Shake Off Sexist Sports Coverage with the 2016 NFL Season

Coverage of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio was packed with sexist remarks and behavior – the kind of unequal treatment we won’t be seeing any of now that football season is here! Just in time to pick us up when we’re down, the NFL has 20 weeks of games to show us how to properly treat women. Here’s why this $13 billion industry won’t have us going, “Did I hear that right?”

There are no female players to be condescending towards

When Corey Cogdell-Unrein won Olympic bronze in Rio for women’s trapshooting, media praised “wife of Chicago Bears’ lineman Mitch Unrein” for medaling.

But in the NFL, no one will hand over the credit for a female quarterback’s win to her husband-- there are no female quarterbacks! Or receivers! Or defensive backs! Or kickers! You don’t have to worry about hearing someone say, “there’s the man responsible” for getting her here...when she’s not here to begin with.  

That also means there’s no degrading “Hottest Female Offensive Linemen of the NFL” lists that overlook female athletes’ talent and focus solely on their looks. Crisis averted!

The NFL’s sole female referee is criticized just as much as her male counterparts

Last year the NFL hired its first female full-time line judge, Sarah Thomas. Thomas made history when she took the field last September, and she’ll be back this year as the only female among the league’s 124 officials.  

Don’t worry about Thomas getting berated by fans and commentators (and players) for a bad call--expect it! In fact, former Oakland Raiders CEO Amy Trask said in 2015 that fans should not hold back with Thomas when they want to show how upset they are:

"When Sarah Thomas throws a flag she shouldn't have thrown--which she will, as all officials do --she should be booed," Trask wrote. "Sarah Thomas should be booed as loudly and as resoundingly as her male colleagues are booed.”

The NFL doesn’t let players play the whole season when they violate the domestic violence policy

In another shout-out to the ladies, the NFL continues to suspend players who violate its policy on assault, battery, domestic violence and sexual assault. No full season for you, first-time offenders!

Just recently the league announced that New York Giants kicker Josh Brown will have to sit out the first game this season for a misdemeanor domestic violence charge from May, 2015. Charges were later dropped.

Brown is not getting a six-game suspension (which is what many expected due to the NFL’s Personal Conduct Policy) because, as the league stated, “our investigators had insufficient information to corroborate prior findings.”  In Brown’s case, there was no conviction, so the NFL decided the punishment.

The NFL policy states that it will suspend players for six games when they have a first violation and institute a lifetime ban for a second. (Hit her twice, shame on you!) Teams can place players on (paid) leave as they conduct investigations and wait criminal proceeding outcomes.

The women who are on the field get paid

Olympic athletes only get paid if they win big--but there are more consistent paychecks for some of the women associated with the NFL: the cheerleaders!

Twenty-six of the 32 NFL teams have cheerleaders, and some of those franchises pay them. Financial compensation varies by team, but many pay minimum wage-- $9 an hour in some states-- for the cheerleaders’ hours of practice, game time and mandatory appearances. Others give game tickets and parking passes.

Go team, indeed!

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Kerri Shannon is a writer, editor and improviser living in Baltimore, MD. She keeps busy as editor-in-chief of an investing website and performing with the Baltimore Improv Group.