Girl in the Locker Room!

Today: 39th Anniversary of Legally Owning Our Bodies

2012-01-22T12:32:00.000-05:00

1973 The Supreme Court Decides Roe v. Wade
Here's a good blogpost from NARAL on the current situation

The Good Old Days Pre Roe v. Wade

2012-01-21T15:07:00.003-05:00

Time for a reminder. A powerful personal story that appeared in Mother Jones.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2004/09/way-it-was

Sports Figures Who Stepped Up

2011-12-01T21:16:00.004-05:00

Cultural critic Dave Zirin has just published "The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World" See interview w Zirin by J.H. Tompkins. Made me think about other sports figures who rose to the occasion amid turbulent times ie Billie Jean King (women's rights, equal pay) Arthur Ashe (apartheid). And Sandy Koufax who gained Jewish "sainthood" by declining to pitch in the 1965 World Series game 1 because it was on Yom Kippur. And then there's the shame of Tiger Woods (BEFORE his car accident and domestic troubles), refusing to apply a morsel of his fame toward social progress. What a waste.

Tennis Affair

2011-09-13T13:06:00.001-04:00

Yahoo published the poem I wrote following Djokovic-Federer semi-final.

Buried in the Back Pages - AIDS 30 Years Ago

2011-09-04T18:24:00.006-04:00

Here's an article and podcast in the Harvard Public Health Review on what I have to say now about the NYTimes' coverage of the epidemic's early years.
As a metro reporter in 1982, I happened to have written the Times' first article that used the word "AIDS." My article, dear reader, was not placed by the editors on the front page -- as it surely should have been.

Domestic Blogger Power

2011-08-05T09:48:00.002-04:00

At the BlogHer '11 Conference I've so far encountered a preponderance of 30-something women writing about what would traditionally be called domestic concerns -- motherhood, children, health and nutrition, "home economics", couponing, crafts, and personal growth journals. When I am asked what Girl in the Locker Room! is about, several women have commented "Oh, you have a SERIOUS blog." This is a disappointing POV, but after a tour of the vendors exhibition hall, I noted that major brand name companies are courting these bloggers -- especially the food and home items producers. The "swag" is outrageous in order to prompt word-of-mouth endorsement. Companies obviously believe these women are a powerful economic force. Now THAT'S serious.

Reviving the Girl in the Locker Room

2011-08-04T20:59:00.003-04:00

At the BlogHer '11 Conference in San Diego. Estimated 3,000 female bloggers registered! Time to revive Girl in the Locker Room.
I started this blog in the year 2000 when Salon offered the only community "web-log" platform. Bloggers numbered in the hundreds on the site at the time. Many changes, many voices worldwide have joined the conversation now.
This blog will continue to champion women who challenge gender barriers in employment, sports, and society. The hope is that the younger generations will not allow us to slip back into the Mad Men era from which my generation escaped and will push for the fundamental human rights still denied many women across the globe.

"The Trade" is Husband-swap not Wife-swap

2010-02-19T16:10:00.002-05:00

Everyone is going to be talking about "The Trade," a movie in development with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck about the curious 1973 incident in which 2 Yankees pitchers, Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, "traded wives and whole families including dogs" as it's been described. But seems to me that means what really happened is that the husbands were switched. Let's correct people when they say "wife swap" (as if women were chattle) and point out that the husbands were the ones traded. The wives, kids and dogs stayed put.

-RH

Through the Locker Room Door -- 35 years ago

2010-01-31T11:11:00.002-05:00

Time flies. Here's another anniversary from the tumultuous 70s: Breaking "the locker room barrier." New York Times took a look back.

Tigers and Tigresses: 40th Anniversary of Coeducation at Princeton

2009-09-12T17:06:00.004-04:00

Women in the Nation's Service: On the 40th Anniversary of the Coeducation of Princeton University

Forty years ago this September, on the first weekend after Labor Day, a group of just over 170 young women set foot on the Princeton campus as bona fide members of the University’s 3,400-strong student body. Their steps onto the ivied campus and into the old stone classrooms constituted an historic milestone for the more than 200-year-old Princeton, but it was also recognized as a symbolic act for a nation that was grappling with issues of equity in civil rights and women’s rights. For until that fall of 1969, young women, no matter their intelligence and potential, were still excluded from some of the greatest centers of learning in the United States -- Princeton, Yale and Dartmouth -- while several others of the Ivy League colleges maintained a technical distance from women by admitting them only through "sister schools".

Although Yale University also went coed that same fall, it was Princeton that attracted television cameras, high jinx and hoopla as we arrived at the designated women’s dormitory, Pyne Hall, on a sunny afternoon, the yellow bees buzzing around the juice and cookies that had been placed on tables in the courtyard. Princeton and its Gothic architecture, beauty and fraternal traditions had been advertised for decades to thousands of high school English classes through its best publicist, Princeton alumnus F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his semi-autobiographical novel "This Side of Paradise."

Princeton’s decision had come haltingly and hastily in the spring of 1969 as a means to blur its “old boy” image and stay competitive, recognizing that top high school students were showing Woodstock-era preferences for coed colleges. By admitting just a sprinkling of young women, Princeton became a coed institution that year in name only, our presence serving as a test case. Would we make it?

And so that September we were greeted by a welcoming committee of male student guides who gallantly carried our luggage up the steep flagstone steps to our dorm rooms. But we also soon heard about the outraged alumni who saw in us teenaged girls the slipping away of the all-male Princeton paradise that they'd known. In letters to the University and to the alumni magazine, furious male alumni baldly suggested that Princeton was wasting student slots on women -- who would only get married and tend house afterwards -- even mounting a discredited movement some 10 years later to "Bring Back the Old Princeton."

But the education of women at Princeton moved on with hundreds more women admitted each year until eventually they constituted half the student body. And their education was not wasted. For the fruits of Princeton's coeducation decision are being seen now, as the generations of Princeton alumnae mature into important roles in society and fulfill the University's time-honored creed of "Princeton in the Nation's Service." This year in particular, in the Obama Administration, Princeton women are highly visible: Anne Marie Slaughter '81, Director of National Security Policy, Elena Kagan '81, Solicitor General of the U.S. and former Dean of Harvard Law School, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor '76 and, of course, First Lady Michelle Obama '85. Princeton had also produced Pulitzer Prize winner Annalyn Swan '73 and entrepreneurs Meg Whitman '79, ex-CEO of eBay and Wendy Kopp '89, the visionary founder of Teach for America. There are female doctors, engineers, bankers and Olympic athletes, all with Princeton degrees and orange and black reunions jackets in their closets.

These women, carrying on in the nation's service, rebuke any lingering notion in this country that the best education afforded a young man might be wasted on a young woman. But elsewhere in the world there remains an unfinished agenda to afford equal education to girls and women -- places where women are worth only the price of the dowry they will bring to a household or the babies they will make; where those girls with the temerity to walk to a school may have acid thrown in their faces or be beaten. Places where the potential of half a country's citizenry is thrown away.

Economists, demographers and health researchers have lately demonstrated that the most effective way to improve the economic strength of a country and improve the health of its citizens is to educate girls and women. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals include the equal education of girls as one of its chief aims. Yet, in many countries, girls and women are still denied an education on the basis of their gender and are thus condemned to illiteracy, poverty and dependence.

There are now 24,000 female alumni of Princeton University. As we remember this week that decision of 40 years ago and our steps onto the leafy campus of one of America's finest and most prestigious academic institutions, we should also recall the work that remains to allow girls and women around the globe to contribute their full potential in their own nations' service by enjoying equal access to the education that is their human right.

Nature's Real Deals

2009-08-26T20:27:00.004-04:00

Do we think Usain Bolt (9.5 seconds in the 100; 19.19 in the 200) is on drugs or is he the real deal?

On a jog last Sunday in our local park I was startled by the sight of a large, slender gray heron with an impossibly long neck. It took off when I got near and followed the little stream like it was a runway -- its wingspan so broad it cast shadow across both banks. Nature makes amazing creatures, and we only get a glance at some of them. I hope Bolt is the real deal. But a world weary friend of mine says you've got to think Bolt is juiced...and herons don't get paid.

Golfer Cheyenne Woods -- Tiger Clan Member

2009-06-25T09:58:00.002-04:00

photo courtesy NYTimes

Here's someone who should be fun to follow, Cheyenne Woods, Tiger's niece. NYTimes has a profile.

Writing Plays While Female

2009-06-24T21:38:00.004-04:00

Women playwrights are indeed discriminated against when it comes to getting their plays mounted -- but the discrimination stems from female artistic directors and literary agents. What? See this surprising analysis by a budding Princeton economist.

"Neda": Pivotal Female Martyr in Iran

2009-06-22T11:58:00.002-04:00

Women have been on the "front lines" in Tehran. The video of "Neda", 26, being shot and killed last Saturday night has been widely disseminated and may elevate her death to a pivotal event.
See this analysis from Time Magazine.

Katie Couric for Vice President

2008-09-27T21:37:00.002-04:00

Which of the women in this video would you pick for V.P.?

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4478156n

It appears that John McCain was simply looking for two X chromosomes in a running mate when he chose Sarah Palin. This interview is mind-boggling and ultimately very scary.

Phyllis Schlafly Only Younger

2008-09-13T09:58:00.004-04:00

Gloria Steinem (via LATimes) explaining why we won't be fooled by Sarah Palin:

"So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger."

Homeland Un-preparedness/This is Not a Joke

2008-09-12T12:51:00.005-04:00

Sarah Palin is not ready to be VP and CERTAINLY not even close to the calibre necessary to take over for 72-year-old John McCain. This is not something to joke about or be sarcastic about or even partisan about. This is scary, irresponsible and wrong.
See her first interview with Charles Gibson ABC.

Then read what Eve Ensler has to say on Palin. She's the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for 'The Vagina Monologues.'
Here's an excerpt:
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke.

Family Values $$ of the Righteous

2008-09-07T15:56:00.005-04:00

A modest letter to the editor in Saturday's Boston Globe by a local man, Keith Backman, clarifies the Orwellian quality of Sarah Palin's "family values" around her 17-year-old's pregnancy:

ALTHOUGH THE pregnancy of Sarah Palin's daughter, Bristol, should not influence anyone's vote, the double standard by which it is judged in conservative circles should. Palin's grandchild will be born into a family with ample resources, and so Bristol's flawed youthful decisions are being downplayed in light of her family's supportiveness. But the same flawed decisions of any inner-city teenager are consistently decried by conservatives as moral decay and poor family values. Wealthy individuals can make mistakes without disapprobation, but poor individuals who make the same mistakes are castigated, because they need help coping with the otherwise identical fallout of the error.

The logical extension is the conservative agenda: Social programs should be done away with because they squander the tax dollars of the righteous (i.e., the well off) on the vices of leeches and ne'er-do-wells. Whether it is teen pregnancy, drug abuse, family dysfunction, or any other issue, in the conservative mind the sin is not in the act or event itself, but in the lack of personal resources to deal with the outcome. How anyone can subscribe to, much less vote for, such a mean-spirited and hypocritical philosophy is beyond me.
KEITH BACKMAN
Bedford

Hillary Clinton, Name-Calling and Why You Should Care

2008-05-18T20:37:00.004-04:00

In the NY Times today Peggy Orenstein spells it out for you and tries to distract her 4-year-old daughter from it. Orenstein makes it simple, not polemic, not post-feminist or pre-feminist. The name-calling. The witch, bitch, etc. rhyming. It's misogyny and it's aimed at all of us, whether you like Hillary or not.

MIT Tenure Photos - Worth a Thousand Words

2007-12-06T15:32:00.000-05:00

Yes, prize-winning girls in science (see previous blog post), but then what? MIT and its female president, Susan Hockfield, had to cope with some awkward publicity today in The Boston Globe. Headline: Tenure at MIT: Still Largely a Male Domain It described how a photo gallery in last month's in-house newsletter Tech Talk showing recent faculty tenure appointments had caused much visceral discomfort. According to the Globe article, of the 25 smiling photos, only one was a woman. Awkwardness comes from MIT's very public 10-year plan to improve the gender ratio in the historically male-dominated university, an effort prompted by Prof. Nancy Hopkins' landmark report in 1999 cataloging how MIT "underpaid, marginalized, and disrespected female faculty in numerous ways, including providing less lab and office space and giving them scant representation on hiring and funding committees." [Globe description]

I went to the Tech Talk site and found instead a Nov. 14 article and photo gallery of 50 recent tenured faculty of whom six were women. As the lineup scrolls down, the visceral effect is nearly the same (try it). Hopkins told The Globe: "It's a shock. I don't have a thousand words as good as that picture. It's a good reminder. We learned a lot about this problem, but good will and time do not solve that problem."

Girls Do Science, What a Crazy Idea

2007-12-04T20:07:00.000-05:00

Girls swept the top prizes for the first time at the most prestigious high school science competition, the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology. The NYTimes reporting on the awards, which were announced yesterday, went straight to the person you'd want to hear from on this occasion -- Prof. Nancy Hopkins, the biologist at MIT who had walked out in disgust on a talk by Harvard President Larry Summers two years ago when he opined that "issues of intrinsic aptitude" might account for fewer women than men succeeding in math and science careers. Hopkins told The Times she couldn't honestly say it was shocking that girls would win a science competition. Then she had a great quote: “Why do people think girls can’t do science? Where did this crazy idea ever come from?”
Summers, you may have heard, is ex-Harvard president now, his resignation following a cascade of events that were set in motion by that gaffe and by Hopkins' pointed protest.

image courtesy FDA

Cosmetic Surgery, Not a Pretty Death

2007-11-12T17:49:00.000-05:00

Plastic surgery. Don't even go there. Have you done the cost/benefit analysis? You could die -- for "beauty." It's the most elective of surgeries, but it's still surgery, and it comes with risks of infection, blood clots, blood loss and punctured organs.

Over the weekend, Donda West, the 58-year-old mother of rapper Kanye West died, apparently from complications after plastic surgery. She was former head of the English department at Chicago State University and a big influence on West who wrote the song "Hey Mama" in praise of her.

She allegedly was seeking breast reduction and a "tummy tuck" according to one plastic surgeon who had seen her weeks earlier and refused to treat her unless she got a medical clearance because of a preexisting medical condition. He says he never heard back from her. Another surgeon has just come forward to say he performed the breast and abdominal surgery on West, according to TMZ (count on them to get this sort of LA info first).

"Tummy tuck" is a deceptively cute name for a major surgical procedure where fat and skin are removed; the fat by pumping the body full of fluids containing the anesthetic lidocaine and then vacuuming out the slurry. Not pretty. Risks include embolisms from blood clots and errant fat globules and and then there's lidocaine overdose. Abdominoplasty is the riskiest cosmetic procedure around -- as serious an operation as general abdominal surgery-- and needing assiduous aftercare to be on the lookout for these complications. West had the procedure at an unnamed venue then succumbed in her home, according to her publicist. An ambulance brought her in cardiac arrest to a Los Angeles area hospital where doctors were unable to revive her. [these details are from preliminary news reports]

According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, abdominoplasty is one of the top five cosmetic surgical procedures performed in the United States, with approximately 172,500 tummy tucks performed in 2006, compared with just 34,000 in 1997. The Society notes that more than 90 percent of cosmetic surgery is performed on women.

Anita Hill on Title IX and Primetime

2007-11-12T10:21:00.000-05:00

Anita Hill, professor of law and social policy at Brandeis U., updates the impact of Title IX in the Boston Globe, noting that Rutgers women's basketball's season opener was nationally televised on ESPN yesterday in primetime. (She fails to mention that the NFL swallowed network primetime all day --and night -- yesterday. That's what I was watching, Roethlisberger playing quarterback and running back both, Tony Romo finding Terrell Owens' magic hands and the struggles of the brothers Manning. ESPN was going with the best it had. Still, a benchmark.) She finds irony in how Imus' remarks, and their general repudiation, may have in the end brought more attention and respect to female athletes. Nearly 3 million high school girls play some kind of competitive sports compared with 300,000 before Title IX was enacted in 1972. True primetime interest in women's teams is still a ways off except for women's tennis.

fyi With .1 seconds left on the clock, Stanford beat Rutgers 60-58 with two controversial free throws. Now I'm sorry I missed it.

Girl in the Radio Booth!

2007-11-11T19:47:00.000-05:00

Just the other day my Google Alerts picked up this article by Red Fisher in the Montreal Gazette mentioning me. Red has a long memory, more than three decades long in fact. After all this time, I got another point of view from that room in the Montreal Forum where the so-called "locker room barrier" was broken in 1975 by a lady (that's how he refers to me -- thank you Red). He describes a startled Phil Esposito.

Red was reminiscing about that event while reporting that the New Jersey Devils of the NHL have just added a female color (colour) commentator, Sherry Ross. "Good move," writes Red. "She'll be a voice of reason in an area where loud is good and louder is better."

FYI The Association for Women in Sports Media has a current membership of more than 400.

This is My New Location

2007-11-08T14:32:00.000-05:00

Moving across cyberspace to here at Blogger. Stay tuned.
-Robin H.