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Bill Jolly's avatar

The delicate phrasing in that New York Times article is legitimately hilarious.

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eBenTrovato's avatar

There has long been a battle over the idea of what women's sports should be. A leftist version of men's (open) games? An exhibition of athletic women's sexuality (see: Sepp Blatter)? Taken SuperSeriously, holding your nose and Loving It and acting incredulous when your friends tell you the empress has no game?

But what's forbidden from this battlefield is any discussion of their commercial viability.

Women's sports share something with the Paralympics - they are special divisions created and protected for a sector of the population that would never be able to compete in the open game. They are, in essence, charities. Not profitable, not widely watched, at best a LARPing exercise in a padded room in a padded world.

But charities, especially when they're stuck in old ways and old practices, tend to overbearingly offer help to those who'd rather not be bothered.

I see these incidents as the equivalent of Goodwill waking up to the fact that they were selling designer clothing along with the Tweety Bird shirts and grimy flip-flops. Or, perhaps more concisely, the Gucci bags and Prada clutches putting themselves into the showcase window when the humans are away.

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