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Sexism
3:33 Why we should be thinking of sexual intimacy in terms of pizza
No, they're not boys. But
Madison soccer team endures criticism because players have
short hair When Mira Wilde was 8 years old, she wanted to cut her hair like one of her idols, Ellen DeGeneres. So she did. Fast forward two years, Mira, now 10, still has short hair — though now she's mimicking a new idol, Abby Wambach, the 2015 World Cup soccer champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist. About a year and a half ago, Stella Blau cut her hair short, too. Stella, now 11, also wanted to look like Wambach, as well as another idol, U.S. women's national team midfielder Megan Rapinoe. Adah Lacocque, now 10, was only four when she cut hers, mostly because she didn't want to get yogurt in it or deal with the tangles. Now, it's part of her identity. All three play soccer on a Madison girls U-11 club team, the 56ers. What has taken the girls, their parents, even their coach by surprise is the impact of that style choice. They've been ridiculed by opposing parents, coaches, even referees, all of whom refused to accept that they were not boys. At tournaments, they have been asked to prove their gender, and were told they didn't deserve medals. But instead of giving in and growing their hair out, the girls, with the help of their parents, coach and soccer club, are sticking with each other — and with their look. After a summer hiatus, they're preparing for a new season beginning in September. Molly Duffy, coach of the team the last two years, remembers holding a meeting at which parents voiced concern about people commenting on their short-haired daughters. She took it with a grain of salt. "I thought this honestly can't really happen," Duffy said. "I didn't take their warning as serious as I probably should have." One opposing parent went up to some of the girls and asked their names. "My daughter responded with 'Stella' and the parent didn't believe her," said Tom Blau. "My daughter came back to my wife and just cried." Blau said it's not uncommon for opposing coaches and parents to scold them for having boys on the team. They tell the girls the only reason they win is by cheating. "People have said they're afraid their daughter is going to get hurt playing against boys," Blau said. "(Our girls) are just physical and are playing the sport the way it's supposed to be played. When we tell a parent on the other team that they're girls they just say, 'Yeah right.'" Once, the team went up to receive medals at a tournament, but didn't get the congratulations that they thought they deserved. A referee told the girls they didn't deserve to get medals because they played with boys on the team. "They say, 'They're too good. They move like boys,'" Julie Minikel-Lacocque, Adah's mom said. "All these players have experienced the same discrimination, and I really would call it that. From teams demanding passports and accusations of cheating. It's incredibly damaging to the girls." Duffy said that before a player can be put on a roster or participate in a tournament, the parent needs to turn in a birth certificate to verify not only their age, but also their gender. Yet at a tournament in the fall season, an opposing coach came up to Duffy and said it looked like she had boys playing for her team. Duffy provided the other coach with the playing cards of the girls, but after that incident, Duffy went to the parents and asked how they wanted her to handle the situation going forward. Ever since then, she and the parents have made it part of their protocol to go up to parents, coaches and referees before every game to let them know that the team is made up of all girls. Now, if the girls hear complaints, Duffy said, they often just shrug it off. "For the lack of better words, my girls are bad ass," Duffy said. "They're faced with this kind of situation and they take on the attitude of: 'You know what, we got this.' They are confident in what they do." In June, the 56ers were touched by the story of a Nebraska girl whose youth soccer team claimed it was disqualified from a tournament because organizers thought she was a boy. The girl, Mili Hernandez, just wanted to have short hair like Wambach. The incident caught national media attention, including Wambach's and former USWNT soccer star Mia Hamm's, who both spoke out publicly on the matter. The 56ers sent letters to Hernandez with "be you" written all over. "The girls all wrote letters with underlying tones of just be you," Duffy said. "They let her know they had her back and said 'Hey, you be you. We support you from Wisconsin." The team took it one step further and created "Sixer Strong" T- shirts to remind everyone that "power doesn't come from a haircut, but from a passion for the game as well as the freedom to be who you are." The front of the shirts says "Try and keep up," with a reference to the Title IX ban on discrimination. Other coaches heard about the shirts and wanted them for their teams. Eventually, about 700 were ordered across the different teams under the 56ers umbrella. "I hope at the very least it makes people pause and
think, 'Hmm, maybe I should reflect on my bias views. Maybe
I should think about what I just said or what I just did,'"
Minikel-Lacocque said. "'Or even better, 'Maybe I should
pause and not even go over there and say something.'" Kristen Stewart
asks Jesse Eisenberg insulting questions to prove a point
about sexism in the media. Here are some reasonable choices: 1.What's your favorite role you've ever played? 2.What was it like working with Jodie Foster on "Panic Room" and who are the actresses you look up to the most? 3.Which script was funnier, "Adventureland" or "Breaking Dawn — Part 2"? Sadly, all entertainment reporters seem to care about is: 1.Who are you dating? 2.No, but seriously, who are you dating? 3.C'mon, tell us who you're dating! A person can only take so many questions about Robert Pattinson, am I right? But this is just the way it is for most actresses. While Stewart's male costars get insightful interview questions about career and craft, women are forced to talk about their latest hairstyle and walk the "manicure runway" — yep, that's a real thing. But! In a new skit from Funny or Die, Kristen Stewart gets a little revenge by turning these sexist interview questions on Jesse Eisenberg, her costar in "American Ultra." (Suggetion: Watch the whole video before reading on.)
2:47 In the hilarious video, Jesse and Kristen sit down to interview each other, only to find out they've been given each other's question cards. Jesse: How did you bulk up for this role? Things get interesting when Kristen starts asking Jesse all kinds of inane questions usually reserved for, well, her. Kristine: Do you have any favorite designers? Jesse: "Levi's," Eisenberg says. But "I don't know if that's a person." Stewart moves on to the next question, a classic: "Are you pregnant, though? EIsenberg, shockingly, is not with child. And, of course, no interview of a Hollywood actress would be complete without at least one mention of breasts: Kristine: Do you have a favorite boob? Finally, Eisenberg's had enough. "I just feel like a lot of the questions you're asking me feel like they're ... not about the movie," he says. Exactly! Eisenberg: Now I know what it feels like to be a cwoman. There's a difference between trying to humanize an actress and reducing her to the most basic of female stereotypes. Sticking only to questions about the movie or her career could probably get a little boring, but how about we show a little creativity and insight? How about we go a little deeper than what dress she's wearing or whether she feels like her biological clock is ticking? Or, at the very least, how about we start subjecting men to the same kinds of vapid interviews women have endured for so long? If this video with Kristen Stewart and
Jesse Eisenberg is any indication, this kind of red carpet
equality is long overdue. Female Software
Engineer 'Too Pretty'? Isis Wenger Faces Heavy Criticism According to a report from Yahoo!, the ad was met with heavy criticism and negative comments from social media users. “I’m curious people with brains find this ad remotely plausible and if women in particular buy this image of what a female software engineer looks like.” one person wrote. “What does a female software engineer look like?” another said.”If their intention is to attract more women then it would have been better to choose a picture with a warm, friendly smile rather than a sexy smirk,” a Facebook user posted in the comments section. After receiving negative comments
about her appearance, the Platform Engineer aims to spread
awareness about diversity in the technology industry through
a hashtag on Twitter, #ILookLikeAnEngineer. Why do women
beach volleyball players wear bikinis while men wear shorts
and tank tops?
The answer, according to Corinne Calabro, the communications director for USA Volleyball, is pretty simple: Because that’s what the female athletes want to compete in. Women don’t have to wear bikinis — the uniform guidelines from the Federation of International Volleyball, the governing body of all international competition, allow for many different options. “The athletes are allowed to wear long sleeves, they’re allowed to wear shorts, tank tops,” Calabro said. “But we’ve gotten a lot of athletes on record saying they prefer to wear a two-piece because there are less places for sand to hide. They don’t view it as swim wear or anything like a fashion statement. For them, that’s their uniform.” Kerri Walsh Jennings has been especially vocal about their decision to compete in two-pieces. She told The Huffington Post: “When it comes to beach volleyball, we’re playing in 100-degree-plus weather. I think we’ve just gotta educate the public, take it with a grain of salt and make sure that we’re working hard and not playing up the sex appeal because it’s inherent anyway.” The uniform guidelines for women changed in 2012. Previously, female players were required to wear bikinis when they competed. But in order to be more culturally inclusive, the FIVB changed the rules to allow for a myriad of different combinations. This year, Egypt’s team competed wearing long sleeves and pants, which was up to code with what the FIVB mandates. Egypt's Doaa Elghobashy, right, sets up for teammate Nada Meawad against Canada during a women's beach volleyball match at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016 Women have more options when it comes to what they compete in than men do, though both genders have to wear both tops and bottoms. When asked why men have to compete with shirts on, as opposed to in traditional men’s swimwear (which usually means going topless) Calabro said that judges need to be able to see a name and a number on each athlete’s uniform. “It’s more for identification for the officials and to have a standard between genders,” she said. Walsh Jennings and Ross worked with a designer to help come up with their own uniforms for the Rio games; Calabro said that keeping the uniforms standard between partners is the most important thing. “Even teams of two can have different sponsors for apparel,” Calbro said. “So it’s about keeping it consistent through not just partners and countries, but all countries.” Cold weather gear, which is what Ross
and Walsh Jennings wore in their match against Switzerland
on Wednesday night, is also covered by the FIVB
guidelines.
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