STICK TO A NUMB STARE/STRIP TO YOUR UNDERWEAR: There's some controversy over in the NFL this week, after Ines Sainz, a female reporter doing a piece from the Jets' practice field and locker room, was the target of cat-calls and juvenile pranks. Some NFL players, including the shy and retiring Clinton Portis, have used this to revisit a variant of the no-girls-in-the-locker-room argument (Portis, paraphrased: "If I see an attractive woman, I am incapable of acting like an adult"); some sportscasters have gone the measure-the-hemline route (Sainz is not exactly discouraging this on her current tour of the talk shows), as if even a hypothetically inappropriately dressed reporter should justify grown men acting like prisoners in a bad TV movie where the hot lawyer has to walk a gauntlet of hooting felons to have a discussion with her client. Grow up a little.
That said, I do not want anyone -- man or woman -- interviewing me while I'm getting dressed. Period. I know reporters have deadlines, and they need to get their postgame interviews up right away, etc. Too bad. At my gym, there is a person who always tries to strike up casual conversations in the locker room, and I just want to tell him, "please be quiet while I devote all of my attention to my underpants." When I'm getting dressed, that's my private time. I don't like any intrusion on that time -- from my kids, from my wife, from the voluble crazy person at my gym, or from a professional reporter just doing his or her job.
So now you know why I'm not a professional athlete.
My wife and I had a deep discussion about this incident last night. My view is that, while deplorable, the Jets actions were, in some ways, brought about by the provocative dress of Ms. Sainz. However, I feel icky about this stance, because it sounds too much like the "She was asking for it/she's a slut" defense that I've only ever seen work once in either the courtroom or the court of public opinion, and I hate that defense for many reasons.
ReplyDeleteMy wife was firmly agreeing with me for a while that there is a difference between dressing "cute" -- which is how I can separate Erin Andrews from Ms. Sainz -- and "provocative". And then I told her that Ms. Sainz was from a Hispanic television network. "Well, that's different." "Why?" "Because that type of dress is more acceptable in the Hispanic culture." "Does that excuse it?" /deep discussion continues
Ultimately, we came to an agreement that the Jets aren't in the Hispanic culture. And while the Jets shouldn't have acted in a locker room mentality, particularly while the public is around (if they want to when not wearing Jets colors, go for it... it's not a national issue), Ms. Sainz should have known or at least expected exactly what reaction her clothing would have prompted.
Altogether, the whole thing makes me feel hinky. I don't want to defend the Jets, because that feels wrong. I also don't want to defend Ms. Sainz, because I don't think she's noncomplicit. But because of the whole situation, I don't like the fact it's a top headline right now.
Being inappropriately dressed (and I'm not going to get into whether that was the case here) is grounds for discipline from your employer, for criticism from your business partners, or for rejection by your employer's customers. It is not an invitation to or a justification for harassment.
ReplyDeleteIf some legal services vendor walked into my office with what I believed to be an inappropriately low-cut blouse, I might complain to her boss. If my receptionist/office assistant then made a comment to her about her breasts (he wouldn't), I would fire him. Behavior that is inappropriate under any circumstances is just that.
I've never been a fan of getting that "right after the big game" soundbite, because they are all the same:
ReplyDelete-Reporter leans over to scream into the player's ear.
-Player, breathless from the game, pants out the standard line about 'tough competition, team came together, stepped up, yadda yadda'.
-back to celebrating.
These guys all need time to enjoy the post-game, and I feel the locker roon should be an extension of that. No media until they have done their cool down, showered, and can act like the media darlings we expect them to be. No good ever comes from letting the media follow players from the field into the locker rooms, so why do we let them? And why is so surprising when testosterone-fueled adreneline junkies act in this manner when there is an attractive woman in the room as they are stripping down and headed for the showers?
Dressing inapporpriately is not an invitation or justification for harassment in the same way that walking down the street with cash hanging out of my pockets is not an invitation or justification for a mugging. What the harasser/mugger does is unquestionably wrong and should be fully punished. But that doesn't mean that I am not an idiot for what I did or that I should keep doing it in the future. That being said, the debate about the reporter's clothes is a red herring. This reporter may have been inappropriately dressed (I've never seen video/photos of this alleged incident), but from the sounds of some of these athletes, like Mr. Portis, it wouldn't matter what she was wearing, players would act like idiots.
ReplyDelete(1) I think the only time someone is asking for their clothing to provoke conversation is in the case of an "Ask me about my grandchildren!" sweatshirt.
ReplyDelete(2) I think this assumes that women can control male reactions depending on what they wear. Would that it were possible to find an outfit that would not encourage male attention. I think many - not all, but many - women have had the experience of being hassled from car windows and passers-by while unshowered and wearing the sartorial equivalent of a snuggie. It has a lot more to do about power than it does about attractiveness, and I suspect the sidelines/locker room of a professional athletic event is all about performing masculinity.
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2010/08/30/cartoon-street-harassment/
Refuting (1): http://www.threadless.com/product/2464/Traditional_Greeting
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the harrassment/mugging analogy is that it basically equates sexual harrassment/assault with a property crime (mugging). In neither case is the victim ever to blame, the only person who is ever at fault is the harrasser/mugger. I completely agree with you that the reporter's clothing is a red herring, but the don't walk around flashing money/don't walk around dressed provocatively argument doesn't hold up when street/locker room harrassment is viewed not as having to do with attractiveness but as a display of power, as Adlai says below.
ReplyDeleteI have no problem participating in conversations naked in the locvker room, although I never initiate them.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Ines goes, she's incoherent most of the time trying to speak English, so I have a hard time getting a take on her. Not to be all old fashioned, but guys can rein it in when they're around hot ladies. It's called being a gentleman, and it means treating all women with respect. Even my my nutty mom was able to teach that to me.
The argument that I've been pedalling around is that while these players are in front of reporters, regardless of the place (the locker room), regardless of whatever outside influences they encounter (crude jokes, booze, tits aplenty, what-have-you), they are representing their company in what essentially constitutes their workplace, and who gets to behave like that while in the workplace? Sure, they should get some time to wind down from the game. Their management should step in and bar reporters from the locker room if that's what they want. But until that happens, this is your job, and no one gets to act like an animal/teenager at their job. What she's wearing is completely, totally irrelevant. What did she expect when she walked into a locker room full of men? She expected them to act like grown-ass men, and not children. She was doing her job, and she expected them to do theirs, plain and simple.
ReplyDeleteAaaaaand that is why I love Adlai and sconstant.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree that what she's wearing is irrelevant. I admit that I don't know what she was wearing, but from the comments it was rather provocative. If you want to be treated like a professional, dress like one. I teach middle school. I don't show up to work or to parent teacher interviews in provocative clothing, or dressed like my students, or in what i wear to lounge around on weekends. I fully expect that if I did, my students AND their grown-ass parents would have a hard time taking me seriously as a professional educator.
ReplyDeleteMmmm... yes and no. Yeah, women get harassed even when we don't feel like we're looking our best, but I think we all know we're more likely to get a certain kind of attention if we wear a short skirt and low cut top than if we wear, as Adlai so eloquently put it, the sartorial equivalent of a snuggie. I would argue that sexual assault is about power, but catcalls and come ons are more about how attractive the target is to the person making the comments.
ReplyDeletePlease understand - I'm not saying her clothing choices excuse the behaviour, but it goes a long way toward explaining it.
It's entirely possible her station asks her to dress however she was dressed. Many news outlets require their female reporters to dress sexily (that's not actually a word, right?) for on-air work. Her outfit may not have been appropriate for the courtroom or the classroom, but it might be what she's expected by her company to wear every day on the job. As a producer, I've had to send wardrobe back when it wasn't, well, attractive enough for my talent, male or female.
ReplyDeleteBut if they catcalled you, they'd pay, right?
ReplyDeleteMan, maybe I'm a strange person but I cannot wrap my head around the idea that people think Sainz is at fault. Did I accidentally wake up in 1975?
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I can't fathom that this is relevant, but I saw her clothes -- jeans and a top. They were not appropriate for my office (too tight, too casual), but they were perfectly appropriate for, say, a person walking down the street. Teenagers wear less to school every day. The clothes weren't "provocative," in the sense that they cannot reasonably have provoked anything. It wasn't like she was wearing a g-string and a handbra, for chrissakes.
Excellent point. I hadn't thought of that.
ReplyDeleteJust found an interesting article from January of '09 written by a female reporter for USC, talking about girls in the locker room. One of the main things she says is that to be taken seriously, you have to act serious. Now, I don't know anything about Ines Sainz, but if her only qualification for talking about sports on tv is looking pretty in a dress so men would want to watch her talk about sports, then I'm sorry, she doesn't belong. She doesn't deserve to be harassed, but if she had found a way to earn respect amongst the players, then what she was wearing would matter less.
ReplyDeleteLike it or not, we are judged, and judge others, by their appearance. Impressions are formed, rightly or wrongly, based on the image a person puts forth, and what a person wears is part of that.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying she's at fault. I specifically said that what she looked like is not an excuse for boorish behaviour, but is an explanation. It doesn't make catcalling and juvenile pranks okay and it doesn't make comments like Portis' acceptable.
I totally agree that one might not be taken seriously based on their clothes (or, for that matter, their hair, their inability to use the subjunctive correctly, their tendency to say "I'm not here to make friends" on a reality show, etc.). I judge people all the time. But those are judgments I keep to myself.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem is the station's approach to sports broadcasting, then.
ReplyDeleteAgain, excellent point.
ReplyDeleteOne last comment from me... I looked up photos of the incident to see the outfit in question for myself. I completely agree with Isaac that what Sainz was wearing was appropriate for a person walking down the street. However, she wasn't a person walking down the street, she was a person doing her job, and in my opinion, that outfit is not work-appropriate. Whoever decided she should wear that, whether it was Sainz herself, a producer or someone else, made a bad decision.
ReplyDeleteAnd for the last time, that doesn't mean I think the way she was treated was acceptable. I just think that, unfortunately, it's not surprising.
Nobody said you shouldn't judge her or form an opinion (rightly or wrongly) based on what she was wearing. Judge all you want. I just said it is irrelevant to whether the Jets players and coaches behaved inappropriately.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Becca is right -- my understanding is that if she dressed like Al Michaels, TV Azteca would shitcan her. It has certain expectations about how its female on-air personalities will dress, and those expectations are not the same as, say, ESPN's.
When the whole story about Erin Andrews being spied on came out, everyone acknowledged it was wrong but lots and lots of people questioned whether or not she should have expected that kind of attention, being attractive and taking part in the sports world. No one was excusing the behavior of the guy who violated her, but there was an undercurrent of, "Well, you know, she's hot."
ReplyDeleteMy point is that it almost doesn't matter what the violation or harassment is. If a woman is hot, the murmurings are always what she could have done differently to prevent being harassed. Clearly, Susie Kolber and Shelley Smith haven't been targets of the same actions because they're not hot enough to warrant violation. So if Erin Andrews and Ines Sainz would just tone down the hotness, men wouldn't have to spy on them or harass them in the workplace.
Might I suggest a burqa?
Going back to Isaac's original comment, as someone who's not a sports fan, I've never understood the whole "locker-room-interview" concept. Why is it any more appropriate to interview athletes when they're getting undressed after work than anyone else? Do we have reporters hounding Presidential candidates right after the debate when they're changing from their navy suits and red power ties into their Batman Underoos? It seems like an environment that just begs for stuff like this to happen: Throw together a bunch of very rich, physical men, who are used to getting whatever they want -- including wide adoration and sexual attention from women -- at a time when they're hopped up on adrenaline and the thrill/agony of victory/defeat, and have people just come by for a chat? This is not at all to excuse, condone, or otherwise absolve them, but of course crap like this is going to happen. Should these guys get a grip and be professional and control themselves? Yes. Am I shocked, shocked to find misogynist power-games going on in locker rooms filled with extremely successful athletes immediately after a testosteronefest on the field? No, not so much.
ReplyDeleteSomething that's being lost as the discussion moves to focus exclusively on locker room decorum (or lack thereof) is that the original incident (a position coach deliberately throwing footballs toward her, directing the drills and thus the players her way) took place ON THE PRACTICE FIELD, as Sainz stood on the sidelines ostensibly either doing whatever it is reporters do during practice, or minding her own damn business. Yes, more boorish and inappropriate behavior took place in the locker room later, but all the debate over locker room as sanctum sanctorum and when it's appropriate for a reporter doing his/her job to interview a player? Almost entirely a red herring here. The offending conduct of Jets staff and players started well before Sainz hit the locker room for interviews.
ReplyDeleteI suspect AC's directing his comment to others, but, just to be clear, I wasn't defending the players' actions, either on account of the setting or for any other reason. I don't know what happened before (I don't follow this stuff), but sounds like the Jets and their coaches are/were being a bunch of jackasses. Is there a gender component to the on-the-field stuff? I.e., is the idea that they wouldn't do that to a male reporter? (Innocent question. I have no clue.)
ReplyDeleteMine was a more general comment, Russ. And yes, they were targeting her, it seems, because she was an attractive woman - they likely would not have done that to a male reporter. Even an attractive one, dressed seductively and/or deemed worthy of package blurcling.
ReplyDeletePoint being, the players' complaints about invasion of their private space in the locker room (however one may feel about the concept) seems in this case just cover/post hoc rationalization for the bad behavior that preceded it on the practice field.
Is there a valuable lesson about professionalism here for women reporters, and women sports reporters in particular? Maybe - it's not my milieu, but Ashley Fox of the Philly Inquirer thinks so. But take Sainz and her outfit and her reputation as a less-than-serious sports reporter out of the equation for a moment -- couldn't this just as easily have happened to, say, a media crew member, or another invited guest who happened to be standing on the sidelines?
Suzy Kolber not hot? Bite your tongue.
ReplyDeleteShe was hot enough for Namath.