We don’t respect women.
The past few months have made that very clear.
From thwarting women’s rights to compete in sports to women being placed in positions only because of their gender, we are repeating an age-old injustice against them. We are using them as objects to achieve our goals instead of honoring their dignity and intellect to achieve their own.
Lia Thomas
On Thursday, Lia Thomas of the University of Pennsylvania won the women’s NCAA national championship in the 500m freestyle, beating out Olympic silver medalist Emma Weyant.
This would be an impressive victory for any woman. To be the best female swimmer in the country is an incredible achievement. The only problem: Lia Thomas is not a woman.
Thomas swam for Penn’s men’s team before this year but now identifies as a woman, turning Thomas from an overlooked and unimpressive men’s swimmer to the most dominant swimmer at women’s NCAA tournaments. We are allowing a biological man to swim against biological females, and unsurprisingly Thomas is beating them.
Is this respectful to women?
Milan Bolden-Morris
Earlier this week, the University of Michigan football team, led by coach Jim Harbaugh, hired Milan Bolden-Morris, a graduate assistant, to help coach the quarterbacks on the team. With this hire, Michigan became the first school in the Big Ten to hire a woman to its football coaching staff. That’s a great development for women in sports, isn’t it?
Well, let’s consider a few things. Unless Michigan is hiding something about the hire, Morris has zero experience playing or coaching football at this level. She played basketball at Georgetown and is currently getting her master’s degree in sports management at a university whose football program isn’t even in the same division as Michigan.
According to Sports Illustrated, Michigan didn’t even reach out to Morris—she reached out to them through her brother who is a defensive end on the team. Harbaugh agreed to interview her and said “he was impressed with her ‘desire and ideas for coaching’ and how to improve the team.”
So you’re telling me as long as you have a desire and good ideas for coaching, Harbaugh will give you a position on his staff? I guess it probably helps to have a brother on the team too.
But we have to ask, would Michigan have given this position to a man? If Georgetown’s point guard on the men’s basketball team called up Harbaugh and told him all his “ideas for coaching,” would he have hired him? I think we all know the answer.
Morris might very well be a great football coach, and I wish her the best as she deals with one of the most obnoxious football coaches and programs in the country, but she didn’t get the job because she’s qualified. She got the job because she’s a woman.
Is that respectful to women?
Ketanji Brown-Jackson
Yet another recent example of how we disrespect women by trying to lift them up as tokens of our own virtue is President Joe Biden’s nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Jackson is an extremely qualified candidate. She clerked for Justice Breyer and has her own judicial experience in circuit and district courts. While Jackson has radically progressive views on some issues, it’s hard to argue she doesn’t deserve the nomination, especially since it’s a radically progressive administration nominating her. She will most likely receive bipartisan approval and be confirmed to the court in the coming weeks.
But Jackson was never put forward as a qualified judge. The rhetoric surrounding her nomination didn’t focus on her achievements or qualifications but instead focused on the color of her skin and her sexual identity.
From the campaign trail, Biden promised to nominate “the first black woman to the Supreme Court.” Even before Justice Breyer retired and the search began for his replacement, Biden and his administration had already devalued the intellect of Jackson and placed her skin color at the forefront of her qualification.
Biden could have just as easily nominated Jackson after interviewing the top candidates regardless of their race and gender. Instead of putting Jackson up against a small field of other black women, he could have put her up against a field of all qualified candidates and still chosen her as the nominee. But by focusing on black women, Biden ensured that Jackson will primarily be known for her gender and skin color, not her intellect and experience.
Is that respectful to women?
Women deserve to compete in a fair environment, and they also deserve to be recognized for their amazing capabilities. It’s time to respect women for what they can do and give them fair opportunities to put those capabilities on display.
That’s respectful to women.