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Double Standard Still
Rules
Why Mike Piazza Got All the Attention
While Sue Wicks Was Ignored
By Jim Buzinski
Outsports.com
A baseball player in New York calls a press conference to declare his
heterosexuality and the story fires up the sports world. A female pro
basketball player in New York tells a magazine she's a lesbian and the
public yawns.
The reactions to Mike Piazza and Sue Wicks confirm that there's a
double standard when reporting on the sexuality of male and female
athletes. The media--and by extension the public--seems much more
fascinated with the identity of gay male athletes.
The reactions point out the stereotypes that both gay male and lesbian
athletes still confront as they struggle for acceptance. Although a
bit simplistic, the biases boil down to this: Many female jocks are
presumed lesbian unless otherwise proven; male jocks are presumed
straight unless there is a public declaration to the contrary.
 Wicks, a player on the New York Liberty of the WNBA, came out publicly
in an interview with Time Out New York. When asked if she was a
lesbian, Wicks said: ``"I am. Usually I don't like to answer those
kinds of questions, because you worry the issue might become so much
bigger than the sport. As an athlete, it's a little annoying when that
becomes the point of interest. But I would never avoid that question,
especially in New York. I think it's important that if you are gay,
you should not be afraid to say who you are."
The reaction? There was none. In a database search on Dow Jones
Interactive of 6,000 top publications I could find one reference to
Wicks' statement, by Judy Van Handel (herself out) in a WNBA notes
column in the Boston Globe.
 Contrast this with the outpouring of interest in Piazza's statement
that he wasn't gay. We at Outsports did at least 25 interviews with
print and broadcast reporters, including seven appearances on various
sports talk shows across the country. In addition, virtually every
major media outlet weighed in on the subject, interviewing players,
ex-players, management and fans.
Outsports can plead equally guilty. While we mentioned and applauded
Wicks' coming out and have assigned a writer to profile her, we did
relatively little compared to Piazza. Even our active reader
Discussion Board has been virtually silent regarding Wicks.
Part of it was the intense media focus on Piazza, combined with
discussions of press ethics for how it unfolded (in a New York Post
gossip column). Part was also that Sue Wicks is not a household name
and plays in a league that gets little exposure. But part is also that
we also bought into the notion that an out lesbian pro athlete simply
isn't as big a story as the possibility a male pro will one day come
out.
For starters, there have been active lesbians playing pro sports.
Martina Navratilova is the most famous, but the list also includes
this year's Wimbledon semifinalist Amelie Mauresmo; Carol Blazejowski,
a former player who is the general manager of Wicks' New York Liberty,
is also out. In contrast, there is no out male athlete on any pro
sports team or on the pro tennis or golf tours.
Reinforcing Stereotypes
Gay men and lesbians are each hurt by the
stereotypes. While it is widely presumed that there are many lesbians
in pro basketball, golf and tennis, the hierarchy of each is still
publicly and relentlessly heterosexual.
Anna Kournikova, she of the zero tournament wins, is featured on the
cover of Sports Illustrated for her suggestions of foreplay and not
her forehand. She makes it OK for men to watch women's tennis. In
contrast, the out Mauresmo is dogged by unproven claims of steroid
use, which would imply she is somehow less than feminine for being
muscular. It's a claim I haven't seen hurled at the equally muscular
but presumably heterosexual Williams sisters.
At the collegiate level, straight female coaches tout their marriages
and children to prospective recruits and their parents, sending the
message that they are not ``one of them.'' Even the WNBA, whose crowds
are heavily lesbian, has a spotty record of reaching out to its fan
base. The Liberty's refusal to hold a gay night (something done with
other franchises) prompted a group called Lesbians for Liberty to give
up trying this year, according to the New York Blade. If a team with a
lesbian general manager and openly lesbian player in very gay New York
City is resistant, it shows how much progress still remains.
The situation means that lesbians, even if present in large numbers in
sport, still have an incentive to hide or downplay their sexual
orientation.
The need for Piazza to call a press conference to declare his
heterosexuality (even though he was not named in the gossip item)
aptly sums up the situation for gay men in sports. Even rumors are
seen as career- and especially endorsement-threatening. The closet
rules, and the mainstream can hold on to the last bastion of
hypermasculine heterosexuality in society.
Until barriers in sports are broken down and people can be honest
about who they are, expect these stereotypes to persist. And expect
the double standard to apply.
July 10, 2002 |
