A proper little madam
Another Karen! Ok she’s not white and she’s not calling the manager but shut up, she is a Karen. She doesn’t do what male journalists tell her to do. Bitch.
Naomi Osaka, currently the highest-paid female athlete in the world, announced that she would withdraw from the French Open. She cited preservation of her mental health, the same explanation she’d provided earlier when she publicly declined to participate in tournament-related news conferences.
“Diva behavior,” declared the lead sportswriter of the Telegraph, following the news-conference revelation. “World sport’s most petulant little madam,” decreed Piers Morgan, taking a break from his bizarre Meghan Markle fixation to harass another young woman of color.
Karen. Karen Karen Karen Karen.
So from my limited, headline-osmosis understanding of the sport, here’s what I have discerned: Damned if you’re Naomi Osaka refusing to participate in a news conference. Damned if you’re Naomi Osaka three years ago, agreeing to participate in a news conference, and then fully half of the questions are about your opponent’s behavior — Osaka bested Serena Williams in a controversial match — and you end up apologizing for winning.
Damned if you’re Serena Williams, asked on the spot to publicly translate your anger into a “teachable moment” for your daughter. Damned if you’re Maria Sharapova being informed at age 17: “You’re a pinup now, especially in England. Is that good? Do you enjoy that?” Damned if you’re Serena Williams having once competed against Maria Sharapova, and a reporter approaches you at the French Open in 2018 with a question he says he’s “been waiting about 14 years” to ask, and the question is whether, more than a decade ago, Williams was “intimidated” by Sharapova’s “supermodel good looks.”
Ok but have some sympathy for the reporters, because what can you say about a female athlete? They’re just not interesting the way male athletes are. Reporters didn’t make that decision, nature did.
A 2016 Cambridge University Press study analyzed the language used to describe male and female athletes in the media. The most common words used for men but not women: “fastest,” “strong,” “big,” “great.” The most common words used for women but not men: “unmarried,” “married,” “pregnant,” “aged.”
…
Hollywood and politics have been dealing with the issue of the problematic news conference for years. The hashtag #AskHerMore was born from the exhaustion of women who longed to be quizzed on anything besides [what] they were wearing or whom they were sleeping with.
What else is there though? Women just aren’t interesting, remember?
H/t Sackbut
I was commenting to a coworker on the lack of middle aged women in plays. I said something to the effect of most people assume the lives of middle aged women are dull; they don’t believe a middle aged woman could have a rich life. My co-worker snorted when I disagreed. I, a middle-aged woman, had no right having an opinion on…middle-aged women! He, a twenty-five year old male, knew more than I did about the lives of middle-aged women.
What he probably meant is that they aren’t sexually alluring to 25-year-old men anymore, so anything they do is of little interest to anybody.
The good news is that I think the responses cited in the article are in the minority; I think there’s been broad support for Osaka. She’s obviously going through some tough times — I think the “diva” insults are way off base — and I wish her well.
Sports coverage of tennis at the Slams in particular is bad. You get a lot of writers who don’t generally cover tennis, and sometimes don’t even cover sports, who show up at the Slams — think London tabloid writers showing up at Wimbledon. Those are the prime candidates for the dumb, insulting questions focused on their bodies, their love lives, and of course the tiresome insistence on comparing every black player to other black players.
That said, there is a tricky issue in that press conferences are generally seen as being important to promoting the game, which is what brings in the money for the players. It’s possible that’s an outdated notion (or was never true to begin with) in an era when players communicate directly to fans on social media. Osaka put the tournament officials in a bit of a pickle when she announced that she wouldn’t be complying with the rule that all players are required to follow, and then she (and/or her team) didn’t respond to inquiries from the officials to discuss the issue, during which she could have communicated the mental health concerns that she understandably left out of her initial statement. The tennis brass then overreacted in issuing their threatening statement (and, in an astonishing display of hypocrisy, refused to take questions about it).
So, I’d say there’s some blame to go all around here in terms of communication — in the case of Osaka herself, obviously I cut her some slack given what she’s dealing with, I just wish someone on her team had been a better advocate for her. But of course, fuck Piers Morgan and his ilk.
You know what would make women’s sports more interesting? Men!
I was just reading that Simone Biles is getting a lower score than she should because her natural ability puts other women at a disadvantage in comparison.
It is her duty, nay, her moral duty to attend these press conferences. Companies pay millions for product placement at press conferences, workers spend hours and hours getting the label facing just so, the light shining nicely, and leaving just enough room for the interviewee’s face to show.
How dare she refuse to be a tool for corporate domination of all aspects of our lives?
Piers Morgan – on the one hand, he did hold Tory ministers to account, and good for him, but the man is fundamentally a bullying, preening, stroppy small boy who, as a dialogue with James O’Brien you can find on Youtube shows, is hair-triggered to throw tantrums at the drop of a hat over the most trivial things if he thinks they smack in any small way of being ‘woke’ or offend his banal and silly prejudices. I remember him flouncing out like a petulant little whelp after being challenged on his own show over his remarks on Meghan Markle – both off the set and off the programme altogether.
I remember that too – I think I may have said something about it here.
Re #6
Yes, there was some discussion here.
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2021/new-record/
The winner will have to live with an asterisk.
I admit feeling divided on this: on the one hand, I respect Ms. Osaka’s dignity in not appealing to wokeist language; on the other hand, it seems to me that when she says “my mental health,” part of what she means is that she shouldn’t have to put up with the misogynistic abuse she can expect in press conferences.
I agree that Ms. Osaka is yet another woman being punished for refusing to play along with her own sexist deprecation. I also agree that it’s not her job to make people understand that.
This NYT article on the changing power dynamic in sports (using Osaka as one example), where athletes are seizing power from owners and media, may be of interest.
Press conferences at sporting events are silly things; I don’t see the appeal, and I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other about athletes or coaches attending or not attending for any reason. I support Osaka for choosing not to take part in a frivolous endeavor, even at significant personal cost, and I think it is a good thing that the sexism involved in these events is highlighted.
The issue of media control over sports is something that has become increasingly visible to me as I’ve read more about the NCAA and the NFL. Some athlete actions (e.g. those of LeBron James) used to seem petty and inappropriate, but I now understand are part of the wave of athletes taking control over their lives. Osaka is one of many athletes taking stands. Yes, many of these athletes are paid quite well, but they aren’t slaves. Some of the athletes controlled by the media aren’t paid at all. I support Osaka and others seeking fair and appropriate treatment.