BTI's Rants and Ramblings: Female Journalist Treatment Needs to be Examined

I hope you’ve already seen the video above but if you haven’t, and you’re a man, you need to.  Be careful, the language in it is very NSFW although it is beeped out.  But 2 female sportswriters sat down with your everyday sports male fan and had them read some of the tweets that they have received during their time in the sports industry.  It’s not secret that women have always had a hard time breaking into the business of sports journalism and once they are there trying to receive praise from the male sports fan.  It’s insane that we accept the Skip Bayless’ and Stephen A. Smith’s of the world but quality journalists like the women in the video above and many others are consistently facing sexist, violent, and unbelievable criticism.  Think about some of the AWFUL journalists that write for newspapers and on television.  Nobody says to them “I hope you are raped”.  I have listened to Sarah Spain on ESPN Radio for many weekends and she is awesome!  And then you hear the tweets that people have sent her and it’s just sad for the human race, especially the male gender.

Bringing it back home I think it’s a good time to say that it’s not just national journalists who have to face this.  Female newscasters and sports journalists at all levels have to deal with constant criticism of things that have very little to do with their job, such as their clothes or looks or voice.  But squeaky voiced me was on the radio in different formats for 7 years and never heard one thing about my voice.  Go check out Tyler Thompson’s mentions sometimes on Twitter.  And while many/most of the vile things said to her are from rival fans, some of them are from the UK fanbase!  I’d love to do a study sometimes and have Drew Franklin and Tyler write the exact same piece and post it and watch the comments for his article and her article.  It won’t be the same.

No offense to any writer on this site, but Tyler is the most talented writer on the site in my opinion.  It’s not because she’s a female.  She’s not “good for a girl”.  It’s because she’s damn good.  She far exceeds her male counterparts on other sites day in and day out.  And we could do that exact video with her above and be stunned with some of things said to her.

It is 2016.  There is no sport that is meant for men only.  There is no sport that should be covered by men only.  And there is no sport where women can’t cover the sport as good and better than men.  So when you disagree with me and tell me I suck, that’s cool.  I mean it’s not really and shows you are a loser, but I can take it.  But the equivalent for a writer like Tyler or any other female writer on this site is not that they’re a b**** or a c*** or deserve any kind of violence against them.

The video above is getting a lot of publicity this week and it’s much overdue.  We have some of the best female talent on this site that you will find.  Scratch that, we have some of the best talent period.  Time to start treating them that way.

Rant over.