feminism

What to do about Joanna Krupa? Just when it seemed safe to support her on Dancing With the Stars (she and Derek totally ruled Team Tango, after all) she goes and does an interview with Fox News and starts trash-talking feminism.

You see, Krupa (a swimsuit model by trade) will be featured on the cover of next month's Playboy and she doesn't want feminists to say a word about it.

I think they [women who don't support the magazine] suffer from lack of knowledge and tunnel vision. How many of those self-important, so-called ‘feminists’ have been on the set when a celebrity shot a Playboy spread? There you go. What is feminist about discriminating a photo shoot just because it involves female (partial) nudity that happens to give men pleasure? Pathetic.

Aha. So we're pathetic now, because we don't want to praise her decision to pose for a magazine that trades in objectifying women. And, you know, we "so-called feminists" should just go to the set and see the gender equality for ourselves, because it's not like just a privileged few young, conventionally beautiful, able-bodied, mostly white women are invited to participate. All women could be in Playboy if they weren't so darned uptight, right?

 

I get quite a bit of surprised responses when folks find out that I'm an avid sports fan. An incredulous "You really know your shit," says someone, or maybe, more derisively, "Where did that come from?" Or else, I get a well-meaning affirmation that I'll make some guy very lucky (presumably because the guy will get to share his presumed sports fandom with his girlfriend).

These are the reactions that come from folks who simply don't expect females to know much about sports. But there's another kind of surprised response that I get from progressive friends who don't buy into sports and, especially, sports culture. They will point out that the sports world is saturated with macho posturing. It frequently excuses the bad behavior of its heroes; it celebrates brute force; it's history is poisoned by cheating and drug-use; and it is often actively and explicitly hostile to women.

How, these friends wonder, can I get into it? How could I possibly reconcile my feminism with it?

Well, folks, I do, and quite passionately so. (Though of course I have my eyes wide open; it is because of my love of sports that I intend to not ever justify the worst of it).

Why that love? Consider ...