

32:44

really interested in that, but I went mud

32:46

dogg and in my youth, mud

32:48

dog it's when it's very dangerous. It's

32:50

when you go into the woods and preferably

32:52

a truck after it's rained, and there's a lot of

32:55

mud, and you drive recklessly through

32:57

the mud to splash around. Children. Don't go mud

32:59

dogging, Oh,

33:01

it's just you make mud splash with cars.

33:03

Fun, Yeah, mud splash. Um.

33:06

Well, I have a letter here from David about

33:08

our crafting episode. Um

33:11

I guess episodes plural, He says.

33:13

I am a gentleman with a degree in fiber and

33:15

it was always fascinating having conversations

33:17

about making work using quote women's

33:20

work as my medium. I grew up

33:22

loving cross stitching and all kinds of crafts,

33:24

and I was stoked to find out I could major

33:26

in it in art school. Since

33:28

then, I have made my living as a puppet maker,

33:30

prop designer, and installation artist.

33:33

I am mostly contacting you, though, to introduce

33:35

you to the work of ben Venom, who does this beautiful

33:37

but almost cartoonishly masculine

33:40

type of quilt at ben venom

33:42

dot com. So thank you for

33:45

your letter, David. Yeah, and definitely check out

33:47

ben Venom's work. It's uh

33:49

they're extreme quilts, I'll put it that

33:52

way. Uh. So thanks to everybody

33:54

who's written into us again. Mom Stuff at

33:56

Discovery dot com is our email address, and

33:58

if you want to find out all the different places

34:00

we are on social and also check out every

34:02

single one of our podcast, videos

34:04

and blog posts. There's one place

34:06

to go, people, and you should go there

34:08

right now and many times after.

34:11

It's Stuff Mom Never Told You dot

34:13

com

34:18

For more on this and thousands of other topics.

34:20

Is it how stuff works dot com