Episode 220: Reproductive Justice and Sport
In this episode, Lindsay Gibbs, Amira Rose Davis and Brenda Elsey take a look at the history of reproductive justice in women's sports and they ways that athletes have been leaders in this movement today. They also discuss the institutional support they'd like to see from teams and leagues for reproductive health, abortion and mothers.
Following this discussion, there's a preview of Lindsay's interview with softball legend Cat Osterman. Then, they burn the worst of sports this week on the Burn Pile. Next, they celebrate those changing sports for the better, including Torchbearer of the Week, the supporters of the Washington Spirit, The Spirit Squadron. Then, they wrap up the show with what's good in their lives and what they are watching in sports this week.
This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Links
October 2nd 2021: The Women’s March is holding marches in cities across the United States including in DC, Los Angeles, and Houston. You can find the full list of events and sign up here: map.womensmarch.com
Hundreds of female athletes call on Supreme Court to uphold abortion rights: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/09/21/female-athletes-supreme-court-abortion-rights
WNBA’s star players speak out against anti-abortion bills: https://archive.thinkprogress.org/wnba-players-speak-out-reproductive-rights-a359dcd1584f
Opinion: NCAA and leagues shouldn't play big games in Texas as long as Texas plays games with women's lives https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/nancy-armour/2021/09/22/texas-abortion-law-ncaa-leagues-must-take-stand-protect-women/5820482001
Transcript
Lindsay: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Burn It All Down the feminist sports podcast, you both want and need. My name is Lindsay Gibbs and I will be driving the…Transportation vehicle, a metaphorical transportation vehicle that is this podcast. [laughter]
Amira: I was like, is she going to say boat or ship? And then she said transportation vehicle!
Lindsay: And then I was like, maybe I'll say train? I've been thinking about trains a lot lately, because, anyways, that's a long story. [laughter] But anyways! Hi, I'm Lindsay. Today I am joined as always when I'm hosting, it's me and the professors! [laughs] So yeah, we've got Dr. Amira Rose Davis and Dr. Brenda Elsey. Hi, doctors.
Brenda: Hi!
Amira: Good morning, afternoon, whenever you're listening.
Lindsay: So, today we're going to be really talking about athletes in women's sports and reproductive justice. So, you know, take care of yourself if you need to, of course. But first, I cannot stop thinking about the WNBA playoffs, mainly Sophie Cunningham's performance to lift the Mercury over the Liberty. Sophie Cunningham is one of those players I just love to see play, [laughs] because she’s such an asshole! She's so much court and I just very much enjoy it. I think it was Sydney Colson that was like, “She got her spray tan and she was ready to go,” because you could tell, like she was very sprayed… [laughs]
Amira: Yeah. Sydney's live tweets of the game were very, very funny, as always.
Lindsay: As always! Like, her hair was bleached beyond blonde and, you know, spray tan ready to go. And she came off the bench and lit it up. So, that for me was my sporting moment of the week. Have you all enjoyed any live sports this week? Bren.
Brenda: Yeah, I mean, for me, I'm assistant coaching a u-9 team, and they are my favorite sporting moments. So, it started raining this week at practice, and I really tried to call it like four different times, and the kids were like, noooooo we're so happy! And I was like, oh, fine…And I mean, it was pouring! And I know normally you don't call a game unless it's lightning, but you call a practice with eight year olds, you know, who are like shivering and falling down. But you know what? They were having so much fun and that made me happy. So, that was my favorite sporting moment of the week.
Lindsay: Incredible. I call like my walk with my dog, if it's like lightly drizzling. [Amira laughs] I'm like, no, you're going out for two seconds to pee and that's it! Like, we're coming in.
Brenda: Right. I couldn't believe it.
Amira: I'm mostly impressed with all of these people who are in my life now who are coaching, like Brenda coaching and Frank, friend of the show, Frank Guridy is coaching his daughter's softball team. And I just did the interview with Dave Zirin, where he was talking about coaching his kid’s team. And I'm just like, I do not have the time! [laughter] I'm just perpetually impressed by all of you and your ability to deal with little humans in sport.
Brenda: I think you'd be a great coach.
Lindsay: I would actually love to see coach, Amira, because this might end up on TMZ. [laughter] I would love it.
Amira: I wouldn't be able to, it's just very frustrating.
Brenda: If you care about winning, it can be very frustrating. It’s true.
Amira: Yeah. Yeah. I care about that. [laughter] Well, my favorite moment actually happened, I guess, technically last week, but it was Jesse Lingard's goal in the West Ham game for Manchester United. I mostly just felt like it was a really sweet redemption for him. He had done a really errant pass when they played Young Boys in the opening rounds of the Champs League and made them lose the game right at the end. And it was really terrible. He penned an open letter to fans, it was really heartbreaking. And then for him to be like the hero at the end of the West Ham game, and it was made sweeter because of course he had played for them and done so well for them last year, they wanted him to stay there and then he decided to come back to Manchester.
What I liked most about it was, after he scored, his respect for the crowd there. He didn't celebrate, but the smile on his face was so palpable, and I was just so proud to see him get that back. So, that's been in my head still. It was just a very sweet moment for Jesse, and I just want all good things for him, because like, how can you not? He's so cute and adorable. And that's infantilizing. I don't care. He's adorable. I love him.
Lindsay: Sometimes people are just adorable! Sometimes it's just the case.
Amira: He is fucking adorable. [laughter]
TV anchor: The Supreme Court has voted to allow the new Texas law that bans most abortions to stay in place, the so-called “fetal heartbeat bill…”
Lindsay: So, September started with the US Supreme Court remaining completely mum on, and essentially allowing a Texas law to go into effect that basically bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, which, as we know, is well before many people know that they are pregnant. And that's not the only anti-abortion law that is of course going through the courts right now. Right now Mississippi has requested that the Supreme Court overturn an appeals court ruling that has blocked the state from enforcing their 2018 law, which banned most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In July, Mississippi has officially asked the court to overrule Roe v. Wade, you know, allowing the constitutional right to abortions.
So this week we saw a lot of people in women's sports speak out against this in an official capacity. Hundreds of these athletes called on the Supreme Court to uphold abortion rights in response to this Mississippi request. You've got more than 500 professional, collegiate and high school athletes. Among those listed, I mean, some really big names – Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn, Lynn Williams, Sue Bird, Brittney Griner, Nneka Ogwumike, Kelsey Plum, Brianna Stewart, Diana Taurasi, Penny Taylor. You know, some of the biggest names that exist in women's sports right now.
In the brief it says, “Women’s increased participation and success in sports has been propelled to remarkable heights by women's exercise of and reliance on constitutional guarantees of liberty and gender equality, including the right to reproductive autonomy. Continued access to and reliance on those rights will empower the next generation to continue to excel in athletics and beyond, strengthening their communities and this nation. If women were to be deprived of these constitutional guarantees, the consequences for women's athletics and for society as a whole would be devastating.”
That's a quote directly from the brief. I do want to say that we know that it's not just women that have abortions, of course. And you know, while we're talking about this within the context of women's athletics primarily right now, that of course it is not just women that have abortions. And that was, you know, I was reading directly from the brief there. But Amira, I know you've done a lot of work on this from a historical nature, and I was hoping you could kind of give us some big picture perspective. Because I was really moved seeing all of these athletes stand up this week, but you know, while this might be the first time in a Supreme Court filing, as far as I know, this connection between athletics and reproductive justice, this isn't anything new, right?
Amira: No, no, certainly not. And I think that it's actually quite fitting to see these athletic voices, you know, kind of ring the bell on this issue, because historically women in sports have completely been bound up in ideas of reproduction. It has been like one of the main features rolling through and setting the terms of participation or exclusion or inclusion in sport. Whether we go back to the early 20th century and we see ideas about reproduction opening up athletic opportunities, arguments that said you need to be fit to be a strong mother, you would be better at reproduction if you were into sports – within reason. Or detractors from women's sports. People like Brenda and Josh so eloquently cover this in their book, Futbolera, when they're talking about the medical professionals of the day that were like, listen, if you get a soccer ball in your stomach, you will damage your reproductive organs.
I read newspaper articles from medical professionals in the mid 20th century who are like, “all of these modern women who are running and jumping and throwing, they're going to stand up and their uterus is going to fall out and they will not be able to do the one thing they were put on earth to do.” So you always have this entanglement with reproduction, and I think as you get to Roe vs Wade, it's really important to situate that in the context of rising women's movement, on the heels of the civil rights movement, and a number of other kind of labor movements. It's the same time that you have Title IX moving through the courts, right? There's a way in which the articulation of bodily autonomy, of right to choose, is also being paired with and happening alongside folks asking for more institutional protection for what they want to do, including playing sports and support for playing sports. And so I think that it's actually tightly tied together.
And then as we've seen, it's a discussion that also was not always splashed on front pages, right? Privately, many women athletes knew that their pregnancy and parenthood was supposed to be the end of their careers, and there are certainly many women athletes who defied this as mothers before the 70s. But I think there was this kind of subtle conversation about when Roe vs Wade was passed, that it did have an immediate effect on how people thought about the longevity of their careers. And Brenda, I'll toss it to you, because then as we move into the later part of the 20th century, early 21st century, we actually have athletes specifically discussing their relationship to not just reproduction, but to abortion.
Brenda: Yeah, I think on the spectrum of reproductive rights, abortion – I mean, this is sort of obvious to say, but important to remember – is always the bellwether, right? Attacks on abortion are usually steps towards the process of attacking reproductive rights more generally, right? It's like the first thing they're going to really go after. And it's not just that we want to focus on abortion. There's access to of course birth control, there's health and STI testing, all these types of things that are really important. But abortion is that thing that feels like the most attacked, the most debated, always. Anyway, so, athletes, I think it's really important that they've come out really powerful. Crissy Perham explained in, you know, around the brief, that she had become pregnant in college before the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, in which she swam her way to two gold medals.
Track and field star Sanya Richards Ross, four time also gold medalist in track and field, in her 2017 autobiography said, “Every female athlete I know has had an abortion,” including her own. And we can't expect everyone to do this, obviously. There’s a lot of conflicting feelings among people, among their families. It's a really hard thing to do. So that's why when people do it, I think it serves a special function of taking away some of the shame involved with it. And, you know, I've had an abortion, and it 100% made my three children's lives better, whether they'll ever know it or not.
The majority of people who have had abortions are already mothers. And I think that's just really important to think about, you know, what's making those choices and the idea that people who have abortions are somehow anti mothers. I feel like that is a really important statistic that most of us don't know. And that's part of why I think a lot of people are ashamed of talking about it, is they want to be private with their own families. You know, they don't necessarily want to have to have that discussion. But you can't mobilize around something you're ashamed of, so it's really important when they come out and you have these people normalizing the image of who has an abortion. It just really, I think, is powerful in helping a political movement. Because you're not going to go out in the street and be like, “I've had an abortion” when you're too afraid, ashamed, sad about it to do that. So those of us who can, I think it's really powerful.
Lindsay: Yeah. I grew up Catholic and from a conservative family, and I became pretty liberal in high school, and one of the lingering things that I didn't even realize, because I believed in, you know, the right to choose, but was that shame around abortion. And I would buy into the narratives of kind of couching it in this larger conversation of healthcare, which it is part of, but do you what I mean? It would always be like, well, Planned Parenthood does other things, you know, and I would kind of buy into that framing a little bit, like, honestly later than I am proud to say. And I remember though, being in 2017, the Seattle Storm just as a team held a Planned Parenthood rally. This was soon after the Trump administration had started in defunding Planned Parenthood was a big thing. It was their nationally televised game on ESPN, and they held a rally for Planned Parenthood outside their arena before the game. And in 2017, just four years ago even, this was pretty unheard of.
You had a PSA with Sue Bird and Brianna Stewart and Jewell Loyd, I believe, all three of them were in it, saying that they support Planned Parenthood. And I was out there reporting on the event for ThinkProgress, and outside in front of this sporting event were the owners of the Seattle Storm on the stage with a Planned Parenthood advocate who said, “I had an abortion this morning and I don't regret it.” And I just remember being in awe of that and just the power there. So when Brenda is just talking about kind of the lack of shame and the power that has, that's just a moment that really sticks out to me. And the only player who actually came out to the rally was Imani McGee-Stafford. She was with the Chicago Sky then, and they were the opponent of the day. And she came out to the pregame rally, and I think this goes into the fact that it's not surprising that it was a Black woman who was the one who was out there.
Amira: Yeah, for sure. And I think that it's really important too to think broadly about reproductive justice, and a lot of Black women activists on the ground think of it very expansively. I think, in that way, you could really see this broad continuum of talking about abortion alongside the Black women athletes who have been very vocal about the maternal mortality rate and the disproportionate way that kills Black women in childbirth. And then even connecting that to police brutality and state sanctioned violence, the idea of, okay, if we've chosen to parent and we've made it through childbirth, will this society kill our kids? And I think the broad spectrum of reproductive justice, whether it's a medical choice and then a subsequent parenting choice, has been absolutely articulated through Black women athletes, through Black women activists on the ground. And it's really not shocking to see people like Imani at the rally and out in front on these issues.
Lindsay: We talk a lot about institutional support when it comes to motherhood and into pregnancy. And of course that's a very important thing, but I think we also need to talk about institutional support when it comes to abortions themselves, you know, it is a healthcare procedure, and sometimes accommodations are needed. Brenda, there was a story that you had come across…
Brenda: Yeah. I was really shocked that this wasn't more in the press. But Brianna McNeil, the 2016 track and field athlete, Olympic champion, was suspended for five years last month or about six weeks ago, because she was in bed recovering from an abortion that she had just two days prior to when the testing official came. And the ruling is just unbelievably harsh. It's from CAS, you know, the Court of Arbitration of Sport in Switzerland. And yeah, she had had a couple of prior incidents where she was unavailable to test, but she did not test positive for any doping. She just simply missed some tests, and this one, they tried to get her to give an excuse and she really didn't want to. She kept saying I was not feeling well, I was not feeling well. And then finally she had to put them in touch with her doctor, and she was really embarrassed and humiliated. And then even when they got the documentation, they suspended her.
Amira: And I think one of the things that was most egregious about Brianna's case was actually that when they were considering her appeal, the case against her argued that there was no abortion stigma, so part of what it came down to was “why wouldn't she disclose earlier?” And she's talked about how there was a stigma attached to having abortion. And they straight up sat there in the arbitration court and said there's no stigmas to abortion. There's no problem with it. People can say all the time, that's not a thing. And we know that that is absolutely not true. I think what Lindsay said earlier was so eloquent and really powerful to open up and talk about, like, the lingering ways that we still whisper about it, or say, oh, I believe in the right to choose, but like last case scenarios or whatever. And we're still not in a place where people openly say, which is why Brenda's testimony is also really powerful, to say, no, actually this was a good thing. And I don't have these kind of feelings about it. And so I think that argument that there was no stigma attached to it was like the most ridiculous part of a lot of what was happening to Brianna.
Lindsay: Yeah. And it's just like, once again, we don't properly support mothers. And even if we do that, that doesn't mean that motherhood should be the only choice that is given to these athletes. I mean, you know, the story I always think about is Alysia Montaño, who competed in the 800 meters at 34 weeks pregnant. And then we find out last year that, you know, behind the scenes she's fighting with her sponsor, she has to compete in a number of races or else she won't get any of her sponsorship money. So, if you do choose to go forward with a pregnancy, there are so many barriers put up in front of athletes, but then you're shamed if you make the other choice, or you can't even make it because these laws are gonna prevent people from being able to safely do it.
It's actually of all people Carli Lloyd got me thinking a little bit about the importance of choice and of abortion. She didn't say that she had an abortion. I don't want to apply anything about her. But she just got me thinking about it, because she just announced her retirement, and she was on a podcast where people were saying, well, Tom Brady's playing, he's still 40, you know, why aren't you? And she said Tom Brady doesn't have to bear children, and I have waited because there are so few financial opportunities for women in sports, especially earlier in her career, you know, when she was in her twenties and there was no support then. And so she just knew that she couldn't get pregnant and start a family because she didn't feel like she could take time off.
And of course, it's wonderful when athletes do make that decision and we love that moms are getting more support in athletics. But I just get so mad when I think about the lack of abortion access, because it just forces that decision on these groups where time is just such of the essence and their bodies are their jobs. And it's just, I mean, I'm mad about it for anyone, but it's just, ugh! [laughs]
Amira: Yeah. And the timing thing, Lindsay, is such an important thing. And I just think it behooves us to mention in this moment that we've also seen a lot of women athletes be very open about their process of freezing their eggs, right? Sue was very public about it. And I also think, to that point, we're seeing a broader representation of queer parenting as well in terms of what women athletes are doing, whether they're leading a conversation on reproductive access and choice or on egg freezing, regardless of their relationship status or their sexuality, anything, or saying like these are broad things about healthcare and access that many people have to consider and that we want to absolutely put on front street. We're not doing it in backrooms quietly anymore.
Brenda: And just to loop back to the history that Amira was recounting about the relationship between Title IX and Roe v. Wade, which is a really important connection, I think, that she's making. The same thing goes for the attack on abortion rights right now, is linked up to Title IX, because how is the NCAA going to handle this? You know, how are they handling it right now? You don't know, because it's all murky and it's all crappy. So, I think back to Clemson and there was a big case, 2005, 2007, a group of athletes that had to sign something that basically meant that they would give up their scholarship money were they to get pregnant and in any way should that pregnancy or anything related to it hurt the program or prevent them from contributing “positively” to the program. And so there's been all kinds of threats to student athletes about this. And if these laws are passed, it would be a real violation of Title IX in some ways.
Amira: And I think that Brenda is so consistent with talking about how, when we look at this in college especially, there's a lot of institutional implications here. And we know that support's not there for students who have abortions, who have miscarriages, or students who parent. And I think that one of the things that we've seen is whether we're talking about universities or we're talking about professional leagues, the way that there has been a shift just recently in terms of what they're willing to publicly back and come out and say, because a lot of times there might be policies on the books that you can't find, right? I know this because I've been a student in that position and I've had students who were looking for things, and somebody will be like, oh, it's right here. But the fact that it took me like 14 people and a million phone calls to figure out that you actually had a resource or you had backing…And that's why I thought it was so powerful, Lindsay, you mentioned the Seattle Storm having a rally for Planned Parenthood.
But one of the things that they did later that year is they did a league-wide take a stand initiative that partnered with five organizations and broke ticket sales up as an entire league, right? And one of the first organizations they partnered with through this entire league wide initiative was Planned Parenthood. And like Lindsay has already said, at a time where that…I mean, people were shooting up Planned Parenthoods! And that is one of the things I find most powerful about one of the things that we're documenting right here, which is not that this is new, but the ferocity and the volume at which people are talking about it, out front and center, loudly and an unabashedly, is what the shift has been, and it's been so incredibly necessary and impactful to see, especially when other institutions all over the place are doing some dumb fucking shit that we're up against. Right, Linz?
Lindsay: Yeah. Dumb fucking shit, I think, is the thing. But you know, it really makes me think, you know, we're seeing more athletes speak up, but do we need more leagues to be speaking up? And one thing a friend of the show Nancy Armour just wrote, a column in USA Today this week, saying that the NCAA and professional sports leagues and teams really need to take a stand against…She talks specifically about this Texas law, you know, says the NCAA should not hold any championship events there until this law is overturned.
There should be no all-star games granted by any of the leagues, anything like that. And if these organizations aren't going to stand up now, but are going to have these nights where they're like “women's appreciation night” and stuff like that, [laughs] you know, do you all think that these leagues should do anything? Like, should Texas be banned basically from hosting these sporting events until things are changed?
Brenda: You know, I mean, boycotts are always…You know, whether it’s Israel and dealing with where you have conferences or something like this, there’s always a debate there because there's always enough people in the place that you're boycotting that are struggling really hard for the causes that you want. It's always really tricky. I think that one thing that would be really good is to have policies in the leagues that they're very public about, that support athletes’ access to reproductive rights first, right? You know, rather than the punitive, the constructive culture. And any partnership like with Planned Parenthood is also an educational experience, because when I'm teaching students that I can tell you, you know, Gen Z knows nothing about abortions. They know everything about how chewing tobacco like ruins their lives, [laughs] but they literally will say things like, “well, you have to cut the baby out.” I'm not kidding you.
Like, these are the types of things that they think happen because they have such poor education about this. And I'm talking about New York state, not really in the health curriculum at all. And unless you're a parent that takes your kid to a kind of more progressive, on your own, and these classes exist, it's not like they're exposed to this. So I think, you know, having real policies like that, having any educational partnerships, goes so, so, so, so long towards those things.
Amira: Yeah. I mean, I think it's, like Brenda said, I think there are these ways that it gets tricky. You know, Lindsay, I don't know where you stood when people were pulling out of North Carolina over bathroom bills, right? And part of the reason why it feels tricky in the discourse is because it's a very fine line between people saying let's do a strategic boycott with big corporations or companies that will demonstrate to the state that there's a stake, there’s consequences to their legislation, right? And from there, that fine line that people kind of slip into, which is just a complete disregard or disposability of those living there. And I think that's one of the things that Brenda is referring to, and it's different for an entity or an organization to say we're moving All Star, we're moving Final Four, we're moving something that will have an economic effect, you know, without taking a care in the mind to say, okay, who are the concession stands workers who were relying on that paycheck?
Or moreover, not slipping into this thing where it's like, we'll throw all those Texas away, right? Throw all of North Carolina away. Throw all of Mississippi away. My parents are Mississippians. We live in Texas. We're Texans. Like, these are things, right? It's not just like a conversation on Twitter. It’s real lives. And they're hard choices. People make hard choices to stay and they make hard choices when they decide to leave a state that they're living in under a punitive government. But why should we cede places? Why should we throw our hands up and say, all right, you got this. And it also, like, Jessica Luther, obviously we adore her as a co-host, but the work that she and many groups she's a part of have done on the ground in Texas about reproductive justice is some of the best work in this country. And the solution is not always to turn tail and run and say fuck em, fuck everybody in Texas, everybody who stays. But rather, how do we continue to support their work they're doing? And I think about that a lot.
And so I just think that the conversation is invited, but I think we have to be very clear about the difference between the strategic, corporate or institutional boycott and the way that some people who don't live in these states that they want to label as red…But again, we talked about this with voting rights. These are not red states. These are states held hostage, right? Demographically, we know that. I think sometimes it's hard to log into Twitter and see people you really respect say, “Why would any self-respecting woman live in these places?” I was like, I was born here. Like, my grandparents, we toiled in this, on this land. Why the fuck should we leave it because of asshats here who grabbed power? Fight for it back. And so I invite the conversation, but I'm always on guard for where it could go.
Lindsay: I would agree with that and also just echo the praise for Jessica Luther. I actually am now remembering that we first connected when she wrote about when Jimmy Connors in his book wrote about Chrissy Evert's abortion and how it had impacted him, and Chrissy Evert had never talked openly about her abortion before. And Jess did a piece burning, basically, Jimmy Connors. [laughs] And that's how we became online friends! [laughter] But we did just want to shout out that on October 2nd there's supposed to be a March across the country standing up for abortion rights. So, we'll put a link in our show notes so you can look and see if you can kind of get involved in that in your local areas.
This week's interview, I talk with the legendary softball pitcher, Cat Osterman, who ended her career last week with Athletes Unlimited. We talk about that silver in Tokyo, and these redemption arcs, and then we talk about the future of softball in the United States and what we would like to see.
Cat Osterman: It would be nice to have a sustainable pro league, and by that it doesn't necessarily mean, you know…Athletes Unlimited is a great opportunity for us; it’s five weeks out of the year right now, though. And so either that needs to become more than once a year, or we need to have something that supplements it in the off time, which is very possible.
Lindsay: And we discuss what's next for her – which, spoiler alert to Amira and Jess, she's going to be in Austin doing some stuff! So, I made some connections! And Amira did a shimmy. [laughs]
Amira: A braless shimmy. My titties were swinging. [laughs]
Lindsay: There was a lot of shimmying! [laughter] I was mesmerized. All right. It is time for the burn pile. Brenda, can you get us started?
Brenda: Sure. This is amazing. This week, the Mexican anti-monopoly commission in the government announced that 17 Mexican clubs and the federation would be fined for conspiring with one another to deepen the wage gap between men and women's national football teams and domestic league teams. [laughs] Like, of course they did. It's so hilarious. It's so obvious they were using salary caps to do that, because they claimed they were using salary caps to try to like raise the pay of the league on average, which is hilarious. Like, just think that through for a minute, how that works. And they also were conspiring to prevent transfers and things like that, which is like…It's just hilarious because it's obvious, like, you don't need a leak to like tell you, you know? It was like, who leaked this cloak and dagger information? Who is the Deep Throat of the Mexican league?
It’s like, this has been obvious since 2016. Every woman player knows it. I know it. But it's a satisfying burn. I want to burn those 17 teams. I want to burn the federation. I'm super happy when governments step in to regulate these federations. Ours tried, you know, if you remember a valiant effort on the US justice department’s part, but did they really win? No, FIFA won. It's incredible. So, I'm glad. It’s a satisfying burn to see the Mexican government get to fine these guys millions of dollars for their gender discrimination. So, a very happy burn.
All: Burn.
Amira: [high-pitched] Burn! This is my trying to do a “happy burn.” [laughter]
Lindsay: Just shimmy again, Amira, just shimmy again. [laughs]
Amira: BUUuuuUUuuurn!
Brenda: We’re interpretive dancing here now.
Lindsay: Taking it back. My burn is about news this week from Bethany Balcer, a player for the NWSL for the OL Reign, who was awarded in 2019 the NWSL rookie of the year award, which is great. She tweeted this week, “Why is equal pay important? I got a $50 gift card to Chipotle for rookie…” [laughing] I’m sorry, I can’t even say it. “…for winning rookie of the year in 2019. That's it. We need a CBA in this league and we need to move forward, not backwards.”
Amira: Ridiculous.
Lindsay: She had fun fact that the gift card was actually from the players association, not even from the league itself. So she got zero from the league itself. And I just…I’m sorry, the Chipotle…This ruined me this week. I just… [laughing]
Brenda: That’s a lot of Chipotle.
Amira: But not even a lot!
Lindsay: It’s not even a lot of Chipotle!
Brenda: Really?
Amira: My family…Meals are $27. That would be only one, and maybe two meals if I cut one, if one kid didn't get to eat the second one.
Brenda: I didn't mean it complimentary. I mean, ew, Chipotle. [laughs]
Amira: I know, but I'm just saying, it's not even going far is the point!
Brenda: True.
Lindsay: This is less than like what I'm getting my uncle for his 70th birthday, and I don't have any money in my bank account and I'm not… [laughs]
Amira: Regardless of the restaurant of choice! It's so ridiculous.
Lindsay: It’s so insulting! [laughs] I just want to burn the NWSL for lots of serious reasons, but also, like, this is not professional. Burn.
All: Burn.
Amira: It’s like the damn people who got vibrators.
Brenda: What? [laughs]
Amira: You don't remember that? That squash tournament, the men got money and the women got vibrators as prizes? And razors.
Brenda: [laughs] Yeah.
Amira: My point is, people give women athletes ridiculous bullshit instead of just paying them.
Brenda: Yeah.
Lindsay: I really feel like the Chipotle gift card and vibrators are on the opposite end of the spectrum there. [laughter]
Amira: Vibrators could be useful, I think we said that, but the razor part was annoying. Why are you giving me razors? I could get a pack of disposable razors at CVS for a buck.
Lindsay: Okay. Hey Amira, what's your burn this week? [laughs]
Amira: Okay. A little more serious, sorry. The LA Times has just announced that USC finished their Title IX investigation into Lori Nelson, who was the former coach of the Song Girls, USC’s storied spirit program. They found sufficient evidence that, over the 30 years that Nelson led the program, there were accounts of body shaming, harassment, and retaliation, and that she created a “hostile and unhealthy environment.” Specifically the program was under investigation from 2016 to 2020, and they announced that Nelson violated multiple USC policies. This comes after more than a dozen dancers went on record about their experiences. The retaliation piece of it was when two dancers complied with the internal investigation and then when they went to be on the squad, they were cut. A panel of judges have demonstrated that they were cut for false reasons and that it was just retaliation for speaking about the environment in which they labored under. There are two things on this that I want to burn.
The first is that Nelson will face no consequences. She stepped down the day that they opened the investigation, and the school announced they're not going to give her any consequences as she's already resigned her post. And so, you know, just evading consequences for your behavior by like ghosting as soon as it comes to light is stupid. And the thing that also really irritated me about this announcement is it's another investigation in which the report is careful to note that the claims of racial discrimination were unfounded. The first thing that her lawyer said, in a statement announcing her appeal, was that she was so pleased to be completely exonerated on all accusations of discrimination based on race or appearance or any other factor. And it's like, no, you were discriminating on appearance because you were body shaming.
And the thing that irritates me about this – and we see so many investigations do this, where they're like, well, we couldn't prove racism, but yes, here's body shaming and here's this toxic culture and here's how there was a weight requirement, and actually in your contract that if you move from five pounds of your audition weight, that you would be cut from the team, and you had to look a certain way and that there was a “look.” What do you think this look is, right? Like, in programs across the nation, when people are talking about this “look” they're talking about a look that is coded in whiteness, right? Like, even if you're mixed, if you're the one mixed girl on the team, you have to straighten your hair. If you are a Black girl or a mixed girl, or a girl of color on a team and you're told you don't fit the look and you’re body-shamed, your experience is absolutely racialized in that.
Even if you can't find “sufficient evidence” to prove that, but you can prove body shaming X, Y, and Z. And it may seem like splitting hairs, but it irritates me because it's a way that it completely submerges the experience of women of color in these toxic spaces who are saying, yes, it's not just that I'm getting body shamed, but the way that I'm doing it is also being done because of my race and because of looks that I cannot control. And I think that that is bullshit. And I think it is burnable. So, burn.
All: Burn.
Lindsay: All right. After all that burning, it's time for some torchbearers of the week. Honorable mentions, Bren, get us started. Who's our team of the week?
Brenda: En fuego, on fire! The Mexican national team, women's football team, defeated Colombia 2-0 in a friendly this week. Not only was there no homophobic chanting – amazing – but it's great to see the team thrive once again, under Mónica Vergara, the first real coach they've had in a very long time.
Lindsay: Yes! Amira, who's our Title IX complier of the week?
Amira: Yes. The University of Iowa has become the first power five school to add women's wrestling. All credit and kudos here to those who've been pushing, and to the number of girls and women who continue to flood into the sport of wrestling. I love that they're complier of the week because obviously the bar is low and people should be clearing this by now, but it's a good start.
Lindsay: [laughs] You know, we got to appreciate every little step or we'll go damn lose our minds. Bren, who are…Sorry, Bemira is Amira.
Amira: [laughs] No, it's Brenda.
Lindsay: [laughter] You can see why I was confused!
Brenda: That’s our Bennifer name. [laughter]
Amira: I should have written it like this, BEAmira. Now we’re really merged.
Lindsay: Yeah, that doesn't help me at all. [laughter] Bren, who are our heroes of the week?
Brenda: So, great news: the dozens of women and their families from the Afghan national women's soccer team have found refuge and asylum in Portugal. So, they are just amazingly persistent and it's wonderful to see that they found safe haven.
Lindsay: That is the best news. Amira, who's our road warrior of the week?
Amira: Rylee Nepinak, who biked from Vancouver to Halifax to raise awareness about Indigenous youth suicide and prevention efforts. If you are not up to date with Canada's geography, that's a fucking very…That is like the country, okay? That is a very long distance, so kudos to you, Rylee.
Brenda: Oh yeah.
Lindsay: That's amazing, Rylee. Torchbearer of the week. Can I get a drumroll, please? [drumroll] Why are you miming the drumroll and not giving me an actual drumroll, Brenda? This is a podcast. This is a podcast!
Amira: Did you see how I was carrying this drumroll, doing all of the work?
Lindsay: I don’t think anybody “carried” that drumroll, really! [laughs]
Amira: I did! Did I not carry the drumroll? Brenda was miming it and I was actually lost in the music!
Brenda: I was trying to hit anything around me for sound. It just–
Amira: You were hitting air, Brenda, you were hitting air.
Brenda: I just couldn't find any…I was trying.
Lindsay: Okay. Okay.
Amira: I carried the drumroll. [Brenda laughs] I’m the MVP.
Lindsay: Professors, professors, we're good. Once again, Amira is slightly competitive. [laughter] And we're not letting her coach children. [laughs]
Amira: Listen, it’s the details.
Lindsay: Okay. So, our torchbearer of the week is the Spirit Squadron who, after a report this week by another torchbearer, Molly Hensley-Clancy, whose reporting for the Washington Post has been superb. She reported on the office culture of the Spirit, which is just not great, and very, very sexist, and women are leaving in droves and being forced out in droves from that office. So, the Spirits Squadron released a note that said, “We no longer have confidence at Steve Baldwin can effectively lead the Washington Spirit. Until new ownership publicly puts forth a plan that ensures a safe environment for players and staff and commits to a true vetting process for hiring qualified employees at the highest levels, we will limit our game day activities. This includes the flying a flags, chants, and playing of drums in the supporters sections. The note goes on to reiterate how much they do support the players and how this is for the greater good.
And I gotta say, if you’ve ever seen a supporters group in action, like, it might not sound like much to not fly a flag or be on the drum, but that is what they live for and that is what makes the games. And the thought of being at a Spirit game without the Spirit Squadron’s chants and cheers, like, that's not a Spirit game. They're such a crucial part. They hashtagged this with #SellTheTeamSteve, and the protest has gotten a lot of coverage. I got a push notification about it from ESPN, which is just huge. It was on the ESPN scroll the whole time all day. And just kudos to the organization and the Spirit Squadron for taking this stand, and this is the only way forward. So we are super proud of you all. Now, what's good? Brenda?
Brenda: I got some writing done.
Amira: Oh my god. I’m so jealous.
Brenda: So it felt like the beginning of a real sabbatical. I'm working on the history of Afro-Cuban baseball players. It's just, I love it very much. I love the subject. I love the work. I feel grateful. I'm never going to make a million dollars, but I I love my job. So that's, what's really good.
Lindsay: Yay!
Amira: Can we write together?
Brenda: We can try. I would be happy to try. I will…Bemira! I mean, [Amira laughs] yes!
Lindsay: Yeah. Bemira, the book by Bemira. That’s amazing, Bren. I'm so happy for you and for all of us, because we will get to read it. So, yay us. For me, I am about to go do some celebrating with family this weekend, so that is good. It's fall; I had to put on a little jacket last night at the dog bar, so that's good. And WNBA playoffs, did I mention WNBA playoffs? WNBA playoffs are my what's good. [laughs] Amira?
Amira: Yes, flamethrowers, Lindsay looks fantastic right now, and I just want you to know that we're recording this on Saturday morning and I literally don't have a bra and look like I just woke up, Brenda’s cute but also just woke up, and Lindsay is like, ready to go. Like, face on fleek, whole outfit's cute. Curls are popping. I just want you to appreciate this dedication.
Lindsay: Do you see, I got a little bit of highlighter on? Because like the sun keeps hitting it…
Amira: Yes! Cheekbones pop. [Lindsay laughs] What’s good for me…Well, it is fall here in Texas because a cold front came through, and right in time for the official first day of fall. I got to wear a sweatshirt all day. It was super cute, in terms of the weather. And that's nice. I'm taking the kids to their first Austin FC game. Ticket prices are dropping because they're five and nine. It is really late, and so I'm hoping it won't be super crowded, but it's such a great atmosphere and the kids have been asking to go to a game. So we're going to go on Sunday night and cheer and hope for at least one goal so the stadium turns green, because that's what Zachary is really waiting for, is the green smoke like Hulk in his words. [laughter] So, that is my incoming what's good. Hopefully tomorrow night it goes off without a hitch. And…Oh, I dropped my phone and they came to my house to fix it, under my insurance, which never happens. And they fixed it in 15 minutes, which is the things of miracles.
Lindsay: That’s wild. But I also just want to say, like, we will no longer be friends anymore if you do not send me a video of Zachary reacting to the green smoke. [laughs]
Amira: I will do that. I'll do that just for you.
Lindsay: Just like, friendship over. [laughter] Because I'm picturing his eyes right now…
Amira: Lindsay, actually the bonus for you, I dunno if you saw on Michael’s Facebook, he got all these new socks for the fall. He wears them when he works weddings, and they're like characters. And so he was quizzing Samari on the characters on his stocks – they’re all Looney Tunes characters. She didn't get any…She got Bugs Bunny. She got like one of them. So he was like, maybe the boys will know. And Zachary knew every single person, like, every single one. And Michael was kind of joking, because like, why would a five-year-old know all of these characters? He was like quiz boy trivia night. Like, it was the best.
Lindsay: That's my son. I love him. [laughs]
Amira: He's so funny.
Lindsay: This week, NWSL is back in action. WNBA playoffs, WNBA playoffs, WNBA playoffs. And that's pretty much what I'm watching this week. That's it for this week's episode of Burn It All Down. This episode was produced by the fabulous and ever patient Tressa Versteeg, and Shelby Weldon is our social media wizard and web guru. Burn It All Down, we’re part of the Blue Wire podcast network. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Listen, subscribe rate, review, review, review on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, TuneIn, Google Play. All of them, just do all of them. For show links and transcripts of each episode, check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com, and you can also get some merch there from our Bonfire store. We are supported…This is all possible because of patrons, patreon.com/burnitalldown is where you can go to support us on a regular basis. Burn on, but not out.