Episode 134: Calling out Gladwell and Barkley; racism in soccer; women's hockey w/ Kirsten Whelan

First, Lindsay, Shireen, and Brenda spend a little bit too much time talking about food and Friendsgiving. Then(5:34) the trio talks about Malcolm Gladwell, Charles Barkley, and the bad ways men in power talk about violence against women; and (20:55) they dive into the most recent news on racism in soccer, including Mark Sampson, unsurprisingly, being charged with racism.

Then (36:16), Shireen talks with Kirsten Whelan of The Victory Press about everything going on with women's hockey.

Finally, we have the Burn Pile (59:33), BAWOTW (1:07:35), and What's Good (1:11:20)

Links

Malcolm Gladwell's betrayal: https://www.powerplays.news/p/malcolm-gladwells-betrayal

Charles Barkley ‘joked’ about hitting a woman. She doesn’t need to justify speaking up: https://www.sbnation.com/2019/11/20/20974073/charles-barkley-comment-apology-axios-alexi-mccammond-reporter-hit-women

Charles Barkley Is Accused of Threatening a Female Reporter: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/sports/basketball/charles-barkley-threat-alexi-mccammond.html

Mark Sampson: Former England Women manager charged with alleged racist abuse by FA: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/football-league/mark-sampson-charged-england-women-manager-stevenage-racism-eni-aluko-fa-a9210446.html

Dutch soccer set for widespread protests against racism: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/22/football/dutch-football-racism-protests-spt-intl/index.html

Transcript

Lindsay: Hello and welcome to Burn It All Down, the feminist sports podcast you need. I am Lindsay Gibbs, and I will be your director of events for today. Joining me we have the fabulous Dr. Brenda Elsey, professor of history at Hofstra University. How are you today, Brenda?

Brenda: Pretty well, pretty well.

Lindsay: Yeah? 

Brenda: Drowning in gradings, still. But I’m good.

Lindsay: Drowning in gradings, yes. And of course, the optimist herself, Shireen Ahmed in Toronto, Canada. Hi Shireen.

Shireen: Good morning! 

Lindsay: We have got a phenomenal episode for you all today. We’re gonna dive into some stuff about Malcolm Gladwell and Charles Barkley, and ways powerful people in our society are still getting things wrong when it comes to talking about and writing about violence against women; kind of an evergreen topic here at Burn It All Down. Speaking of evergreen topics, we’re gonna talk about everything that’s going on with racism in soccer, I know Shireen and Brenda have a lot of updates for us on that front, as always. And we have a phenomenal interview, there is a lot going on with women’s hockey right now. And Shireen talked to Kirsten Whelan to break it all down. Of course, we’ll have badass women of the week, and the burn pile, and what’s good.

But first, I must admit, yesterday I had two Friendsgivings, which is, you know, the mishmash term for when you’re just getting together with your friends for Thanksgiving-like dishes, and it’s American Thanksgiving this week. Canadian Thanksgiving was last month, I believe.   

Shireen: Yep.

Lindsay: So, I thought we would take a second to just talk about what our favorite Thanksgiving dishes are, recognizing that the colonial nature of holiday is disgusting! But there is good food. Shireen, you love talking about food. What is your favorite Thanksgiving dish?

Shireen: I am a huge fan of cranberry sauce. I’m a big cranberry sauce person.

Lindsay: Ooh!

Shireen: I make my own, and I’m gonna brag about this, because it takes ten minutes. People don’t understand that adding citrus, adding fresh orange peel, orange rind…A splash of orange juice is critical. I also am going to announce that, I’ll say this in my what’s good but while we’re on the topic, I’m going to do a Friendsgiving which I’d never heard of before til this morning, and I’m gonna do it in Princeton with Brenda, Steph Yang and Meg Linehan, who don’t know where we’re doing it yet but I need to message them and let them know that we’re doing this! I just think it’s a fabulous idea, like you said, ignore the colonialist horrible traditions and make up your own. And if that means we go get pizza in Steph’s rented car, that’s what we’re gonna do. 

Lindsay: I love it. Brenda?

Brenda: I feel like I’m embarrassed to tell you what I like. 

Shireen: No shame! No shame, Brenda.

Lindsay: It’s gonna be like SALAD or something!

Brenda: It’s that green thing…What’s that green bean thing with the soup…

Shireen: Casserole? Green bean casserole? 

Brenda: Yeah. With the soup and the Durkee onions. I really like that way more than I should. 

Lindsay: Well it’s delicious.

Brenda: Yeah, but some people do it nicely with real green beans, and stuff like that, I don’t like it at all.

Lindsay: I actually made a real one yesterday.

Brenda: Yeah I don’t want that.

Lindsay: It was delicious.

Brenda: I know it is, but it’s like comfort, it’s like the memory…I think my working class family mostly used ingredients from cans my whole life and there’s still some very nostalgic…

Shireen: I think it’s also a generational thing, like there’s a lot of cream of mushroom soup used in the 80s, just full stop. That was a huge part of my…Like, meatloaf with Campbell’s tomato soup on top of it. 

Brenda: Even biscuits coming from a can!

Lindsay: Yes. Canned biscuits are amazing. 

Shireen: You mean like, Pillsbury biscuits? What do you mean by canned?

Brenda: Yeah, like that one where you pop them open…

Lindsay: Canned frozen.

Shireen: Yeah, I mean I’m sorry, they make the best cinnabuns. I get cinnabuns from Pillsbury. Those are easy, and I don’t bake. So let’s not knock the canned things.

Lindsay: Yes.

Brenda: I’m with you.

Lindsay: Yeah so, some of the great things that I ate yesterday were, for the first time, I had deep-fried turkey.

Shireen: Oh, god.

Lindsay: Turkey in the deep fryer.

Shireen: So good.

Lindsay: Oh my gosh, that was life-changing. I made some great Brussel sprouts with bacon, I have to say. Bacon and a lot of butter on the Brussel sprouts. Mashed potatoes are always really good. Just a classic favorite of mine. So honestly, I’m very full right now. But I’d like to eat again. If I could have another full day of eating and drinking today that would be great. But instead, we have the next best thing, which is Burn It All Down!

All right friends, as we know, how we talk about and write about violence against women matters, it’s important to do so responsibly, and this week there were two examples of high-profile and powerful men doing so incredibly irresponsibly. So I just really want to give us space to talk about this. First off, let’s talk about the more straightforward one. Alexi McCammond, a campaign reporter for Axios, was chatting with Charles Barkley when, in casual conversation, he told her, “I don’t hit women, but if I did I would hit you.” And when she objected to that he told her that she just couldn’t take a joke. Barkley has apologized, but my god, how are we still making offhand comments about beating up women. In 2019? It’s inappropriate to do it literally anytime, obviously, but this is a female reporter on the job.

Anyways, it’s just…Oh my god, it’s so disgusting. So that’s one. And then we also found out this week that David Jesse of the Detroit Free Press made me hate Malcolm Gladwell even more, which I really did not think was possible. So, Malcolm Gladwell, who people unironically refer to as a ‘thought leader,’ and Oprah endorses, and stuff. He released a book Talking to Strangers a few months ago. This book might sound familiar because Jessica already put him on the Burn Pile because of a chapter that reexamines the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse case at Penn State using a lot of research conducted by Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky truthers, who are, yes, exactly what you think they are: people who think that Sandusky, and especially Paterno, did nothing wrong.

So yeah. Complete bullshit. Well, apparently there was even more bullshit there than was previously known. Because the Free Press reported that Lisa Lorincz, the mother of Larry Nassar survivor Kaylee Lorincz, came forward saying that Gladwell used an interview that she gave to another podcast as part of his audiobook without her permission. Jesus.Okay, so this is a bit complicated, follow with me. Believed is an award-winning podcast about the Nassar case, produced by Michigan Radio NPR, co-hosted by Kate Wells and Lindsey Smith, these reporters did a phenomenal job earning the trust of survivors and their families and telling their stories with care. So in that podcast Lisa comes forward about one of the biggest regrets in her life, the day her younger daughter, Kaylee, told her that Nassar was inappropriately touching her, and Lisa brushed it off because her husband had been in the room during the entire appointment and didn’t see any abuse.

So Gladwell, who asked permission from Michigan Radio to use this clip, but did not reach out to Lorincz and did not reach out to the reporters Wells and Smith, and neither did Michigan Radio. So all this was a complete surprise to Lorincz and to Wells and Smith. But Gladwell used that clip of her talking about that horrible time in her life in the middle of a factually incorrect section about Nassar’s case, and again, this is all embedded in a larger chapter about excusing Jerry Sandusky’s enablers. This is disgusting. Gladwell is trying to prove his “default to truth” theory, basically saying that what we think we know, which is usually the best in people, is what we default to in tough times. Because the alternative is too absurd to comprehend. So Gladwell thinks he is backing up and excusing Lorincz’s story in telling why her reaction was okay, but what he really does by handling this so irresponsibly is violate her again.

I talked with Lisa for Power Plays, my newsletter, you can read the whole thing at powerplays.news, but I wanted to read this quote about what she’s been through: “I’ve been through a lot. I had cancer at 40, my oldest daughter had cancer … I lost my dad a year ago tomorrow, and that was hard in a different sort of way. But this is a devastating gut-punch that totally takes your breath away. Because if I go to the worst experience of my life, it would be the day it was confirmed that Kaylee was sexually assaulted by Nassar and that I didn’t stop it. That failure as a parent is one of the worst things, and this takes you right back there. It’s kind-of like how you’re drowning — I had a brother who would dunk (me) — and they’re holding you underwater for too long, and it’s like I just got my head above water and I’m being dunked right back down. I can’t breathe, I can’t function.”

Whew. You guys, I know this has been long, I need to just pass the baton. I’m too mad to even really comprehend. This is a lot. Shireen? 

Shireen: Yeah, I just wanted to add a couple of things. First of all, Jerry Sandusky, for those that didn’t hear, was recently sentenced to between 30 and 60 years. So the timing of it is really interesting, as Gladwell is making money off his bullshit. And he is really, truly, is an incredibly revered writer. He’s celebrated, especially in Canada, for being Canadian, and all of this kind of stuff, and it’s really sickening to me that when these issues come up they’re quickly deflected and the conversation…

And what Lindsay’s talking about, and I’ll rage about Charles Barkley in a second, is just that there is this absolute questioning of someone’s lived experiences and truth. That not only like when we tell survivors, oh, well it hasn’t been proven in court, it’s fucking proven in court now! Over and over again. But this guy still chooses to sort of re-question that narrative, and it’s like, it’s so upsetting and enraging for those that are advocates of survivors of sexualized violence, or just people that have a sense of justice and a sense of humanity, this is really dangerous what Malcolm Gladwell is doing.

And he comes across as being very…He’s not even strident, he’s very casual in dismissing criticism of this, he’s loosely gone and been…He’s almost giving a further platform to people that have so brutally endangered and violated people. It’s so upsetting to me why this guy’s books aren’t actually burned. I know the academic in you, Brenda, is probably like no, we shouldn’t do that. I don’t know. But this particular one is too much for me. I went to a bookstore the other day and I saw his book there and I was gonna secretly take all of them and hide them somewhere. But there’s cameras and stuff everywhere, it’s Christmastime. So, can’t do that.

Lindsay: Brenda?
Brenda: I mean, yeah. I don’t know that I would burn his book, but I certainly wouldn’t buy it. Your newsletter was really great, Linz. If people haven’t read it they should check it out. This past week, of course, Jerry Sandusky’s original sentence was upheld by the courts, the 30 to 60 years for sexually abusing child. And all of this is related, you know, the way that you treat women, the way that you treat children, the way that you treat male victims as well. Did you all see, at the Penn State game, there was an airplane that said “COME ON HONOR JOE PATERNO” Like a big banner. 

Lindsay: No!

Amira: Really?

Brenda: I didn’t investigate if that was photoshopped or anything, but it was going around Twitter. It just made me sick to my stomach. I think it’s just a lack of focus on the victims and what abuse does and the reverberations that it has in all facets of life and the pain that it causes people. And so Charles Barkley being cavalier about it, or Malcolm Gladwell, it’s really disgusting. It’s part of what perpetuates this really sick tendency in society to not identify with survivors, and to identify with perpetrators, and I think that just gives them this path. And then this idea of ‘cancel culture’ and shit is the same when they say stuff about political correctness. Why is it a laughable, dirty thing to want to be sensitive and anti-racist, anti-sexist. Why is this a new word, cancel culture! Like, “You’re a cancel culture person!” What the fuck? What is that? I like culture. I don’t like your culture of violence!

Shireen: Yeah.

Brenda: But I’m good with culture. So there comes to be these lightning words that help with that deflection, these flash words like ‘political correctness’ and ‘cancel culture’ and it’s like, yeah, domestic violence should be cancelled.

Lindsay: Right!

Brenda: You should be politically correct if that means not being a racist asshole. I dunno.

Shireen: The other thing too is that this whole idea of people saying “You’re cancel culture-ist” is like, no, I’m just demanding accountability.

Lindsay: Right! Thank you.

Shireen: Don’t conflate what I’m saying. This is something that when I was on The National here in Canada, that’s what I said, this whole cancel culture thing is a complete shield being used up to prevent accountability. Whether it’s racism, homophobia, violence against women, patriarchy, toxic masculinity, whatever. I’m not here for it. And people are like, “You’re cancel cultural-ist.” I just want to throw a chair at them, you know. Or other things. I don’t know. 

Lindsay: Somebody said on Twitter, like, “Cancel culture in the old days used to be called being responsible for your actions.”

Shireen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brenda: And it’s also okay to be ashamed. It’s okay to shame people when they’ve done hurtful things! That’s okay. You tell children that you should own your mistakes, and they should recognize it, and they should feel that remorse. So it’s okay to shame people. If they’re too ignorant to know what they’ve done is wrong after all our work to try to educate them then they should be ashamed of themselves.

Shireen: Yeah. The whole thing with Charles Barkley…Men are always extra, but this week they were extra extra.  

Lindsay: That’s the thing! I know these are weird things to group together but I just want to yell at the men.

Shireen: And that’s okay, you’re absolutely right to do that. He’s setting a precedent for telling a professional that it’s okay to literally attack her. Everyone’s all like oh, you can’t take a joke. No, that is not the right response. I was having this conversation with my fifteen year old, he had a volleyball tournament, we were driving back and I told him, he was like “Are you gonna burn Chuck?” Of course I’m gonna burn Chuck! He’s like, “Fair. Just please don’t burn Embiid.” He loves Embiid. So he’s like, “Don’t burn him!” I’m like, what did he do?! He’s like, “Nothing, nothing! He did nothing!” But I told him, you know why this is dangerous, and he says yes, I understand and it was not okay. I’m like, did you see people on social media calling him out? He’s like, “Not enough.”

Lindsay: Yeah.

Amira: Good.

Shireen: Even a fifteen year old can tell you that there wasn’t enough, saying “Dude, you’re wrong.”

Lindsay: And the reporter who came forward with this story, she’s been getting death threats all week!

Shireen: Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay: And of course those of us in sports media aren’t that shocked, but it’s still…She’s a politics reporter. But it’s ridiculous! It’s just so depressing.

Shireen: It is. It is depressing.

Brenda: And I should just mention, why is this constantly on a sports podcast. I know that it happens everywhere but I just think that we should underscore too that sports has been a safe haven for people like this and it’s not the only place but it does come out really acutely and persistently in sports because of the whole history of them. So it’s worth just underlining, to tackle it in sports is really…I know it’s not more important than like the workplace, or another place, but it is a space. 

Lindsay: It’s a space. And SB Nation did a good job recognizing this week, this also doesn’t happen in a vacuum. For Charles Barkley in particular, he has a history of troubling comments about domestic violence and violence against women. He has a history of sexism, so we need to recognize that as well. And the thing about Malcolm Gladwell, to kind of wrap up coming back to that, is he misses all nuance in this, because he’s just trying to jam these theories together because he thinks it makes him seem smart and contrarian. Which is just so stupid. It’s honestly all infuriating.

I’ve listened to multiple chapters of his book so I could write the newsletter knowledgeably, and it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done to myself. But what you’re doing here is you’re missing all nuance. He’s using this theory to basically excuse all of the enabling, right, of these monsters. He’s conflating institutional enabling and the trust…Why did this mother have this trust that she defaulted to in these moments? It’s because the institutions had been enabling him for decades, right? You can’t excuse the institutional enabling, because once again you’re saying nobody can be held responsible for anything! And that’s just not how any of this works. In a different chapter of the book Malcolm Gladwell literally well-actually’d Brock Turner’s rape victim’s victim impact statements.

Brenda: Oh my god.

Lindsay: He reads from that powerful statement, and then at the end he goes, “But, what if…”

Shireen: Oh. No. No.

Lindsay: It’s not okay! And it’s not okay that this man continues to get endorsed by the biggest publishers in the world when what he is doing is taking the worst moments of people’s lives, twisting them and using them for his own benefit, no matter what the real context and nuance To take this back to where we started, with Brenda saying he forgets that victims and survivors exist. He doesn’t care about them, he only cares about himself and his ability to be smart.

Alright. From one happy topic onto the next, Shireen, I think some things have been happening. Is football still racist?

Shireen: Ha, oh dear. Football is so very racist now, in an incredible turn of non surprise this week. Mark Sampson, former coach of the Lionesses, the England women’s national team, was charged with racist abuse. Now for those of you that follow our podcast, we know that we have had issues with Mark Sampson from a very long time ago. We stood in solidarity with Eni Aluko when she had to testify in front of a parliamentary committee hearing about the systemic racism in football. Anyway, Mark Sampson is trash, we know that.

So moving on to more trashy subjects, I don’t know if you all have been following the constant abuse that Mario Balotelli gets, and he plays in Serie A which is the Italian men’s league. Now, Mario Balotelli, I call him Super Mario, is a wonderful player, Italian national, and he just gets the worst type of abuse. Most recently there was a bit of a brouhaha because he actually kicked a ball into the stands when he was literally suffering…He was on the receiving end of very vile racist abuse from Verona fans. And he kicked the ball into the stands in anger and the club ended up suspending that particular fan, or that group of fans. But then the supporters group issued a statement that Balotelli was “arrogant.”

Rage ensued on Twitter for many people, and what I find shocking about this, and we’ll probably dive into this a little bit, is that the constant reporting…And like 90% of reporting in football in Europe and abroad is white folks, in North America, anyway. And how they’re constantly reporting on the same thing over and over again, and it finally takes BIPOC or BAME journalists who finally say that this is enough. I am not interested in hearing the false surprise of white journalists constantly talking about it, because at this point I don’t think that it’s just another report. But in an interesting turn of events, at a Dutch soccer match, and what the players did was really interesting, they ended up not playing the last couple of minutes of the match in protest against racism and how they were feeling, and how players are so frustrated that they end up walking off the pitch.

What happened, and this was literally a couple of days ago, the Dutch soccer team which is the Eredivisie, which is a specific division in Dutch professional football, so they decided to literally walk off the bench and, I hope I’m pronouncing this okay, Eerste Divisie, which is their two top leagues in that country. They literally just stopped playing and both teams understood, no, this is our pushback, it’s our resistance. I think that was really, really important, and it was also tweeted out by the Dutch national twitter account. Which I think was really, really, really important. And what actually prompted this was Excelsior winger Ahmad Mendes Moreira, they were doing songs about…I don’t know if any of your are familiar with this super racist tradition in Holland called “Black Pete,” which is just very bizarre. And Dutch folks will say, “No, it’s not racist! It’s part of our culture!” Say it with me people, your culture can be racist! So they were singing songs and directing them at Moreira, and his players and his team and his support system were like, no, this is terrible. So there can be ways to do it. I mean, I would to love to hear all your thoughts.

The last thing I’m gonna say about this before we get into our discussion is, you know, one of my favorite professional players is Kevin Prince Boateng, national from Ghana, he has basically said that he is so fed up with the discrimination in Serie A that he is going to set up a racism task force in 2020. So instead of having other organizations lead the charge he’s just like, they’re not doing enough, I’m going to do it with a series of other players. He hasn’t really announced who those players are. But especially with what happens with Lukaku all the time, Moise Kean and Kalidou Koulibaly, they’re the ones that are often targeted. And those are famous ones, so there are other players, I’m sure, that don’t have as high of a profile that are abused as well. And Boateng is amazing, and he’s just like, “I’m not gonna stand for this.” And just wanting to show solidarity. What bothers me about this at the same time as applaud him is that he is having to do the work. The work always falls on the marginalized. Always. And it’s just really frustrating. I want to offer him all the support in the world but I’m also so irritated that it has to happen.

Lindsay: Brenda?

Brenda: Yeah, so maybe we want to talk a little bit about why this has been more in the news over the past few months because, as Shireen said, this has been going on for years and years and years. So FIFA put into place in July a new three step protocol, and that protocol includes warnings on the loudspeaker, temporary suspension of the match until homophobic, racist, xenophobic, far-right behavior, or gender discrimination ceases. And then the next step is to forfeit the match.

So there have been a lot more stoppages over the last four months than there have been, so in one sense I don’t think there’s anything more racist about this moment, but there is a new mandate for referees to take more action. And when they take that action or don’t take that action, then we see players being caught in very terrible, terrible situations, and ones that just need to stop immediately. It’s just so painful. Recently in the Ukrainian Premier League, Taison, a Brazilian player, who plays for Shakhtar Donetsk, was racially abused during a match against Dynamo Kyiv. It was just horrible, horrible, monkey chanting and other things being said to him. He was crying.

Lindsay: My god.

Brenda: He was crying. He was in tears. He flipped off the crowd and was given a red card. Like…This was absolutely a violation and the referee was told by the players and, again, Shireen, yes, they are absolutely doing the work. They should’ve been told there’s no reason why it had to be them and on their shoulders telling them. But he was informed that the proper action was not taken, he was given a red card. And then, get this, it gets even worse! This is the punishment: Dynamo Kyiv has to play one match in a closed stadium, no fans. That’s a serious punishment for a club. Then only a £17,000 fine, and they play one more match on probation. Taison, the victim, gets a one match ban entirely, and then two on probation!

Shireen: Oh my god. 

Lindsay: What?!

Brenda: Yeah. For flipping off the crowd. What in the hell. And this happens to Brazilian players all the time, I document this for Fare all the time, the NGO that monitors this. And I would just like to say, the Fare Network also is a place where, for sports abuse and discrimination, it’s very very helpful, they can help make reports and take appropriate actions. Before we get crazy about the Brazilian case too, I would just like to say in Brazil, Flamengo player Hugo Souza was also given monkey chants by fans of Vasco this week. So Brazilians were horrified by the event in Ukraine but haven’t done – and I should just say that’s the under-20 Flamengo side – haven’t done nearly enough within Brazil itself.

This is all made worse by the fact that there are really major leaders complaining, for example the head of French football, Noël Le Graët, who says that there are too many matches stopping, and that he has told his referees to no longer stop for homophobic abuse, like just forget it, but okay, I guess racism. So that’s the kind of shit where you’re just like, seriously dude? Seriously? So you have major club presidents, league presidents and people within FIFA undermining what they’re trying to do. It’ll be very interesting as we look at qualifying for the world cup, because that’s really under FIFA control.

Lindsay: Yeah. Brenda, when you look at things like the Dutch soccer protests that we just saw, I’m kind of curious…Obviously it’s getting a lot of press as a feel-good story, but is that the right way to be covering that and is that the way forward, to have protests like this?

Brenda: Well, I mean there’s a fine line between sanctions and punishment, and constructing a different type of football culture, right? So I mean, I think it’s good, I guess. I wouldn’t say it’s bad. But what I think needs to happen, in addition to very, very harsh punishments. I think there’s no other way to get through to fans than to have collective responsibility. And then you hear this whining, like “But then you have one or two fans that bought tickets and can’t see their team,” So what? SO WHAT.

Lindsay: Is that really the worst case scenario?

Brenda: These are people going to their jobs and getting racially abused and crying…I cannot even see it again, it’s heartbreaking. But there also needs to be ongoing educational actions that take place at these clubs, because they really are large social institutions, that start at the very bottom. Ongoing grassroots actions that are taken, and campaigns that are taken, to change the way that people participate in football, because the time you get to organized fan supporters, by the time they’re signed up for that, they’re already racist, if they’re racists. They already think this is a space they can express their racism on. 

So the Dutch campaign is fine. It’s really good. Really really good. And I will say, there was during a Romania…Romania-Sweden match? There was a banner that said ‘FUCK FARE.’ So I would just like to say, I felt really, really proud about that. It even had the lettering of Fare, like the exact font and everything. And I thought, wow. It’s really working, like if we’ve made people this mad.  

Lindsay: Do you want to…I mean, I know we’ve talked about it on the show before, but just recapping, and you touched on it a little bit here, but what exactly it is you do with Fare, because I’m just so proud of you.

Brenda: Well, so right now I am the development lead for the Americas, so I oversee the monitoring system in North and South America, so CONMEBOL and CONCACAF, looking forward to the qualifiers for the 2022 Qatar World Cup. So we observe and report incidents of racism, homophobia, gendered violence, xenophobia, and also develop a grant program Football People weeks, which is grassroots programs like friends of the show at the Minnesota Fútbol Show who did interviews with refugees who are forming clubs, in the Minneapolis area. And whether it’s LGBT leagues in Mexico City...It's both the idea of punishment but also constructing different cultures, as I was talking about.

Lindsay: It’s so important. I feel like every other week on the burn pile we have another instance of not just racism but racism on the youth levels in soccer, globally. You know, when I was researching this topic, that’s what stuck out to me and it really hammers home what you’re saying, Brenda, that this is all learned so early on and by the time you get to these pro levels, if you’re only focusing your solutions there you’re missing the point. Shireen?

Shireen: Yeah, thank you. I think it’s also important to note, there’s a lot of in grassroots, not so much grassroots, but youth levels, and the first time I ever experienced racial abuse, really violent racial abuse, was on a soccer pitch. And I think that this is the experience of many, many people. I can only speak to my own experience but I’ve heard stories of friends. BIPOC colleagues and other sportswriters and athletes have been like, “Yeah, it’s the first place I heard it too.” Because it’s one of the spaces where you’re so outnumbered as opposed to in your community and your family, you’re in spaces that don’t reflect you. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, it’s constantly hard, is watch professional footballers cry because of racist abuse. And let’s not delude ourselves to think that it only happens in men’s leagues, it definitely happens in women’s as well. There’s this idea that because women’s leagues are talking about sexism and fighting inequality that this doesn’t happen. It absolutely does happen, and we talked about it on the show. I think it’s really important to understand that there are things we can do about it. And yes, huge hat top to Fare, love that organization. And because it’s learned behavior, if you see it, act on it. It’s not okay. If you see it in a stadium, if you see it report it, or just simply say…I know that people don’t want to get involved. What, you don’t want to get involved in fixing society? What does that even mean? If you see something, say something, because it is so toxic and it literally destroys lives, racism absolutely destroys lives. We all have a responsibility to do it, it doesn’t matter if you’re from that community or not. It doesn’t matter if you’re another person of color who witnesses anti-blackness, you definitely have a responsibility to say something. I think that hopefully we’ll talk about this less, but I just look forward to the measures being stridently imposed.

Lindsay: Next, we have Shireen’s interview with Kirsten Whelan on women’s hockey.

Shireen: Hello flamethrowers, Shireen here. Today I am very, very excited to have one of my fav hockey writers, Kirsten Whelan. Kirsten is a hockey writer focused on women’s sports, particularly women’s hockey, at The Victory Press. She has a background in labor organizing and has an amazing three-legged cat named Pierre. Hello, Kirsten.

Kirsten: Hi!

Shireen: So, I brought you on because I really wanted you to help me navigate through all the conversations and discourses within women’s hockey. Because right now I feel like I’m that Winona Ryder gif looking at all the math problems going, what’s happening.

I just really want women’s hockey to thrive and I’m getting confused by comments and things being thrown around. Why can’t we all just get along?

Kirsten: Isn’t that the million dollar question.

Shireen: What are your thoughts on this? Can you take us back to kind of what’s happening there?

Kirsten: The broad strokes overview of women’s hockey?

Shireen: Pretty much since last…Since March 31st, 2019 when the C-dub shut down. For our listeners who might not know.

Kirsten: Yeah, so for those who aren’t familiar with the ins and outs of the women’s hockey scene, at least on the professional level in North America, the Canadian women’s hockey league which had four teams in Canada, one in the Boston region and one in Shenzhen, China, folded very suddenly on March 31st of 2019. At that point the only other ostensibly professional women’s hockey league in North America was the National Women’s Hockey League, NWHL, with five teams in the United States, mostly centered along the east coast. Basically in the weeks following the shuttering of the CWHL a bunch of the top women’s hockey players in the world, so the entirety of the US and Canadian national teams, as well as most of the players who had previously played in the CWHL, and a large number of players who had played in the NWHL as well, got together and collectively took a stance that they were not going to be playing professional women’s hockey in a league that existed in North America because they wanted to fight for a league that would provide the resources that they felt women’s hockey needed and deserved.

So here we are in November and those players have formed the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association, PWHPA, and are basically organizing a tour where they’ve had three stops so far and have more to come in 2020 and are playing small tournaments, meanwhile the NWHL is playing a regular season with a few players who were in the league already but mostly a large number of new players who have not previously been on the team, so to speak, and they’ve continued to do business as usual. They’ve been making a lot of announcements, additions of new sponsors, of new funding sources. A lot has not been disclosed publicly in terms of what anything actually means, so the situation is kind of difficult to parse at the moment. 

Shireen: Yeah, I have a question for you. Have there been players that have left the PWHPA to go to the NWHL or overseas? Have they left? Because going from a professional league to just getting tournaments whenever possible, and the Dream Gap Tour, which is the tour that they were on, have any left that to go to the NWHL?

Kirsten: So, there are a couple of players who went overseas, but they didn’t leave the PWHPA to do that. I know there’s been some confusion, but that’s not inconsistent, because the statement from the PWHPA from the very beginning was that they wouldn’t play in an existing league in North America.

Shireen: Ah, okay.

Kirsten: So players who’ve gone overseas have all maintained that they stand with the PWHPA  and they still support that mission and they are still working towards that goal. There are players who did initially associate themselves with the PWHPA’s pledge at the very beginning, in the early weeks and months, and wound up eventually signing contracts with the NWHL. A small handful of players did end up doing that but since the actual season has begun there hasn’t been anyone defecting, so to speak, from the movement.

Shireen: So, what the PWHPA players stand for is about having an existing league structure: health insurance, livable wages, stuff that we all think is normal and expected and deserved. Why would it come across that the NWHL itself doesn’t support that? Don’t they support that? They want the game to grow, they pay their players, don’t they? Why are those two beliefs inconsistent, or sort of non-compatible? 

Kirsten: Yeah, I think if you ask anybody associated with the NWHL they will tell you that they want to be able to provide those things. The reality right now is that they can’t and basically both, in terms of the broader women’s sports landscape, having an independent league relying on influxes of venture capital is not necessarily the most obvious route, based on precedent, to achieve those things, in a lot of people’s eyes. They don’t have access to existing infrastructure, for instance their having to pay venue rentals, having to rely on existing schedules, and sort of work from that side of things.

Beyond that, there’s a huge issue of mistrust and broken trust. An obviously well-cited issue is the fact that in 2016, almost exactly three years ago to this date, the NWHL, without consulting players at all, unilaterally slashed salaries by a very significant amount, so players who had signed contracts were suddenly unable to rely on that source of income and that’s something that everyone is well aware of. But throughout the years there have been other issues that have come up with regards to playing conditions, training conditions, and various aspects of what it means to be a player playing and existing as a worker in that league that have led many of them to seriously doubt the league’s prioritization of player wellbeing, as opposed to maintaining the league in itself as a business. 

Shireen: Okay, and the commissioner for the NWHL is Dani Rylan and she’s been there for a while.

Kirsten: She has been there from the beginning. It’s the league that she founded, so the groundwork begun in earnest in 2014, and she remains commissioner today.

Shireen: So of the things I wanted to ask, which prompted a little bit of my having you on, was comments by Hayley Wickenheiser, who’s just recently been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, but also just sort of talking about the NWHL in a different way, some might’ve considered it not too complimentary, but flat-out Hilary Knight saying that the C-dub was a beer league. That made me think that wait a minute, is this really where we want to go with this conversation? And of course they have perspectives and experience, obviously, that I don’t, but just sort of wondering A) is that necessary, and B) what are we getting at?

Kirsten: I guess, to start out with Hayley Wickenheiser, I think it is important to remember when looking at her comments that Hayley Wickenheiser is not representative of the PWHPA, is not really involved with that organization, and although I suspect that most players would concede that they don’t fully disagree with what she’s saying in that they do believe that the NHL sort of running a women’s hockey league is the most expeditious way to get to their end goal, she’s also not speaking for them, and she’s not speaking on behalf of the organization and she really isn’t coming from that place. So I think not necessarily conflating them is something that would be helpful in that conversation.

Shireen: Okay. Okay.

Kirsten: But yeah, I think that at the end of the day she said the same thing pretty much back when it was CWHL and NWHL in 2016, so she’s been very consistent with a quite strong stance where she does not believe that the NWHL is the model that is going to move women’s hockey to the place that she and many others would like to see it. Obviously, that lack of faith in the NWHL and its leadership is something that is widely shared. But as for what she’s saying, how she’s saying it, I don’t know where that fits, so to speak.

To turn towards what Hilary Knight said, the idea that it’s a “glorified beer league,” she has used that phrase to reference the CWHL as well, and so I think that when she’s saying that this is a glorified beer league, what she’s trying to get at is the fact that despite the best efforts of many of the people involved, despite the dedication of the volunteers, neither of the leagues was able to provide what we should really be demanding for professional women’s hockey. And that’s a full time livable wage, that is the conditions, that is having a locker room that is devoted just to that team where they leave their things, where they can consistently have access to what they need, being able to practice at reasonable hours. All sorts of little details. It also means that the league provides health insurance, not just accident insurance. So actually having everything you need to thrive as an athlete and as an employee. That’s something she’s been pretty consistent about neither of these leagues offering. I think it’s sort of hit a nerve this time a little bit differently, probably in large part because we’re midseason with the NWHL.

Shireen: Right.

Kirsten: But one of the other things she said later in that same interview was not having healthcare and being paid pennies to go play and call yourself professional, that’s not something any of us are interested in. So I think that really gets down is, is that the most diplomatic way to say it? Not necessarily, but these are things that as you mentioned, she actually faced firsthand, she played in both leagues, she has played without having health insurance from the league, she has played in the year where salaries were slashed. So I think knowing firsthand that this is what professional hockey has been able to offer her, as one of the best players in the game for the entirety of her post-collegiate career, she should never have been in that position. Nobody should be in that position, and she doesn’t have faith that the NWHL can get past that position. I think that’s really where she’s coming from.

Shireen: Yeah. It’s just boggling to me that professional athletes are playing without healthcare, it’s really conceptually difficult to understand. That’s the first thing you would think that somebody would need in terms of physio, in terms of doctors, in terms of injuries – hopefully not – but as a professional athlete, when you’re using your body in this way, in such an intense way, it’s just unfathomable. I mean, more respect to these women for what they’re doing.

Kirsten: Yeah, and there’s different details in terms of types of insurance and what is or isn’t offered, I think medical insurance is sort of the big one that people get confused about that has never been offered by the NWHL, it also wasn’t offered in the CWHL but it’s a little bit different when you’ve got universalized healthcare in Canada. And I do believe that travel insurance was covered but the types of insurance, what’s actually being covered, what’s not, what’s provided, what is an athlete expected to bring on her own. Because paying for a comprehensive healthcare coverage plan is not cheap, you know. That pretty much eats up your salary with what some of these professional leagues have been able to offer. 

Shireen: So, from what I understand, in conversations that I’ve been having sort of on record and in chat groups and in DMs and this and that, is very much that the PWHPA really feels like the NHL coming onboard would really help, because of resources and allocation and accessibility to media, and just generally everything. But as somebody who doesn’t trust the NHL with hockey, men’s hockey, I’m reluctant as a fan, as a sportswriter, to have them get involved in women’s hockey! Which to this point, I feel is like the purest form of hockey that there is out there. Because the women having access…And for me the P-dub has been great, women really taking agency over their sport. And the systems, either racism or homophobia, suppression and oppression in men’s hockey, from the NHL, that concerns me. Is that really the way to go, do you think, the NHL getting involved here?

Kirsten: Yeah, I mean that’s something that I struggled with a lot for all of the reasons that you’ve mentioned, and I think what it comes down to is that at the end of the day, if women’s hockey players are going to actually be able to earn a livable wage, to have playing conditions that they are satisfied with, that are worthy of professional athletes of their caliber, the there needs to be an influx of money and resources and that is going to have to come from somewhere, and in our world existing under capitalism, the somewhere that that money would come from almost invariably is going to wind up having a source that I don’t think that we would ever be particularly happy with.

And so at the end of the day, if it’s the NHL, we’ve got all of these problems that we’re very aware of that exist within a sporting league context, but is a wealthy venture capitalist any better? I’m not so sure. So that’s kind of how I’ve come to approach it. I think the other aspect is just that if you look at the WNBA which has been a frequent point of comparison, there are so many issues that players are continuing to fight against and to fight for in that league. But one of the things that’s worth pointing out is that it did provide the groundwork for there to be a livable wage, to have a better platform, to be able to fight for more. And those players have never given up the fight. So I think that there’s sometimes this idea that, oh look at all of these problems in the WNBA…This isn’t going to solve everything, but I don’t think the idea is that the NHL would solve everything, it just provides the possibility to make things more livable. And the fight is always going to continue for female athletes.

Shireen: Yeah. So, the WNBA is actually one of the things that’s been referred to as the model because it took time, there was investment, and it’s steadily growing, and now their viewership– they’re getting sponsors with TV and media corporations and stuff, it’s growing, even from the time that I really started to pay attention to them. It went from just airing live on Twitter to being available even in Canada on TV, which I think is amazing and important. So the WNBA, like you said, the fight will sadly never be over. Even the most optimistic of us know that it won’t be. But at least it can get better, you know, the priority here is basically what you’re saying, is so these players can play and survive is basically what we’re talking about. Minimum things here. We’re not talking about like everything that comes after, frills and endorsements, what we’re really talking about is a livable wage. 

Kirsten: Yeah, it really is sort of the base minimum to be able to focus on the sport, and that in turn helps improve the quality of the game on the ice, but also just the basic living conditions. It affects who can actually afford to continue in the sport post-college and the years after that, because at a certain point right now people are having to make decisions to retire well before when they actually would like to, because they’re working second jobs, third jobs, some of them are juggling school and jobs and hockey on top and it’s just completely unsustainable. So enabling them to focus on being professional athletes and have that be a decision that they can choose to pursue and not have to worry about what comes after until they’re at the point where it’s time for what comes after is already such a massive improvement and the bare minimum for being able to say that we, as a society, are supporting professional women’s football.

Shireen: Yeah, I think that’s something that strikes me as…When I first found about professional women’s leagues, and when I started paying attention and really loving…It was before the CWHL actually paid, were able to pay their players. And just sort of finding out, this was years ago…Years, I mean like four. Or three. Just finding out the schedules of the athletes, I mean…Kirsten, you and I joked about this, but our friend Melanie Desrochers, who used to play with Les Canadiennes and is part of the Dream Gap Tour, her schedule is just…I’m a single mother of four children and her schedule stresses me out, just the way she worked. And recently when I was in Montreal we wanted to get together but Mel was traveling for work and going straight to hockey. She didn’t even have the opportunity because of her commitment to the game to just hang out with friends even. You know what I mean?

It’s pretty staggering, and I say this in presentations to people, think about your favorite men’s hockey team. Think about how they would perform if they had to work full time jobs on top of that, then just practice at night and compete on the weekends. And the faces of these students is just like, oh, they would be terrible. In fact the very honest Toronto Maple Leafs players, they’d probably do worse than they’re already doing. Which is pretty bad. Which is a very fair comment for that young man to say. And so when we’re talking about this, where are these players now? Is Dream Gap helping, do you really feel like this is helping?

Kirsten: I don’t think that any of them really want to be on the Dream Gap Tour, I think that it’s a measure that they’ve taken because they are very adamant that what the NWHL has to offer and what the NWHL has shown them in the past is not acceptable to them. And so this is really an insistence that they’re not okay with the status quo, and in the meantime they need to stay on the ice, they need to stay as visible as possible and continue playing the sport that they love.

I think think that the Dream Gap Tour has had a lot of positives, whether it be in the way that the message has really, visibly resonated with a lot of young girls who want to dream of a viable professional future for themselves and are seeing these women stand up for that. There have been some good crowds, the games have been excellent, but at the same time everyone just wants the league, they want to have that stable structure, they want to have that livable wage, they want to have those steady and reliable and sustainable conditions that meet their needs. The Dream Gap Tour is not the end in itself, but I think that for the purpose of what they are looking for in this moment, it’s filling a gap in their schedules as well in what their lives are like when they don’t have an adequate league to play in right now.

Shireen: Sure. And for those of us that are out here, and for fans that want to support NWHL players as well, that want to support the athletes playing hockey, is there a way to do this? It doesn’t have to be…God, I can’t believe I was just about to quote Dubya, a “You’re with us or you’re against us” kind of thing. You can love hockey and want the best for women’s hockey while supporting players that are in the NWHL because you want to support that, you want to support the playing of the game, the growing of the game, the representation the young girls see players on the ice. How do we do this? Is there a graceful way for this to be done?

Kirsten: I really don’t have any answer for that. I wish it was that simple. I think what makes it complicated is in part because the crux of what the PWHPA is saying is that what the NWHL is doing is not okay, it’s not good enough and it’s not acceptable. And so to answer your question of can you support the players who have chosen to remain in that league without supporting the institution that is fundamentally opposed to what the PWHPA is standing for, I don’t know how to do that or what the answer is. That’s a really complex area to go into in that it really requires thinking through things seriously and thinking through why so many players would be willing to take such a strong stance together and to maintain it even when it’s not personally benefiting them.

Shireen: Wow. Yeah, for sure. Kirsten, you’re one of the people that I think has the smartest brain on many things, including women’s hockey and I really appreciate you coming on the show because it’s a lot to think about, and we care about women’s hockey and we want it to grow and we want it to thrive, not just survive. But I really appreciate you taking the time. How is Pierre doing, by the way?

Kirsten: He is doing well, he was sitting right in front of me for most of this and eventually got very annoyed with me talking at clearly not him, and he decided to sit on the floor. But he’s doing well.

Shireen: Okay, awesome. And I’m assuming he’s a hockey fan? 

Kirsten: He occasionally swats at the screen. 

Shireen: Okay, amazing. Anyways, thanks again for coming on Burn It All Down.

Lindsay: I am feeling extra burn-y today. Brenda, can you kick off the most rage-y segment, which means the most sacred segment, the burn pile.

Brenda: I sure can. I have a weird burn, because it’s not any particular instance or event that happened this week, but I would like to burn the way that men treat women runners. This comes from decades of personal experience but was prompted by a recent article in The Guardian that analyzes the level of harassment that women who run receive from the elite level to people like me who just sort of lace up and see what happens. It was marathoner Lily Partridge who spoke about two particular things that happened to her. One where she and the other women were violently pushed around for starting positions at a race, and another where she was followed by a man, and this is from that article, who ran, quote, “intimately close to her.” 

Lindsay: Oh god.

Brenda: And I had never known that there’s a name for being beaten by a woman in cycling and running, called ‘to be chicked.’

Shireen: Yeah, yeah.

Brenda: Like really? I had no idea. Anyway, this brought up all kinds of memories of getting heckled and harassed, running in Queens in New York City for years while I was trying to hurdle over rats, and groups of men waiting in unemployment lines or even groups of two, almost never alone, would say anything. Any kind of thing to distract me in Spanish, English, Bengali, you know Queens is a very diverse place, but this was something across the board. And I just want to burn the insecurity of those men that starts on the back of the school bus telling girls that they’re bigger, faster, stronger. That even as men enjoy conversations and hypothetical scenarios in which the best women in any given sport or physical activity could never beat the best man. Whatever, get lost, burn it.

Group: Burn

Lindsay: Shireen?

Shireen: Yes. I’m all excited about this burn because I love, as you said, it’s the most sacred. What I’m going to burn is a thing that was brought to my attention by my friend Hind Makki, and she’s in the United States, she’s an avid figure skating fan. She and another new friend, Rose Deighton, were explaining this to me. I’m basically going to burn the way orientalist interpretations in figure skating are brought and performed. So for example, Madison Chock and Evan Bates are a figure skating duo and they came up with a routine that is really, really just a mishmash of all these terrible, appropriative things. So I got into an exchange with Rose Deighton, and Rose is a Canadian former figure skater and a PHD candidate in Islamic studies at Emory University. She said this to me about this because I tried to watch their performance of Youtube and I could barely get past the first thirty seconds of this typical snake-charming ridiculous thing. This is what Rose said to me:

“Skating as a sport needs to reckon with its whiteness. If choreographers value being respectful of other cultures, and in this case Arab cultures, then they should have skaters seriously study dance techniques and culture with Arab experts. While I’m sure Chock and Bates are unaware and well intending, their 2019 FD plays off of the reductive orientalist trope of the snake charmer which is a well known symbol used at the time of colonial officers and the earliest European orientalist scholars to paint the middle east as exotic, barbaric, and sexual. This trope along with the practice of gleaning symbols from various eastern cultures together is a systemic process taken up by European powers through cultural representation in art and literature, and Chock and Bates do this exactly. They combine disparate dance genres like bellydancing and ancient Egyptian stylization and Bollywood inspired thumka together, which do not go together, and as though they do not belong to distinct cultural context. They could have studied Arab dance seriously but instead they used western stereotypes about the Middle East that have been used historically to diminish and subjugate Arabs, especially Arab women, to an inferior status within western imagination. Reducing Arab culture and dance to the snake charmer is a maneuver of soft power through which the west asserts its supposed superiority and authority over the east.”
So what I am going to say here, and thank you Rose for that, is that I don’t know if you remember Meryl Davis and Charlie White’s 2010 Olympic smash hit and silver medal performance. They actually are another figure skating due from the United States, but they did that routine with a choreographer from Bollywood. I watched that performance, it was riveting, their costumery was beautiful, you could tell that they put such an effort into studying something so authentic. So I’m not out here saying it shouldn’t be done. It should be done the right way and I think Meryl Davis and Charlie White’s performance is a good example of that. I want to burn Madison Chock and Evan Bates’ performance because I couldn’t even watch all of it because it was such a gong show. It doesn’t have to be appropriative, it can be appreciative. So I want to burn that appropriation. Burn.

Group: Burn.

Lindsay: Oh I love that distinction. I am throwing USA Gymnastics onto the burn pile. Louise Radnofsky, a great reporter at the Wall Street Journal, reported this week that back in 2015 when USA Gymnastics was investigating Larry Nassar and had alerted the FBI to the fact that there were allegations of abuse against him, nobody told Simone Biles, even though USA Gymnastics knew that she was one of the athletes that had complained about Nassar. Nobody told Simone.

Nobody talked to her. They let her just continue being the face of USA Gymnastics, being the superstar, they continued to trot her off to marketing appearance after marketing appearance after marketing appearance. And nobody checked in with her to make sure she was okay. In fact nobody nobody from USA Gymnastics check in on Simone until she tweeted, in 2018, that she was abused. It took that long. After this was revealed this week in the Wall Street Journal, Simone had some pretty heartbreaking tweets. This is incredibly difficult to deal with, and she said, “Seems to me it wasn’t just USAG but USOC and FBI. Why??? did everyone know but me….”

And Dominique Dominique Moceanu also tweeted this week that she vividly remembers how Steve Penny, who was the former USA Gymnastics president, wanted to be Simone Biles’ agent. It’s just…This corruption knows no bounds, and I’m just going to end this burn by quoting another Simone Biles tweet from this week. She says about the Wall Street Journal article, “Can’t tell you how hard this is to read and process. The pain is real and doesn’t just go away...especially when new facts are still coming out. What’s it going to take for a complete and independent investigation of both USOPC and USAG???” Burn.

Group: Burn.

Lindsay: Alright. We have a fabulous lineup for the badass woman of the week, I’m gonna dive right in to the honorable mentions. We have all the Footie Black list in the UK that celebrates Black excellence and African and Caribbean achievement in the sport. Some of the honorees include JJ Roble, Iqra Ismail, Vivienne Aiyela, Lungi Macebo, Joanie Evans, Anita Asante, Pippa Monique, Fadumo Olow, Danielle Carter, Renee Hector and so many more! Congratulations.

The Haudenosaunee Nationals won the Pan American Lacrosse Association qualifiers and are going to the Lacrosse World Championship in 2021.

Jill Ellis is the recipient of the Women's Soccer Award of Excellence. She will be honored at the Coaches of Women's Soccer breakfast in January.

Professor Vicky Paraschak of the department of Kinesiology at the University of Windsor is part of the team that received funding to put together a nine-hour workshop to look at holistic coaching approaches, racism, and community wellbeing for Indigenous athletes called The Aboriginal Coaching Module. It’s a workshop through the National Coaching Certification Program. That is incredible.

Want to say congratulations to all the organizers and participants of Women on Wheels that launched it's Sindh leg of the project in Karachi, Pakistan today. Or over the weekend, if you’re listening to this. Women on Wheels is a gender equality transportation project that will train 10,000 women to ride motorbikes and reclaim their mobility.

Lots of LPGA awards, it was their end of season tournament this week. Spain’s Carlota Ciganda, who won the inaugural Aon Risk Reward Challenge and the $1 million payday that came with it. Aon held this challenge for the LPGA and PGA Tour all season long, and in a first for golf, offered the same $1 million winner’s check to both the men and women who won. Please, more of that.

Jin Young Ko took home all the awards. She won the Rolex Player of the Year award, Rolex ANNIKA Major Award. She later added the Vare Trophy to her tally when she captured the award for the season’s lowest scoring average, and she also finished the season no. 1 in the rankings and atop the prize money list. So I would say Ko had a pretty great year. 

Brooke Henderson received the 2019 Founders Award, an honor voted on by  her peers, given to the player that best exemplifies the spirit, ideals and values of the LPGA.

Suzann Pettersen, who retired in September after returning from an extended maternity leave to sink the winning putt for Team Europe at the 2019 Solheim Cup. She was named the winner of the 2019 Heather Farr Perseverance Award.

We also had Jeongeun (Jungun Lee6) who added to her trophy count when she accepted the 2019 Rolex Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year. 

And, can I have a drumroll please?

Woo! Alright, our badass woman of the week is LPGA player Sei Young Kim, who is only 26, and won the CME Group Tour Championship with a phenomenal 25 foot birdie on the 18th hole to win this year-end event and to take home a $1.5 million winner’s check, which is the largest payday in the history of women’s golf.

Everyone, what’s good?

Brenda: Copa Libertadores is good! The club competition from South America ended yesterday with Flamengo beating River Plate, so Flamengo from Brazil and River Plate from Argentina. It was crazy! River had the game, it was 1-0 the entire time, I think in the 89th minute  Gabigol scores, and then in the 93rd, extra time, scores again. It was so exciting and so, so very, very South American. It was one of those things where I’m like, this is done, this is done, this is done, wow. I can’t believe that this is how it’s going down. Then it’s like, nope, nope, it’s not! And I love Gabigol and I’m so happy for him and for Flamengo who haven’t won a club championship for Libertadores since 1981 and last year, because of the violence between Boca and River, it had to be held in Europe. So a championship named for the independence leaders of Latin America went to Spain. Which…was not cool. And this year it was in Lima and it was fantastic, so that was very very good for me yesterday.

Lindsay: Wow. I love that. Shireen.

Shireen: I had a very good experience yesterday, I was at the Regent Park Film Festival here in Toronto doing a screening of Life Without Basketball, Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir’s documentary that came out about her challenging the hijab ban. I had a small cameo in the film and it’s always fun to see. It was an incredibly emotional documentary because it chronicles her life and the years that it took to overturn the ban. I also did a Q&A afterwards, which was really fun. It’s always really good and we have a really great connection the vibe off of each other was wonderful.

And one of the nicest things happened when I was being introduced, a young Somali Canadian man was introducing our segment, “Really excited to have Shireen Ahmed moderating, and in my opinion she’s the best sportswriter in Canada, and she’s the only reason why sports is bearable these days on Twitter.” I was completely stunned. I was like…

Brenda: I feel like that too!

Lindsay: Yes!

Shireen: It was a really beautiful space, it’s a really beautiful community, Regent Park, and its film festival is wonderful, so congratulations to Camille and everybody else because this is really important. It’s accessible, we had an ASL translator during the segment, and subtitles on the movie. The tickets are free, you just have to register. It’s a wonderful film festival here in Toronto, you really should check it out.

And the next thing that I’m super excited about is actually Princeton, for a conference! I mentioned that. It’s a soccer conference, I will see Dr. Elsey there and hang out with Meg and stuff, Laurent Dubois will be there, Peter Alegi, two of our favs. It’ll be a good time, some really interesting discussions happening, so that’ll be wonderful. And that’s it.

My daughter’s team went to OFSAA, which are the provincial finals in basketball, they did not win but they had an amazing season and I’m so proud of them. Go Loyola Warriors. A lot of the team is seniors so it was quite an emotional tournament. So that’s about it. 

Lindsay: I love that you have so many things.

Shireen: I have so many things.

Lindsay: It makes my heart warm. For me, as I mentioned up top, I had two Friendsgivings yesterday which just made me feel full of love for DC and this community I have built here that’s gotten me through some tough times this year, let’s be honest. I think I’m just gonna stick with that. I’m just feeling grateful for my community and excited about what’s next. Of course, always the most grateful for my Burn It All Down community of my co-hosts and our phenomenal listeners, we couldn’t do this without you. Every single time I get an email or see someone in person that says they listen to the show, I immediately feel like we must be friends. I just feel like we’ve got such a phenomenal group here, and so if you want to be an even deeper part of that group, if you really love us and want to support us and make sure that this can happen every week, go to patreon.com/burnitalldown.

For as little as $2 a month…It’s not much, we wanted it to be affordable for everyone. So for as little as $2 a month you can get access to an extra segment each month, for $5 you can get access to a behind the scenes video each month, which I believe we’re about all caught up on now. And a chance to win some swag. And we love our Patreon community, so grateful for that. You can also of course follow us on Twitter @BurnItDownPod, Facebook @Burnitalldown, and on our website you can find all of this information at burnitalldownpod.com. I think that’s about it.

Oh! Also, grateful in advance for people leaving review, that is a free way you can help us, if you go to iTunes and just leave us a five star review and tell us why you love the podcast, that helps get us to find new listeners. So I hope that if you’re in the States you find a fun way to celebrate this holiday and take some time, and we love you. Brenda, what do you say?
Brenda: Keep burning on, but not out.

Shelby Weldon