Women to the Back of the Bus

"Little Chrissy Evert!" The words still ring in the mind. Why was she "little Chrissy Evert"? Why not "swift Chrissy Evert" or "agile Chrissy Evert"?

"Little Chrissy" may have done more damage to women's tennis than good. For the entire emphasis of the U.S. Open news coverage was that "a little high school girl" was beating the big names of women's tennis. And slowly but surely the viewer got the message that women's tennis was to be equated to the capabilities of high school girls, while the men's competition was the "best in the world."

Perhaps a comparison will clarify the point. Johnny Neumann is just out of college. Vida Blue is barely old enough to vote, and John Misha Petkevich was winning national titles before he left Harvard. But we don't speak of any of these athletes as "little..., tearing up the professionals."

Bias in the news media is just one of the topics covered in another article in Psychology Today, "Women Sit in the Back of the Bus," by Marie Hunt. Hunt points out that women are always viewed by the press as attractive objects rather than as skilled and effective athletes. Does that sound familiar to the Radcliffe crew or tennis teams? It amazes me how the girls can sit for a picture for Don Gillis's newscasts when they know they will be described as "pretty little misses" instead of serious competitors.

Men or Mice?

But the main argument of Hunt's article is that women are forced, consciously or subconsciously, to act like men in order to prove their athletic ability to themselves and the public:

"The roles of a woman and a successful female athlete are incompatible in the United States. The woman who wishes to participate in sports and remain 'womanly' faces great stress. By choosing sport, she usually places herself outside the social mainstream."

The news world sought to deny Chris Evert's skill by emphasizing her feminity over her ability. Evert may soon find herself forced to deny herself her womanly charms in order to prove her athletic ability to her image of the male chauvinist society.

(I must admit that this does not apply to the black woman athlete. Denied her femininity by the standards of the white community, the black woman has been accepted as an athlete.)

In most countries of the world, women have been granted equal status with men in the athletic field. But Hunt points out that even the Olympics, in its sex test, assumes that these women athletes must be borderline men.

Even this chauvinist writer, who put the Ogilvie article story above this one, hopes the athletic bus will be "desegregated" soon.