Monday, April 5, 2010

Britt bits

Cool piece in the New York Times today on how Baylor frosh Brittney Griner is challenging conventional beauty standards.

And I toldja so: I'm not the only one who knows this will be Baylors first of many trips to the Final Four.

7 comments:

Scamp (aka Carol Anne) said...

"Cool"? Not my reaction. See my comment #7 on the NYT article.

Sue Favor said...

They're all very good comments, Scamp. I agree with most of them. The idea that they have to justify Griner's looks in the first place is the premise that this story is based upon, and it's a jacked up premise. Women and girls have been objectified for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. The comment that Griner is "a conventionally pretty girl" is moronic and condescending. I'm very well-experienced in seeing all of these nuances, slights and blatant discriminative ways of thinking that keep women oppressed. I walked around angry as hell about it for many, many years.

But this society still sees everything through the lens of males. The existence of females, including their looks, have to be justified through males. The entire reason women's basketball is still not more embraced is because the backwards ass people in the United States of America would rather see a woman with her boobs and ass hanging out than being strong and athletic. Why do you think hip hop songs glorify the bodies of strippers?

The NY Times piece is a dumb, backwards piece to women's basketball fans. To mainstream America, though, it's not. So although the writer and what he says are stupid, we have to be glad that the paper approved the piece to be written, because it can help pave the way for Griner and others. Eventually the taunting - some of it which I heard at a party Sunday - will stop because stupid stories like this helped open the small minds of mainstream America just a little further.

Scamp (aka Carol Anne) said...

Sue, I sure would rather re-read Karen Crouse's articles about Brittney Griner in the New York Times than that weird fashion and style piece!

Still, you're right. Middle America is advancing with baby steps.

The upsurge in lesbophobia on the Web today is sickening. Should Stanford defeat UConn, all American men will be castrated ... or so it would seem.

Sue Favor said...

Ditto on the Crouse, Carol Anne.

Are you serious about the anti-Stanford stuff? Don't tell me what sites - I'm having a nice day and want to keep it that way.

On the hopeful tip, this party I was at Sunday was that of an enlightened family - one of my best friends - and many of them are Sparks season ticket holders. The aforementioned rude dude who made anti-Griner comments was the only egghead, and I shut him down. The rest of the time I was having intelligent convo about women's basketball with males. It was awesome - the way I wish it could be everywhere.

Scamp (aka Carol Anne) said...

Serious? Sadly, yes. Tara terrifies them, I guess.

Do you know that the Big 12--without publicity, of course--fired the officiating crew that let Texas Tech taunt Brittney Griner into that punch? And instructed the remaining refs to call technical fouls for such profane and abusive language?

Better late than never, I guess.

p.s. Will tip-off time never come?

Sue Favor said...

Thank god. I thought you were saying people were trying to dog on/make implications about the student athletes. The young people are my main concern.

Sue Favor said...

Carol Anne, could you email me at: hoopism@yahoo.com? I just came across something I'd like to share with you.