Earlier today on CBC.ca, the Opinions section ran a post called "While The Men Watch Hockey Night". You can read it right there and come back when you're ready for my thoughts.
As a blogger with female parts, nothing annoys me more than this. Look I get that I just posted something on hockey lady porn, but it's not passing it off as hockey journalism. It's fluff with hockey subplot to move it along.
This is in bad form. Telling the CBC readers that women rather talk about/hear other women discuss cute boys and sex than actually pay attention to the game reflects poorly on women who love the game. Every airhead out there gets tv time or print space to run a "ladies'" version of their male counterparts, they deck it out in pink and sparkles and call it a day. That's not a "ladies' sport blog" that's just wasting space.
Sports journalism is hard enough to get into, no matter what's in your pants, stop taking it away from hard working individuals who bust their butt to learn the sport. Bragging about how they could "probably figure out how to analyze a five-on-four situation" but not actually bothering to learn makes me want to rip out my hair. Hiring these women or giving them space isn't bringing in that "elusive" women's demographic and it's driving away fans.
They follow it up by saying, "In all seriousness, there is no shortage of talented female sportscasters out there who we respect. We just think it's more fun to talk about why so many gorgeous players come from Welland Ontario and why they all skate around with scotch tape holding up their socks." Argh! Your dippy comments about this lands you on CBC's pages and now have a broadcasting gig with them. If you had respect for female sportscasters out there, or really any sportscasters out there, you'd stop. These topics are no better than the batshit insane things Mike Milbury says and everyone wants him off the air!
And it's not just the CBC, so many sites and companies are guilty of this and women set up their own sites thinking that they'll get noticed. Putting up a 300 word post on how so and so should go to prom with some fan because "it would be sooooooooo cute and Mila Kunis did the same thing for a solider" is not hockey coverage! Personally I don't care what the players do in their spare time, look like without their helmets on, or blah blah blah. I want a post to give me information that will help me better understand the game. That other stuff is a sure fire way for me to click off your site, and I know I'm not the only one. You wanna talk about that? Market yourself as an entertainment and gossip site.
Congrats on having a vagina, really, be proud of it, but keep it out of my sports news. Some of the smartest hockey writers I know do not play up their gender. I don't care who's telling me my hockey news, I just care whether or not it's good, factual, and reliable. Whether it's male or female or in between, fandom in sports has no need for gender.