Last week at the Title IX blog, Erin discussed the "message sending" aspect of the CWA's report on male practice players.
Consider two propositions.
Proposition #1: Women aren't as good as men at basketball.
Proposition #2: Women's basketball is inferior to, and less important than, men's basketball.
The first proposition is true, at least in the narrow sense that in a game between teams at a comparable level, a men's team would beat a women's team. Lots of purported differences between men and women are made up (or "socially constructed," if you want to talk like a professor), but this one isn't. No matter how many times it watches The Matrix, no matter how much Judith Butler it reads, the Duke women's team would still get its ass kicked by the Duke men's team.
But so what?
The Duke men's team would get its ass kicked by any NBA team, even the crappy Bobcats. And yet lots of basketball fans would rather watch the Duke men than the Bobcats. Lots of fans would say Duke basketball is superior to Bobcats basketball. Why?
Maybe they prefer the style of play. Maybe they like watching players who aren't just in it for the money. Maybe they have a connection to the school or its players. Maybe they love the fan experience at Cameron.
In short: accepting the first proposition doesn't mean accepting the second.
When Coach G uses men in practice, it might send some message to her players that men are better at basketball. That message seems entirely harmless to me, in part because her players already know that men are better at basketball.
Does her decision to use men also send a message to her players that women's basketball is inferior or unimportant? No, it doesn't.
Moreover, as Erin perceptively notes, banning men could also send a bad message: that women are inferior, that they need to be separated from men to be protected.
I am pleased that the NCAA is concerned about the ways in which collegiate sports inferiorize female athletes by "sending messages" to women they they are not as good or their sports are not as important as men's.I agree that we should be concerned about messages. But I don't think that using male practice sends a bad message.
Consider two propositions.
Proposition #1: Women aren't as good as men at basketball.
Proposition #2: Women's basketball is inferior to, and less important than, men's basketball.
The first proposition is true, at least in the narrow sense that in a game between teams at a comparable level, a men's team would beat a women's team. Lots of purported differences between men and women are made up (or "socially constructed," if you want to talk like a professor), but this one isn't. No matter how many times it watches The Matrix, no matter how much Judith Butler it reads, the Duke women's team would still get its ass kicked by the Duke men's team.
But so what?
The Duke men's team would get its ass kicked by any NBA team, even the crappy Bobcats. And yet lots of basketball fans would rather watch the Duke men than the Bobcats. Lots of fans would say Duke basketball is superior to Bobcats basketball. Why?
Maybe they prefer the style of play. Maybe they like watching players who aren't just in it for the money. Maybe they have a connection to the school or its players. Maybe they love the fan experience at Cameron.
In short: accepting the first proposition doesn't mean accepting the second.
When Coach G uses men in practice, it might send some message to her players that men are better at basketball. That message seems entirely harmless to me, in part because her players already know that men are better at basketball.
Does her decision to use men also send a message to her players that women's basketball is inferior or unimportant? No, it doesn't.
Moreover, as Erin perceptively notes, banning men could also send a bad message: that women are inferior, that they need to be separated from men to be protected.
posted by Ted at 3:43 PM
