Women in the NBA: Sometimes I'm Embarrassed to Be Identified as a Man

You may have heard or read that a couple of weeks ago, in response to a question about it from Sports Illustrated reporter Ian Thomsen, David Stern asserted that he believes a woman playing in the NBA is "well within the range of possibility." Predictably, many a person has sounded off on this subject to dismiss the idea, using all sorts of arguments based in biological determinism, jeremiads about political correctness, and various other avenues for suggesting that there is no way a woman will ever play in the NBA. Just see Thomsen's mailbag from a week ago for some of these kinds of comments and argument, many of which are dismissive of the idea, and one of which characterizes Thomsen's article on Stern's comments as such "nonsense" that the author has stated that he or she will no longer read Thomsen's work. Today, Gregg Doyel added to this long list of dismissive arguments, with this column, in which he states flatly that he's not being "sexist"; he's just being "right."

I was planning on writing about this subject anyway as my semester came to a close and I qould finally have some time to get back to this blog. Then, given that I have a history of correspondence with Gregg, I wrote to him today in response to his column on the subject. In lieu of writing something additional when I think I summed it up in my message, here's the text of my message to Gregg:

Gregg,

Theories of biology upon which arguments against women's possibilities lie are inadequate to begin with. As many a transgendered person can tell you, the binary split of people into man-woman is not a complete picture of reality. It is a system of classification that was developed by people and that, in Western society, as well as other societies, has been used as the basis to relegate men and women to different positions with different opportunities time and again. Indeed, the whole biological theory itself is a theory built in Western science, created by men who already believed that the difference between men and women existed. They did not study things and then come to that belief; they already believed it ... just like many white Europeans developing scientific theories throughout the ages already believed that biological racial differences existed and, thus, their theories and discoveries reflected that starting-point belief that they already assumed as taken for granted from the beginning, thus perpetuating racism in the process. The man-women split does the same kind of thing and then has been used throughout the ages to perpetuate denial of opportunities, rights, and privileges based on this distinction. Over time, those differences have made it so that men and women, from the time they are conceived, are already positioned to do, think, and feel different things by society. Only recently has this been in any way challenged to any kind of an effective extent, and even with that, there is plenty still to rethink and reexamine. In the end, perhaps there are some general biological differences that might be noted between the group of people considered "men" and the group of people considered "women," but to out and out say one knows these differences without having really accounted for the years of social distinctions that contributed to these distinctions is to perpetuate the system that discriminates against women by closing off a possibility before it is even allowed to develop. In a word, it perpetuates sexism, and, thus, the kinds of biological deterministic arguments that you have put forth that close off this possibility of being examined are sexist.

You’re not alone, as your message board (to which I posted this same response almost verbatim) reflects, many would buy the biological argument—including people of various genders. And that is not to say that one can’t believe that biology makes a difference in men's and women's aptitudes. Perhaps it could ultimately be found to have some legitimacy … but perhaps not as well. And that’s the problem. The argument as you and so many others articulate it already assumes its full legitimacy and, thus, closes off the door to even entertaining another possibility, though that possibility may turn out to be legitimate. In the process, the vocalization of this argument not as “I believe” but as “I know,” as you have done in your column, rests on assuming what is a belief to be a truth, and in the process it becomes a significant part of the system of the oppression of women. 100 or even 50 or even 30 years ago, many people were sure of things women could not do that they are now doing despite people making specious knowledge claims like yours. Similarly, 100 or 50 or 30 years ago, many people made similar kinds of knowledge claims about being black, or “colored,” and used them to deny opportunities, rights, privileges or even simply the possibility of imagining a different future. Yet, today, we can refute those claims quite readily.

So, in the end, yes, your argument is sexist, and I hope I’ve explained effectively to at least some degree why.

While I have singled out Gregg here to the extent that my message (and, thus, this post) is in response to his column, I do not wish to single out Gregg Doyel in the overall argument here. As I suggested in my message to him, he's nowhere near alone in believing. Additionally, Gregg Doyel didn't start this kind of argument. To a large extent, he and so many others are vocalizing what they've been taught and/or learned to think. Yet, that's exactly how sexism works. People don't believe they're being sexist; they just believe that what they believe is truth, because that's what they have learned to think. When, however, the origins and bases for these ways of thinking go unexamined, and the possibilities for other ways of thinking are summarily dismissed as "nonsense," as "stupid" (as the title of Gregg's column explicitly indicates), or other such derogation, then we have oppression. And to that extent, Gregg Doyel, the folks responding to Ian Thomsen's column, and the many various people who continue this dismissal should be held responsible for their part in perpetuating that system of oppression, and at the very least (though there is more to it than this) their arguments should be met with strong, persistent, and continuing critique.