In a six degrees of blog separation thang, Q sent me to Marie who responded to DeFord's comments which I had responded to earlier. Oh, that's a horrible sentence.

Anyhoo, Q took particular note of this part of Marie's commentary:

Team sports are usually contact sports, and that's the bigger issue, I think. Women in sports that involve varying degrees of contact -- from the individual sports of boxing and wrestling, to team sports such as basketball -- challenge traditional ideas about femininity. And that's why they don't get the media attention or public attention they might otherwise deserve.

Writes Q:

It's an interesting contrast to the attention given to physical play in women's basketball and the suggestion that increased physicality could in fact increase interest in the game.

Which brings us back to the question: is increasingly physical play good for women's basketball, especially if that poses a direct challenge to "traditional ideas about femininity?"

Interesting question -- but, I'd have to expand on the idea of "femininity" -- it's not just physical contact that seems to so upset people. It's also the implication of that contact: not only is a woman strong and self-reliant, but physical contact might lead to physical intimacy. (Which, of course, with all those sweaty, grunting, grinding bodies in basketball and football NEVER happens on the men's side. Just ask Teddy Roosevelt. ahem.)

And now I get to ask any volleyball historians a question -- does some of the "acceptability" of that sport related to the fact that there's a net between the women?