To Don Cherry,
While I appreciate your concern for us lady-folk being mistreated in male locker rooms, I have to call you out on your archaic view of the world. Respect for women doesn’t mean we should be excluded from professions simply because men are going to “act like jerks.” If that were the case then pardon me, we’d be excluded from a lot of professions.
Before I get any accusations of being a man-hater, let me clarify, I’m a jerk-hater. Jerkdom does not discriminate by gender, it comes from an intrinsic need to ruin other people’s days. There are jerks everywhere. There are jerks at school, at the grocery store, at work, on the street, in your neighbourhood, and yes, there are even jerks in your house. Some people act like jerks, and some people just are jerks. There is no way to avoid someone being a jerk to you.
My point being, respect for women doesn’t come from putting us up on a pedestal and saying, “don’t worry sweetheart, we’ll protect you from the bad men.” That’s barbaric and quite frankly, patronizing. Respect from women means that the guys in the locker room treat her like any other reporter trying to do their job. Telling her that she can’t deal with a little adversity or confrontation in her chosen profession and therefore should be excluded based on gender is demeaning. It’s downright wrong.
For Don Cherry to pull the age old argument of “you would not want your daughter or your sister in there,” is ridiculous. We are more than your daughters, your sisters, your mothers, your girlfriends, your wives. We are women and we are human beings with free will, thoughts, feelings, intelligent minds and we are plenty capable of holding our own. The fact that it’s addressed as “your daughter/sister” is extremely annoying. It alludes to the idea that women aren’t their own people. He never addressed the female reporters directly, he addressed their elder male counterparts, as if the women in question have no power to speak for themselves. Why don’t you ask them what they think? I bet most of them could care less about a few jerks.
I grew up in a sports-orientated household. I’m not an expert, but I can talk shop and hold my own. I know what it’s like to have your sports opinion discriminated against simply because of your gender. It doesn’t feel good when someone pats you on the head for voicing your point of view. It’s infuriating and offensive to be ignored in favour of someone with a penis, or to be told to go make a sandwich when you open your mouth. Sports is still a male-dominated profession, I understand that, but something’s gotta give.
How about instead of attempting to remove women from male locker rooms, we tell hockey players to act professionally? They are under multi-million dollar contracts, why is there no stipulation for a code of ethics? And if there is, why is it not being reinforced within the profession? It makes absolutely no sense to punish and exclude women for simply being female, when the root of the problem is a sense of entitlement felt by male athletes to act like jerks.
Sincerely,
Avid sports fan and female who’s not taking any more of your shit,
Melissa Spady
