female athletes

Toe to Toe

brittany — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Toe to Toe was part of the official selection of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. The story is simple: Jesse and Tosha are both lacrosse players at a Washington, D.C. prep school and although they seem predestined to be rivals, they become the best of friends. Each girl is completely different from each other. Jesse (Louisa Krause) is the wealthy yet lonely and promiscuous daughter of detached parents with Daddy issues. Tosha (Sonequa Martin) is the minority with a background of financial hardship but driven by her ambition of acquiring an Ivy League education on a full scholarship.

At first glance, the film could appear forced and stereotypical; unfortunately, that’s exactly what it turns out to be. There’s enough teenage drama to fill the entire four years of high school. Jesse and Tosha are faced with issues regarding STDs, harassment, racial conflicts, and everything in between. Add to that the dramatic suspense of being part of an athletic team and you have the basis for the movie. There’s a heavy use of socio-economic clichés and an especially artificial climax that almost obscures everything else about the movie.

At other times, though, the protagonists’ acting chops shine through and the movie becomes enjoyable. Both performances are well balanced. Krause manages to portray a promiscuous but self-aware character while Martin has enough poise and restraint to make her character vulnerable and relatable.

The movie’s setting is also quite enjoyable; the scenes outside the prep school and in the actual city are lively and more realistic. This is due to the fact that they were shot with local musical talent. The protagonists seem to feed from the city’s energy and only magnified their charisma and talent.

Yet, in a movie that seems so contrived it doesn’t seem enough to carry it through. Toe to Toe didn’t surpass being bland.

Written by: Jessica Sánchez, October 1st 2010

Hard Knocks: Rolling with the Derby Girls

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:03:00 +0000

By Shelley Calton

Kehrer

Shelly Calton’s Hard Knocks: Rolling with the Derby Girls is a book of photographs that illustrates everything I love about black and white photography; the smoky interplay of light and dark, negative space and shadow. These gritty, noir-ish photos of the Houston Roller Derby are captivating, but sadly the book in its entirely lacked the oomph I was hoping for.

I’ve seen a lot of roller derby. I’ve witnessed broken bones and chipped teeth and a lot of other gruesome casualties of this super competitive, sometimes vicious sport, but the biggest problem with Calton’s photographs is that we only get hints of the most infamous aspect of the game. Perhaps she intentionally tried to shy away from the brutality, blood, sweat, and tears, but what the hell for?

Hard Knocks’ foreword was written by Tracy Xavia Karner, Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Visual Studies and at the University of Houston. According to Karner, the women of Houston’s roller derby “confront, disrupt, and ultimately subvert gender expectations,” but you wouldn’t know that based on Calton’s work, which greatly focuses on the look of the derby girls and not what they do in the rink. There are plenty of shots of fishnet stockings, garter belts, perfectly coiffed hair, expertly applied makeup, intricate tattoos, and awesome roller derby girl style, about as many as there are of the girls cheering each other on, hugging, smiling, and getting lost in other feel good moments.

But—and there’s a point here—this is roller derby, for fuck’s sake. Hard Knocks features very little of the action that makes the sport so unique and interesting. Sure, I’m willing to admit that many (men, in particular) find roller derby alluring because of that fact that it features foxy, confident women looking good and being aggressive as hell, but let’s not forget that it’s a sport, goddamn it. Omitting the grit is like taking photographs of a football game without featuring the injuries, the sacks, and the mid-air collisions.

It’s not all bad, of course. The portraits of the women on Houston’s team featured at the beginning of the book are fascinating. These women seem so harsh and strong and prepared to kick ass, while also managing to appear completely feminine and soft. After all, none of these things are mutually exclusive and it all comes out in the rink, I just wish that it didn’t dissipate after a few pages of Calton’s book.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, January 25th 2010

The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend

admin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Jeff Leen

Atlantic Monthly Press

One of my most irritating memories of the early and mid-1980s is my younger brother's insistence on having TV wrestling in the background on Saturday mornings. Even at age nine, the “sport” seemed staged, hokey, and fake. But imagine a time when wrestling was based on skill as much as show, when young American women saw it as an escape from poverty as much as a pass into celebrity. Author and Washington Post editor Jeff Leen skillfully transports readers back to the period when wrestling had a cult following in his biography of the most famous female wrestler in America.

Exhaustively researched, The Queen of the Ring, Leen's biography of Mildred Burke, who helped shape the world of American and, later, Japanese women's wrestling, is a fast read. With an engaging writing style and a sympathetic voice, Leen chronicles the surprising rise and equally devastating fall of a tough, beautiful, and gullible Burke.

Drawing heavily on her unpublished autobiography, Leen shows the many sides of Burke. She was arrogant and grasped for the riches she never had, but also generous to those down on their luck. A savvy marketer who crafted an image, Burke was also innocent and all too trusting. A woman of many contradictions, Burke became a champion in professional sports, but she was almost always down for the count in her personal life.

Burke's success in a sport that was openly hostile to women—some states outright banned female wrestling competitions, considering it immoral—was no small feat in an era when women were largely seen and not heard, if they were seen at all. But with her manager and husband Billy Wolfe (if there's ever been a villain in black, it's this guy), she endured humiliation, emotional and physical abuse, and financial setbacks.

As a picture of the times, it's hard for the reader not to be outraged by the way women athletes were treated by managers, promoters, and their own husbands. It's equally telling that Burke eventually opened a school to train housewives to "fight back." What we now call domestic violence was still largely acceptable.

Whether or not you're interested in sports, The Queen of the Ring is an interesting look at both the woman and the era she helped define.

Written by: M.L. Madison, November 11th 2009

Football Under Cover

admin — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:02:00 +0000

Directed by Ayat Najafi, David Assmann

Flying Moon Filmverleih GbR

I encountered one major problem with Football Under Cover very early on: it wouldn’t play either on my U.S. regional DVD player or through a few of the many video players on my computer. Eventually, I managed to get it to run in Windows Media Center and sat down to watch.

The earliest scenes were so well done, I started to doubt my own memory. This was supposed to be a documentary on the first international match for the Iranian women’s international football team. (Football, of course, is what people in the U.S. call soccer.) What came up on my monitor, however, could easily be mistaken for a feature film. After watching the first ten or fifteen minutes, I had to find out, so I stopped the DVD and pulled up my favorite search engine. Yes, Football Under Cover is a documentary, an extraordinarily well filmed and edited documentary, but a documentary nonetheless.

As impressive as the filmmakers’ technique was, the story it captures is even more so. A young German woman named Marlene Assmann, a member of an amateur football team from Berlin, hears from an Iranian friend, director Ayat Najafi, that the Iranian women’s team has never played a match despite a great deal of training. The two decide that Assmann’s team, BSV AL-Dersimspor, will go to Iran to play against them. Together, they struggle through the various obstacles posed by the Iranian bureaucracy and the escalation of political tensions to get an official invitation for a match.

As the young Germans prepare for and undertake their trip to the Islamic Republic of Iran, the clash of cultures is examined thoroughly and sensitively. The best stories, however, come from the Iranian side. The simple act of being a female footballer in Iran must be courageous in and of itself, but the women we meet often go one step further. Iranian team member Niloofar Basir admits on camera to practicing in a local park disguised as a boy, questions the dual standards for behavior in the university, and challenges her nation’s record on human rights for women. Female spectators, who are normally forbidden to visit the nation’s sports arenas, respond to a warning from their “moral guardians” by chanting about the denial of their freedoms and their right to attend the stadium. In light of Iranian women’s leading role in the recent opposition protests against the “election” of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, these scenes are even more inspiring.

Even if you have to watch this film on your computer, do it. The Iranian women alone will make you proud to be a woman and a feminist.

Written by: Melinda Barton, October 11th 2009

Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World

admin — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:05:00 +0000

By Glenn Stout

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

From 1922 through 1925, Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle was widely considered to be the best female swimmer in the world, and had no trouble competing, and winning, against men either. In 1926, at the age of nineteen, she became the first woman to swim the English Channel, shattering the previous record by two full hours.

Young Woman and the Sea is the story of Trudy Ederle told by sportswriter Glenn Stout, but it is more than a biography. Using interspersed chapters, Stout gives readers lessons on the history of swimming, the English Channel, and those who came before Ederle in women’s swimming and in the swimming of the Channel. The main focus of the book is Ederle, but it is also the story of those who helped make it possible for her to succeed so greatly.

In the early 1900s, women weren’t taught, or often allowed, to swim. It wasn’t seen as proper and few thought that women were physically capable of even doing it. The Women’s Swimming Association, founded in 1917, had a mission to change that view. Part of that mission was recruiting young girls to train, and, in 1918, Ederle became one of them. Ederle in particular challenged the psychological and scientific reasoning that women were not, nor could ever be, as strong as men.

Ederle’s first attempt at the English Channel was in 1925, but a sexist coach—who is rumored to have poisoned her—sabotaged her efforts both mentally and physically. One year later, under the guidance of a new coach, Ederle swam the Channel better than anyone before her, making the phrase “weaker sex” sound old fashioned.

After Ederle, more women crossed the Channel, one within days of her successful attempt, and more women’s sports, which had seemed so controversial before, were added to the Olympics. More women also began to turn professional, reaping the same financial benefits as professional male athletes, thanks to a change in attitudes toward female athletes.

Ederle was a celebrity at a time when few knew what that term meant. However, soon after her historical swim, she slipped into obscurity almost as easily as her fame began. One of the reasons Stout gives for her being so quickly forgotten was that the changes she inspired became so pervasive so quickly.

The story of Trudy Ederle is important and should be told often. It would be wonderful as a young adult or children’s book because of its inspirational messages of equality and perseverance. Ederle’s reasoning behind swimming the Channel may have had more to do with personal goals than gender equality, but she sure helped things along. Young Woman and the Sea is a charming read and an important reminder of how thankful women today should be for women like Ederle who have come before them.

Written by: Jill Hindenach, July 28th 2009

Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball

admin — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:38:00 +0000

By Jennifer Ring

University of Illinois Press

Stolen Bases is as intelligent and powerful as any professional U.S. women’s baseball team would be, should be, and could be...if any were supported enough to exist. The book is a concise 180 pages, an assertive objection to the current status of baseball in the United States in its exclusion of women, and a worthwhile read for those who find themselves in the middle of the Venn diagram of athletes, spectators, and feminists.

Judging a book by its cover, it’s serious: red, white, and blue varsity-style lettering covers an action photograph of real women playing real baseball. I like that casual bookstore browsers may take in this positive representation as they walk by, and I’d encourage readers to pick it up.

The book’s subject matter is framed by author and political science professor Jennifer Ring’s personal love of baseball, and she uses the prologue and epilogue to recount her family’s attempts to make baseball more inclusive for her daughter. This, in turn, makes the issues feel more urgent and tangible. The reader is also drawn in by the humor inherent in the chapter headings, and even by small details like the author’s parenthetical inclusion of her friends’ and mentors’ favorite baseball teams in the acknowledgments.

The heart of the book, though, is a harder read. It is well-paced, informative, and is evidently well researched and supported. Baseball’s history is explained, almost decade by decade, and then systematically deconstructed to identify the choices, conditions, and decisions that have almost always led to the exclusion of women on all but the most amateur levels.

The book’s pace eerily echoes the history of baseball’s treatment of women. Again and again, Ring’s narrative excites and includes the reader, only for another obstacle to interrupt what could have been an amazing victory for female players and fans of what is culturally asserted to be a “national pastime.” Stark facts and their interpretations could make for depressing reading, but Ring’s skill as a storyteller is to weave her own wry asides into the account, acting as a guide the reader can identify with during the bleaker eras in women’s baseball history, and as a comrade when celebrating women’s baseball successes.

Stolen Bases most certainly supports feminist values, and is also particularly inclusive of race and class in its arguments. It does not, however, go into any depth regarding lesbian players (other than a cursory mention of ‘lesbianism’ being one of the feared outcomes offered up by those who opposed pro-ball for women). It also assumes the reader defines gender as a binary concept for the purposes of the arguments contained in the book.

By the end of Stolen Bases, many readers will feel spurred into action. Ring would have done well to include a model for grassroots supporters and a practical outline for baseball professionals and governing bodies, perhaps in appendices.

A few weeks ago, a girl named Mackenzie Brown in Bayonne, New Jersey hit a perfect little league game. Thanks to Stolen Bases, I’m much more able to appreciate what a fantastic achievement this is, and how much work still needs to be done to further promote women’s inclusion in baseball.

Written by: Chella Quint, June 26th 2009

No Girls in the Clubhouse: The Exclusion of Women from Baseball

admin — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:40:00 +0000

By Marilyn Cohen

MacFarland & Company

The premise of No Girls in the Clubhouse is that baseball could be successfully gender-integrated at all levels with no disadvantage to either side, but social expectations—not biological deficiency—exclude women from full participation in the sport. Feminists won't be surprised to learn how, in anthropologist Marilyn Cohen's analysis, the historical achievements of female baseball players have been obscured. Cohen writes that harassment, stereotyping, and social isolation have pressured women to stay out of baseball, while stigmatizing those women who do play. It is an old story, repeated in every designated male realm women have dared to enter.

Yet it is heartening to see this story told by a scholar as sharp as Cohen, and to find that the book's premise—intuitively felt by radical feminists—has the support of history and baseball professionals. No less than Hank Aaron, quoted by Cohen, asserts, "there is no logical reason why [women] shouldn't play baseball," a game that relies on timing and coordination, not pure physical strength.

Part I of the book tackles the history of female professional baseball players. These include Jackie Mitchell, who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game; Toni Stone, Mamie Johnson, and Connie Morgan, who played major league baseball in the Negro American League (NAL); and Julie Croteau, the first woman to coach men's college baseball, who played on a winter league team. Cohen also devotes a chapter to the WWII-era All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL)—popularly known from the film A League of Their Own—as well as a chapter to the barnstorming Bloomer Girl teams of the decades before. These working-class teams, usually all-female except for male pitchers and catchers, played against male teams. Cohen cites male supporters of female baseball, like promoter Bob Hope (not the comedian), who in the '80s and '90s attempted to field an all-female minor league team that would play in the men's leagues.

Rather than chronicling an alternative herstory, the book's goal is to analyze the social world of female players—relationships to teammates, coaches, fans, opponents, and the media—and the construction of gender identity. Cohen is sensitive to race and class as well, factors that allowed some women to play while excluding others. The all-white AAGPBL did draft fair-skinned Latinas, but ignored black prospects like Stone, Johnson, and Morgan. Racial integration temporarily opened doors to these women, as black male players signed with Major League Baseball, and Negro American League teams sought new ticket draws. But both the AAGPBL and the NAL folded in the '50s, effectively closing professional baseball for women—the unfortunate outcome of dividing marginalized groups.

Part II is devoted to amateur baseball, inextricably linked to professional, as Cohen shows. Today, Little League teams are often gender-mixed—legally required by Title IX—but with puberty girls meet social pressure to switch to softball. Differences in field dimensions, ball size, and pitching mean that softball demands different skills. The result is that young women who want professional careers, groomed as softball players in their formative years, are disadvantaged beside young men who have had five to ten more years playing baseball. This deficit in skill-development, Cohen writes, accounts for a lack of qualified professional female baseball players. With the same training, some women surely could play co-ed baseball at every level—a provocative suggestion in a book well-worth reading.

Written by: Charlotte Malerich, June 8th 2009