The Unquantifiable Gap in Women's Sports

Common talking points in arguments about prevailing gender inequalities in American sports typically zero in on big issues like unequal participation numbers, conflicting amounts and varieties of sports available to men and versus those available to women, and salaries for coaches and professional athletes. All of these points are important and germane to the topic of women’s sports; that said, these points are not as closely related to each other as many advocates and academics often believe them to be. Make a quick jump to the Women’s Sports Foundation’s website and you will find a page entitled “Pay Inequality Athletics” (hat tip to the Women’s Professional Sports blog). This page presents an array of bullet points that reel off numerous statistics that point out just how unequal the American sports landscape remains today. I’ll list a few:

• Although the gap has narrowed, male athletes still receive 55% of college athletic scholarship dollars, leaving only 45% to be allocated to women.

• Women's teams receive only 38% of college sport operating dollars and 33% of college athletic team recruitment spending.

• In NCAA Division I-A, head coaches for women's teams receive an average salary of $850,400 while head coaches for men's teams average $1,783,100. This is a difference of $932,700.

• For a WNBA player in the 2005 season, the minimum salary was $31,200, the maximum salary was $89,000, and the team salary cap was $673,000. For NBA players in the 2004-2005 season, the minimum salary was $385,277, the maximum salary was $15.355 million, and the team salary cap was $46 million.

Because disparities are most effectively expressed numerically, it’s tough to look at these statistics and still argue that women are getting a fair shake in both collegiate and professional sports. Numbers don’t lie—this why advocates like those at the Women’s Sports Foundation cite them. Taken at their face value, these statistics are more than enough to convince any rational person that there’s much more work to be done in athletics in order to level the gender playing field. Unfortunately, the numbers contained in these bullet points belie much larger philosophical issues, ones that transcend the numbers and, in fact, go on to show how unrelated these statistics are to each other and how grouping them together is (while good-natured) manipulative.

The common thread amongst most equality arguments—whether it is directly addressed or indirectly assumed—is money. Look again at the stats mentioned above. Scholarships, salaries, recruitment dollars… Whether the issue is high school, college, or pro sports, the elephant in the room is that men’s sports have access to more dollars. Sports, then, is absorbed into a larger gender inequality sphere of argument: economics. This is where the intentions of many women’s sports advocates become disingenuous: sports and economics, while often related, are not the same.

This is where a person’s own philosophical stance towards sports comes into play. Think of it this way:

- Sports as business, or
- Sports as pure athletic endeavor

This major philosophical difference is rarely, if ever, cited in arguments surrounding gender inequalities in American sports. Aside from the obvious reason that one outlook is quantifiable where the other is not, a big reason I think women’s sports advocates avoid the topic of ‘Sports as pure athletic endeavor’ is because the necessary requirement to realize this simple precept already exists: access. Salaries, endorsements and business models are not necessary requirements for those wishing to participate and experience the competitive thrill of athletic competition. Women (and men, for that matter) need only the chance or opportunity to a play a sport (high school sports, youth leagues, backyard games, anything) in order to realize the meaning and benefit of that sport. Clichés like “for the love of the game” originate from the very real fact that sports themselves have an unquantifiable inherent value, and it is that value that supersedes any monetary benefits that a lucky few athletes are able to earn. As I mentioned in my previous post, opportunities for women to participate in a wealth of different sports has never been higher. Title IX’s efforts to sniff out discriminatory practices in events like sports have been extremely effective. Most advocates would not deny this.

It is at the professional-level—where the bottom-line is not the unquantifiable spirit of athletic competition but the quantifiable value of the almighty dollar—that the gap separating men’s and women’s sports is at its widest. Professional sports—not sports in general—are pure business. And if a fair businessperson is to properly run an enterprise the size and scope of a professional sports league, this businessperson should adhere to the laws of supply and demand. All participants in this league (owners, management, coaches and players) should be paid based on the revenue they produce. This is how fair and successful businesses operate.

You see where I’m going with this. It’s a cold, black-and-white way of viewing the world; it’s a way in which I hate discussing things. But if advocates for equality in women’s professional sports are going to invoke monetary statistics, they must also address things like the amount of revenue a women’s professional sports league produces and the actual demand that exists for women’s professional sports in general. The former is often discussed and excused with arguments like “women’s sports do not receive the same marketing pushes as men’s sports, so of course they make less money…” There’s a lot of truth to such points. But the issue of demand is hardly addressed (at least from the research I’ve conducted) at all. How many people are demanding women’s professional sports? And which sports are there demands for?

I want to leave off on a similar note as my last post. How can women’s professional sports be transformed into a viable economic product, one that best utilizes the abilities of our best female athletes? With recent developments like the inaugural season of the Lingerie Football League, it’s easy to see how this question can be answered in exploitative, insulting ways. There are better solutions, like re-inventing women’s basketball by tailoring the game to the unique abilities of its players. I’d like to hear some of yours…

Changes we Like to See here at the Guide

By now you may have read Aaron Traister’s piece in Salon, And may your first child be a feminine child. You may have even read this XX piece in response to it. But what I have to say is more personal to this blog than what you’ve read so far.

I would like to take this moment to say that Traister’s piece is an example of the kind of change we’re working toward here at the Guide. Here’s the synopsis of what I saw in that piece:

• A man wrote about noticing the difference in people’s reactions when he announced he was having a baby boy (his first child) as compared with when he announced having a baby girl (his second child).
  
  
• He noted that people kept acting like they pitied him or there was somehow less to look forward to with girls.
  
  
• The pace of the piece was a slow and deliberate; an indication of how the author thought this through. He raised an eyebrow, he didn’t repress or suppress his gut feelings, and he didn’t jump to conclusions, either. There was much to question about this situation. There were benefits of the doubt to give.
  
  
• Here's the change we're working toward at the blog: a man takes notice of these things and has an understanding of what it means to him and the women in his life.
  
  
• It doesn't matter whether or not he identifies as a feminist himself, though this lesson would not be possible without the contributions of feminism.
  
  
• It doesn't have to be a 'women only' issue.
  
  
• It's everyone's issue.
  
  
• He's not entering off-limits territory commenting on this subject.
  
  
• Or stepping on anyone's toes.
  
  
• He's just a dude with awareness of what's going on around him and has something to say about it. And, most importantly, he did say something about it.
  
  

If you wanted an idea of what our goal is here, it is to foster moments like these in the world.

What's the Gameplan for Women's Sports?

Believe it or not, 2009 has been a vital year for women’s professional sports in the United States. I’m sure few of you—men and women both—have noticed, but the past twelve months have provided highlights and, unfortunately, many lowlights, all which will no doubt reshape the female pro sports landscape for the foreseeable future. Now rather than bore you with a list of events accompanied by explanations on their significance, I’m instead going to use the events of the past year as part of a broader look at women’s sports in general.

I like this topic because, when you really stop and think about it, women’s sports—especially women’s team sports—is a loaded feminist issue that, at a certain point, typically ceases to be discussed outside of academic circles mainly because, let’s be honest, it doesn’t generate much interest from either men or women. Plus, it’s sports, which in twenty-first century America (thanks in large part to women’s movement-inspired legislation like Title IX) is not really the bastion of political movement it once was. Access to sports for women, primarily at the youth, secondary and collegiate levels, gets broader and more diverse each year. There’s really never been a better time to be a young male or female athlete.

Unfortunately, this level of equality doesn’t extend to both male and female professional athletes. While I fully recognize that professional success is in no way the best or most accurate barometer by which to gauge the progress of gender equality efforts (this would be like saying record sales is the main determinant of artistic merit), I still feel that women’s professional sports’ inability to gain cultural traction raises questions about the root nature of women’s sports.

In late 2008, the Houston Comets, winner of the WNBA’s first four championships, went out of business. The team’s ownership and WNBA’s league offices were unable to find a new owner willing to pony up a paltry $10 million to purchase the franchise. This past October, about three weeks after the Phoenix Mercury won the 2009 WNBA championship, the three-time league champion Detroit Shock announced they were leaving the Detroit for Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The WNBA has only existed for thirteen seasons. The league, which was created and is effectively backstopped by the NBA, has received since its inception enviable amounts of corporate sponsorship and television exposure. Yet the two franchises that have won over half of the leagues titles either don’t exist anymore or have moved to another city. In both cases, the team’s home market (Houston and Detroit) was clearly not viable.

I don’t want rag on the WNBA, but the general consensus among sports writers and journalists is that the league’s business model is flawed. Rather than research markets that are open and excited about the prospect of supporting a women’s basketball team, the WNBA began by placing teams in markets with already existent NBA franchises, in effect killing each team’s ability to fulfill a city’s need or meet a specific market’s demand for professional basketball. The WNBA teams, in theory, would act like sister franchises, operating during the summer and early autumn, a kind of lead-in for the men’s professional season. This model has changed as time has gone by and teams have failed. Still, the WNBA’s operating philosophy mirrors that of the larger, more established NBA. A female professional sports league, in other words, attempts to operate in the same way, shape and form as it male counterpart.

As I previously mentioned, the WNBA’s flawed economic model has been roundly criticized. Interestingly, what has not been truly called into question is the actual game of women’s professional basketball itself. I’m talking about the size of the court, height of the baskets, things like that. It’s not such a novel concept. I know I’m not breaking new ground here. But an interesting side-effect of the Title IX-inspired growth of women’s sports is the tendency for the promoters and facilitators of these sports to simply put women on the same field of play, using the same rules, all in an effort to say, “See, women can play too.”

Basketball is the best example of this phenomenon because it is the most popular women’s collegiate sport as well as the female sport with the most well established professional operation. Why have serious discussions about actually creating a space that is custom-fit to a women’s game never been undertaken? The game of basketball was created by men as a team sport for men. The NCAA, NBA and FIBA institutionalized this male creation. Whether or not you love women’s basketball as it is or find it completely unappealing is irrelevant to the question of why a uniquely female version of the game of basketball has not been institutionalized by the NCAA, NBA or FIBA. Am I out of line to think that some of the WNBA’s woes are less economic and more because the on-court product just doesn’t inherently have the same amount of excitement that fans have come to expect from professional basketball? Am I out of line to think that actually tailoring a women’s sport to the unique abilities of women—rather than shoe-horning women into a sport tailored especially for men—would create a product that rivals the excitement of the men’s sport?

The viability of women’s sports at all levels is a very important topic. I have a lot more to say on this issue, but for now I’m really hoping to begin a discussion, to take get an idea of how people—both men and women, athletes and non-athletes—feel about the state of women’s sports. So let’s hear it!

"To Protect" or "To Support"...

Recently, Salon’s advice columnist Cary Tennis received a letter from a man whose wife was a victim of rape some twenty years ago (“Since You Asked…” 10/28/2009). While his wife has seemingly come to terms with the event, the husband is still, after two decades, unable to move on:

My problem? I can’t let it go. I think about it daily, 20 years after the fact. I wonder about the details. I’m angry at the friend who let it happen. I blame (only to myself) current behaviors of my wife on the fact that she was raped then. I fantasize about causing harm to the man who committed the crime. But this was so long ago, and our lives are so different, and reasonably happy, now. Why my obsession?

Tennis’s advice is standard. He reassures the man that the rape was neither his nor his wife’s fault and encourages the man to open up to a therapist (something the man had also been unable to do, according to the letter) and perhaps consider supporting rape prevention programs. Good advice? Yes. But with delicate subjects like this, it’s tough to expect something revelatory from a major media outlet.

But it’s not Tennis’s response that makes this column so striking. Rather, the letter writer’s unflinching honesty highlights an aspect of trauma that often goes unmentioned in the aftermath of rape crimes. Having been through a similar predicament as the letter writer myself, and so experienced many of the same sentiments and feelings, I was struck less by the longevity of the man’s inability to “get over” his wife’s rape and more with the way the man avoided the proverbial elephant in the room: his own personal guilt. Hovering over his expressed feelings of anger and blame and his fantasies about causing harm to the rapist is the husband’s clear feeling of guilt over even considering making himself an issue in his wife’s trauma recovery.

This, I feel, is a very common roadblock in situations such as these. Many men whose wives or girlfriends (or sisters or friends, the list goes on) have been victims of sexual abuse tend to fall immediately into a sort of paternal or fraternal protective mode. Yet for all the chivalric romanticism attached to these modes of protection comes equal amounts emotional distress. In playing the role of protector, men like the letter writer automatically deny themselves a chance to “get over” the event because 1) they’ve already failed (they did not prevent the rape) and 2) the misplaced notion that it is their place to be the emotional rock in the relationship. In essence, the patriarchal ideal of Relationship Protectorate that guides most men whose spouses are victims of sexual abuse is often the seed to obsessions like the one afflicting the letter writer.

The larger misnomer here is the false notion that ‘to protect’ is the same as ‘to support.’ The letter writer is overtly concerned about his own unhealthy obsession with his wife’s rape largely because he feels wife has seemingly come to terms with the event. One thing I’d be curious to know is whether the man has considered the fact that his obsession may in fact be holding back his wife’s ability to “get over” the rape. As many people who have experienced or spent time around those who have experienced trauma know, triggers exist everywhere. Perhaps if the letter writer recognized that his obsessive behavior could in fact itself act as a trigger that sets his wife back in her own trauma recovery, perhaps then he could more easily overcome his inability to cope with wife’s past rape.

It’s clear that the man’s heart and motivations are in the right place—he genuinely cares for his wife and her safety, happiness and well-being. Otherwise, he would not harp on her past trauma so greatly. Patriarchal notions of protection are reductive, though. In cases like that of the letter writer’s, the notion of protection often completely blinds men to the fact that they are not really supporting their partners—a complex issue involving the emotions of two individuals is collapsed into one simplistic patriarchal ideal. Their compulsive desire to protect actually holds themselves and their partners back. I don’t wish to imply that adherence to unhealthy patriarchal ideals is the only thing preventing men like the letter writer from moving past their spouse’s personal traumas. It’s important to realize just how easily elided notions of protection can be: while they are often beneficial, protection does not equal support.

The Polanski/Brown Corollary

Continuing the discussion of dirtball artists for just a bit longer, Jonah Weiner wrote in Slate this past week…

If your stomach turns a little at the thought of ever hearing Chris Brown’s voice again—or, for that matter, his name—get ready for one nauseous winter. The R&B singer, who pleaded guilty in June to beating his ex-girlfriend Rihanna during a February argument, is set to release his third album, Graffiti, in December. Last month, the lead single, “I Can Transform Ya,” hit radio, and the follow-up, “Crawl,” came out last week. There’s something audacious about Brown’s return, and not just because it took a scant three months for him to slide back into album-promo mode after entering his guilty plea. Brown has been exposed in the Rihanna saga, after all, as more than an abusive boyfriend. Promising affection and pleasure in his music but brutish and violent in real life, his love oil turned out to be snake oil: An R&B loverman best known for a domestic-violence conviction is an insupportable contradiction…

But Brown is also a major star (his first two albums have sold more than 4 million records combined in the United States), and he clearly isn’t ready to give that up…He may not know how to nail a contrite interview, but he does know how to deliver a first-rate pop song [the aforementioned “I Can Transform Ya”]…

The song raises an old question with no easy answer: What do we do when a bad person makes good art?

Let’s set aside for a moment the notion that Chris Brown makes good art. Weiner does ask an interesting question. Since the end of WWII, with the birth of teenage culture and rock and roll and the rise of television and all of the rest of it, the idea of celebrity has become practically inseparable from popular art—combine the two and you have the foundation for pop culture. And until the last decade or so, celebrity was so effective because it was easily manipulated and controlled by the artist and his/her backers (agents, studio execs, producers, etc.). The salacious details were always kept under wraps, leaving public consumers with glossy puff-pieces in the pages of Teen People (or its antecedents) or music videos that controlled all aspects of the artist’s visual image and personality. This type of control not only bred financial success; it also made questions about the artist’s actual personal character irrelevant.

But along came new media and TMZ and Twitter and the E! Channel. Now the celebrity dirt that once only kept grocery store tabloids alive has become big business. The demand for the type of material that, in the past, would have destroyed an artist’s career now competes with the artist’s actual output (see reality television). The old adage “Any press is good press” now reaches grotesque extremes. It’s often important for an artist to maintain some sort of scandalous side in order to justify their status as a celebrity.

Bringing this back around to Chris Brown, what are we, the listening public, supposed to make of his new music? Weiner avoids a straight answer, first broaching the idea that listeners compartmentalize their knowledge of Chris Brown-as-woman-beater so they enjoy “I Can Transform Ya” as a guilty pleasure, only toss out this idea with the hope that maybe a remix of the song will eventually see release, one that scrubs Brown’s vocals from the track altogether.

It’s a cute little dance, but seeing Weiner refuse to answer the relatively important question he poses is disappointing. I get it—to honestly answer this question is very difficult. It involves introducing ethical arguments into what is supposed to be the most mindless and easy form of enjoyment we have—the consumption of popular entertainment. Who wants to complicate things like that?

I could sympathize more with people who feel this way if I were more convinced that the “art” Chris Brown produces is, as Weiner ranks it, good. If there were some objective criteria, some transcendent quality that elevated the grating rhythm and lyrics of “I Can Transform Ya” to the status of art (not even good art, just art), maybe then I could entertain the setting aside of ethical questions about Chris Brown’s character. But Chris Brown and his collaborators and producers make a specific type of music for a specific type of musical demand. To put another way, Chris Brown and company would not have produced “I Can Transform Ya” if this musical demand did not exist. By every available definition, Chris Brown does not produce art. He produces Top-40 R&B/hip-hop that will exist and slide out of the pop culture canon relatively quickly. Using this criterion, I think it’s self-evident that Chris Brown-as-woman-beater in no way merits exclusion from value judgments about his work. The guy is a misogynist scumbag and, really, his music is an exploitative extension of his personality.

But say this is wrong; say Chris Brown is a producer of good art. In other words, let’s put Chris Brown in the same class as Roman Polanski. What now? This is where being an appreciator of good art in the twenty-first century becomes fraught with complication. It would be so nice if all great artists remained veiled in anonymity the way Stanley Kubrick was and Thomas Pynchon still is. But that is not the case with either Polanski or Brown. We know their dirty laundry just as well as we know their creative output. The two are forever intertwined.

Now I really see why Weiner danced around a clear answer. In my case, I really admire much of Polanski’s work. Chinatown and The Pianist are both incredible works of art. How can I reconcile my enjoyment and appreciation of these films with my knowledge that their creator was, at least for one night in 1977, a pedophilic rapist?

Great art is often so powerful that we forget that art itself exists as a form of human expression. Humans, in other words, come before the art that they produce. A thirteen-year-old girl in 1977 Los Angeles and Rhianna in 2009 Los Angeles come before a handful of great films and a few albums worth of forgettable R&B tracks.

So to answer Jonah Weiner: no, it’s not okay to like this stuff. But how can I un-like films like Chinatown and The Pianist? What if I lived a life of willing ignorance of pop culture? What if I knew nothing of Chris Brown’s and Roman Polanski’s personal lives? I think this is a conversation worth having and would love to hear other’s opinions, thoughts and comments.

Roman Polanski and Manhattan

The Swiss government’s recent arrest and potential extradition of Roman Polanski has rekindled public interest in the events that caused the director to flee the United States in 1977, and rightfully so. For those unfamiliar with the case, it’s really a simple one that can be summed up quickly: while in Los Angeles in March of 1977, Polanski gave a thirteen-year-old girl a combination of champagne and quaaludes and raped her. It’s pretty cut-and-dry. Polanski should have been sent to prison for the maximum amount of time afforded to rapists, but his lawyers and celebrity status combined to get his sentence reduced to a paltry forty-two days. This was too much for Polanski and he fled to France. He has not returned to the United States since.

Polanski’s case often brings out the hypocritical sides of fans and/or appreciators of art. It’s pretty tough for any person to claim that Polanski is not a dirtball. He’s a dirtball of the highest order. But unlike most rapists, Polanski’s public image is complicated by the undisputable fact that the man is one of the most talented living film directors. One really shouldn’t have anything to do with the other. But, as we all know, when it comes to artists (or, really, celebrities in general) people tend to make excuses in a way that goes against their usual best judgment. Yeah, he may have assaulted that girl, but that was a long time ago. And The Pianist is such a great movie. In a way, this type of conflicted thinking is a testament to the power of art. But that’s just an excuse.

Recently in The New York Times, Michael Cieply discussed how “[m]anners, mores and law enforcement have become far less forgiving of sex crimes involving minors in the 31 years since Mr. Polanski was charged with both rape and sodomy involving drugs.” While, in a general sense, this is a true statement (Cieply cites multiple news articles from 1977 that treat Polanski sympathetically), Cieply takes the obvious and easy (and unnecessary) step of analogizing Roman Polanski circa 1977 to Isaac Davis, Woody Allen’s character from Allen’s 1979 film Manhattan: “Mr. Polanski was treated by the authorities, including Judge Laurence J. Rittenband, not so much as a sexual assailant but…as a normally responsible person who had shown terrible judgment by having sex with a very young, but sophisticated, girl.”

On the surface, making the Woody Allen connection seems like a prudent choice giving Allen’s recent support for Roman Polanski and Allen’s own history with young women. Allen, in the eyes of many, is just as much a dirtball as Polanski. Allen married his then-partners’s adopted daughter, after all. And, yes, in Manhattan—a movie that Allen co-wrote, directed and starred in—a fortysomething Isaac Davis dates seventeen-year-old high school senior Tracy (Mariel Hemingway). Clearly, Allen and Polanski are cut from the same cloth, right?

The answer to this is an indisputable no. Without delving deeply into the history of Woody Allen’s personal affairs, let it suffice that Allen in no way conducted himself around Soon-Yi Previn (his former adopted stepdaughter and now wife) the way Polanski did around his victim in 1977. Allen began his affair with Soon-Yi when she was twenty-one years old and the relationship, from all prevailing evidence, was always consensual. I’m not an Allen apologist, but in reality he is guilty of bad taste and tactlessness, both of which are a far cry from the drugging and raping of a thirteen-year-old.

Cieply wisely avoided discussions of Allen’s relationship with Soon-Yi for these reasons. But he did make the Manhattan connection. This troubled me enough to write this post because I, like many fans of Allen’s films and American cinema in general, love the film Manhattan. And in all the times I’ve viewed this film I have never once seen Isaac Davis as “a normally responsible person who had shown terrible judgment by having sex with a very young, but sophisticated, girl.” In fact, to me, Isaac’s relationship with Tracy is the emotional core of the film.

Has the joke been on me this entire time? By enjoying Manhattan, and having never seen pedophilic flaws in Isaac Davis’s character, have I really been an inattentive and insensitive viewer. And, worse, have I subconsciously known all along that Isaac is a dirtball but let my own masculine side create artificial justifications for liking this guy?

In short, is it okay for guys to like Manhattan without feeling a requisite amount of guilt and/or shame?

There are two ways to go about answering these questions. The first and most direct route is to look at New York state statutory rape law. It’s a cold, clinical way to do film analysis, but in this case it’s probably normal for viewers to wonder if Isaac was actually breaking the law. After all, in the film’s first scene he is out in the open on an actual date with Tracy and another couple—at Elaine’s no less, a very non-secluded place. Likewise, in the film’s closing scene, Tracy tells Isaac (in a quote that Cieply also cites), “Guess what, I turned eighteen the other day. I’m legal, but I’m still a kid.” As it turns out, the age of consent in New York is seventeen. So Tracy was “legal” the entire time. But with eighteen being the US’s canonized age in which a teen becomes an adult, Tracy’s statement makes for a great movie line.

But that seems too easy, which is why the second and more difficult route is unavoidable. How did Allen frame and develop Isaac and Tracy’s relationship? This is where a catch-22 snags modern, forward-thinking men. Isaac and Tracy are Manhattan’s most nuanced couple. Their connection seems the most real. Even while Isaac spends most of his scenes with Tracy trying to convince her that she’s better off with someone her own age, it’s tough for a viewer not to want their relationship to work out. Tracy offers Isaac a relief from the self-absorbed women that populate his social circles; while Isaac offers Tracy unique (I won’t say more mature) forms of support and desire that she clearly lacks from her male peers. And Allen’s and Hemingway’s performances are fantastic. It’s really one of the more wonderful and enigmatic film relationships.

But one cannot forget that the relationship is Woody Allen’s construction. When one thinks about it this way, of course Isaac and Tracy are great together. Isn’t this a male fantasy, to be a fortysomething guy who develops the best relationship of his life with a beautiful, intelligent, mature seventeen-year-old? Looking across Allen’s body of work, his characters (as in, the characters Allen plays in his own movies) always tend to end up in the bed of women that are seemingly way too beautiful or young or just plain out-of-his-league. That, after all, is part of the charm of Allen’s films. In Manhattan specifically, though, age cannot help but rear its head. Are we watching Woody Allen’s most accomplished film relationship? Or are we watching a narcissist’s most accomplished male fantasy?

These are interesting questions in large part because, when looking at Manhattan from a storytelling perspective, Tracy’s age is not necessarily an integral piece of her character. This makes the male fantasy argument somewhat valid. But then again, what is the male fantasy—hooking up with a girl who’s not quite “legal,” or is it having a fulfilling relationship with a woman half your age after two failed marriages? There’s a legitimate difference between these two situations. The former is despicable; the latter is, well, a different story. And the former, I feel, aligns more closely with Manhattan. In the film, I feel Woody Allen uses Tracy’s age both for ironic and character purposes. The teenager, in being her non-cynical self, becomes the most honest and engaging woman in the film.

Turning one’s take on a film into Hegelian thought progressions or Socratic dialogues kind of saps the fun out of things, I know. After all, a large part of enjoying movies is taking in the visceral, in-the-moment experience that comes with watching a film for the first time. But great films must be given this type of extra thought as they become ingrained in our culture. I still like Manhattan. I still see Isaac and Tracy’s relationship as accomplished in its non-cynical view of modern romance. But I recognize that my conclusion is not the definitive conclusion. So while I call bullshit on Cieply’s analogizing Roman Polanski and Isaac Davis, I cannot fault Cieply for making the connection.

We're Not Alone

Trigger warning: the video clip, included in the article linked to below contains hurtful, derogatory, and offensive language toward the gay community and more.

So, it turns out we’re not the only ones following the emergence of a new masculinity. As you’ll see here, the very conservatives who continue to make feminism relevant and necessary have conducted a panel on ‘The New Masculinism’ at the Value Voters Summit. As Tracy Clark-Flory reported, the VVF

focused on how “feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men" and discussed the need to get "the principles and ideals for a new ‘masculinism’ right.”

The punchline of this article, “Boys beware: Porn turns you gay!” brings up one of the panel’s methods for fostering their ‘new masculinism’: telling boys that straight porn is ‘homosexual’ and will turn them gay. (The logic of which is based on so many false assumptions that would require a catalogue of encyclopedic proportions to account for all of them…or lots of comments…) Now, this raises some questions, which I hope you’ll help me expand on through your comments.

Question #1: Is it just me, or does the panel’s ‘New Masculinism’ sound a lot like the Old Masculinism? The only new additions to this new masculinism that I can see are hatreds that have been updated for today’s conservative insecurities. Pornographers, move over! Make some room for feminists and gays!

Question #2: Do they realize that feminists derive as much power from our accomplishments as from the power given to us by groups like the VVF? They’re basically saying without question that we have the power to have an impact on issues like marriage, women, children, men, and gender. Thanks, gentlemen, for the recognition and your unwavering faith in our social powers!

Question #3: Aren’t these the same people who generally like to say that feminism is irrelevant? That there’s no longer a need for feminism? But if feminists can no longer make a difference, how is it that we’ve made such a noticeable dent in ‘marriage, women, children and men’ that our work needs to be reversed? Can the VVF fight the very same power they themselves give to us? And wouldn’t that sort of be like they’re fighting with themselves?

Question #4: So how does your run-of-the-mill straight male porn not fall into traditional masculinity? Doesn’t the very porn they’re talking about rely on antiquated attitudes and tropes regarding how men and women relate to one another?