When Shannon Eastin steps on the field during the Green Bay
Packers versus the San Diego Chargers game, she will become the first woman to
ref an NFL game.
A couple of weeks ago, the
NFL
hinted that the referee lockout could lead to opening opportunities for
replacement referees. Eastin was among them. On Monday,
The
Los Angeles Times reported that Eastin is officially going to be
a part of the ref crew. The online conversation is worth examining.
A number of news outlets insinuated that this could be an
important moment in gender equity. For instance,
The
Huffington Post called it a “barrier-breaking opportunity,”
CBS
called it an “interesting opportunity,”
SB
Nation, a prominent sports blog network, reported that Eastin is “poised to
break a long-time barrier.”
In the meantime, Julie Hayes, a
Yahoo!
Contributor thinks that this “making history” narrative is “a joke” and “just
wrong” because the replacement referees, including Eastin, have not been
trained properly to be ready for such a high caliber game. To this, a writer on
Feministing,
a feminist blog, said that regardless of whether Eastin is ready or not, this
is “still progress.”
And then there is ESPN.
In this short video, the ESPN
anchor – with a female symbol
graphic behind him -- recites Eastin’s accomplishments in judo and telling us
that “this is meant as a warning to any of the Packers or Chargers who may feel
empowered to question one of her calls on Thursday night; they might wanna
think twice about that.”
Because she is going to take them out?
On a positive note,
Kevin
Seifert, who reported the news for ESPN.com, wrote the following:
“This is an important moment, and Eastin's assignment will
generate relevant discussion on a number of levels. Hopefully there were no
barriers for qualified women to reach the top of the football officiating ladder,
but if there were, you would hope that Eastin's accomplishment would negate
them.”
So it seems that we are witnessing a productive conversation
about what it means for the NFL and for U.S. professional sports to have a
woman on the field in this capacity.
What we can really learn from, though, are the comments to
these articles. ESPN is monitoring (and removing them) every hour, but there are
still more than 2000 comments, and counting, to
Seifert’s
article.
Bill
Williamson’s article got a few too.
Here are some themes that I detected at first glance, with
an example for each:
“This is totally unfair. How can she be
expected to referee an NFL game and make sandwiches at the same time?” and “Weird...
how is she going to ref from the kitchen?”
-
Women are
emotional (and generally unfit to make important decisions)
“Come on. First time a coach yells in her
ear she's balling. Why you're at it, get the chicks off the field when the game
is on. Hasn't been one half way decent women in the NFL, outside of those
lovely Cheerleaders.”
-
Women
have no idea about football
“ALRIGHT!!! JUST WHAT WE NEED!!! WOMEN
OFFICIATING THE GAMES NOW!!
YOU THOUGHT THEY DIDNT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT FOOTBALL BEFORE?
JUST WAIT...” (Capital letters in original text)
-
This political
corrected-ness is ridiculous!
“Now we just need a dude to play in the
lingerie football league and then I know the world is collapsing before my eyes”
and “This is dumb unless she is the most qualified perosn for the job... sets
back women if they gave her the gig just bc she is a woman”
-
It’s ok
for her to ref, ONLY IF she is good looking (some of the contributors
actually posted links to her picture here to determine if she is, indeed,
good-looking enough to be “worthy” of their gaze):
“one question is she hot? if so the nfl is
moving in the right direction if not i dont care” and “As long as she is
attractive I'm cool with it.”
-
Even if
she is a decent ref, the players are rude and uncivilized, hence we should protect
her from harm
“I think it is a bad idea. You have
immature players, who get DUI's, etc. They will have no sympathy for her. She
will get called names, and sexist things thrown at her way. Also, if she gets
caught in a pileup, it will look really bad. I give Ms. Eastin major props for
being able to make it this far, but she may want to stop before something bad
happens to her.”
-
Whatever.
Just do a good job!
“I dont care if a woman, a man, or a
man/pretending to be a woman Refs the game...just get the calls right.”
-
Finally!
“I'm a male and I'm thrilled that there will
be a female ref, we are slowly overcoming societies barriers.”
One comment that also caught my eye was this one: “Hell
yeah, good to see title IX coming to fruition!” After an overwhelming number of
articles, documentaries and statements that were issued in celebration of Title
IX’s 40
th anniversary over the summer, I am particularly sad to see
that
Title IX
is still horribly misinterpreted as the law pertains to federally funded
educational institutions and has no implications to professional football.
What we learn from this online discourse is that news media
outlets seem to be offering a balanced account of NFL’s decisions. We can also
find strong opinions on gender issues that Eastin’s situation raised. And, the
same old sexist (and homophobic) arguments that we are used to seeing whenever
women enter a male-dominated field are also present.
The moment when Eastin steps on the field might be historic
and, perhaps, even promising. For the NFL to “allow” women to officiate a
football game is the right thing to do as there can hardly be a good reason as
to why a female ref would be less competent than a male ref.
But, clearly, we need to keep engaging in conversations
about women’s role in sports. The internet is a great place for that. However, the
internet is also a place where – regardless of how hard ESPN tries to monitor
comments –
sexism and homophobia survive.
So, let’s keep talking. Let’s do so with a particular
attention to fan cultures and the relationship between gender and sports
consumption.
-- Dunja Antunovic