{"id":5895,"date":"2022-06-17T17:14:33","date_gmt":"2022-06-17T21:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=5895"},"modified":"2022-06-17T17:14:34","modified_gmt":"2022-06-17T21:14:34","slug":"misogynistic-comments-begin-to-wear-down-female-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=5895","title":{"rendered":"Misogynistic Comments Begin to Wear Down Female Athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

1st Place, Human Interest Feature
<\/strong>2021-22, Division 2, News Writing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Isabelle Baumann<\/strong>
Occidentalist
Traverse City West Senior HS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a Friday night and the gym is filled with hundreds of Bleacher Creatures decked out in costumes for the men\u2019s basketball game, they erupt in cheer after every basket, perform memorized chants, and rush the court to celebrate the win. It is the kind of night they will all remember long after their time here at school, especially the players. But if we go back a few hours, for the girl\u2019s basketball game, the scene would look wildly different. Fewer students, quieter cheers, and more criticism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past month, the critical comments about women\u2019s sports seem to have reached a peak. Junior Ainslee Hewitt, a varsity basketball player, recounts her experience playing in the \u201cOxford Strong\u201d game on Feb. 4 at Central High School, and how members of her team overheard comments from the student section while they were playing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe student section was right behind [our bench] and the entire game they were saying things like, \u2018girl\u2019s basketball isn\u2019t even that good,\u2019 \u2018they suck,\u2019 and that the people in the student section could do \u2018better than us.\u2019 It got to the point where my teammate and I had to turn around and tell everyone to be quiet, it was that bad,\u201d Hewitt said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior Ally McKenna, another member of the women\u2019s varsity basketball team, felt the tension on both the sidelines and the court. These negative comments weigh down on the athletes, more than students realize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe all get super frustrated and down on ourselves when we hear [negative comments]. The game is a lot harder than it looks, and hearing those comments while playing, especially when they are coming from your peers, doesn\u2019t make it any easier. Sometimes it feels as if [the students] don\u2019t even want to be there,\u201d McKenna said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the time, the team is not impacted by the comments but by the lack of any cheering at all. Senior Megan Lautner explains that since the girl\u2019s and boy\u2019s teams are usually away for each other\u2019s games, the girls rely on the students not participating in the sport to show up for support.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u201cWest has always been known to have a huge student section compared to the rest of the schools in the [Big North Conference]. But for the girl\u2019s games, they are all ridiculously small. At our last home game there were only four Bleacher Creatures who showed up,\u201d Lautner said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0Although Senate tries to feature all of the teams at school equally, some members of the women\u2019s basketball team feel that their sport is often overlooked.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u201cI know it isn\u2019t the student senate\u2019s fault, but recently one of our team members, who is also a student senator, asked [Senate] to promote our game and they only promoted hockey, \u201d McKenna said. \u201cObviously the Battle of the Fans game was the big focus that week, but we still had two home games this week that no one knew about. We know they have a lot of stuff going on, and that some of them are trying, but it would be nice to see a bit more support from them,\u201d McKenna said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bleacher Creatures, with the energy they bring to each game, help teams win, as their encouragement instills a sense of confidence in the players on the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSenate even said in their [Battle of the Fans] video that the student section can help our teams win. That morale and support helps us so much, so when we see nobody we just think that no one really cares about our sport since we don\u2019t have that extra encouragement,\u201d Hewitt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hewitt does note that ultimately it comes down to the students as they are the ones who make up the sections.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, people are going to make their own decisions about what game they choose to attend, but at least just publicizing that there is a girl\u2019s game and there is an option to go instead of it just being an \u2018add on\u2019 to the boy\u2019s games,\u201d Hewitt said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other women\u2019s teams have had similar experiences as well. Senior Kaylee Niezgoda is a member of the varsity women\u2019s soccer team at school. Last spring, she overheard many hurtful, misogynistic comments made not only about their team but about their competitors as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[Some students] were calling out other girls on the field and making fun of them which made me uncomfortable. I just know that if I was in their shoes, I would feel awful,\u201d Niezgoda said. \u201cThey were making fun of how some of the players ran and going after their appearances. I understand that they were trying to distract them, but tearing someone down when they are just trying to compete is not the way to go about that,\u201d Niezgoda said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The comments made towards female athletes have been growing in severity, and they are beginning to notice. Niezgoda believes that students need to start holding their peers accountable so the student sections can create a positive environment for all athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have heard some of my peers make similar remarks about our own teams, calling players \u2018flat as a board,\u2019 and making fun of their appearances. It doesn\u2019t do any good to point out these things ever, and it is especially not relevant to how they are performing on the court,\u201d Niezgoda said. \u201cI understand people get angry and caught up in the moment, but it is important for us to realize that we are all still teenagers, and put ourselves in the shoes of the players and to think about how we would feel if people were making these rude remarks about ourselves,\u201d Niezgoda said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

View original material<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NW-13. Human Interest Feature<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Human interest features appeal to the emotions of the reader with inspiration, motivation, pathos or humor and often make effective use of quotes. Enter descriptive, personal experience or accomplishment, or humor in this category. These are generally shorter stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judging Criteria<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
  • Lead captures attention, arouses curiosity<\/li>
  • Emphasizes new element, fresh angle<\/li>
  • Colorful, lively presentation; effective form\/style<\/li>
  • Reflects adequate research, sound interviewing techniques<\/li>
  • Avoids summaries of published materials<\/li>
  • Effective use of facts\/quotes<\/li>
  • Interesting; appeals to the emotions<\/li>
  • Proper diction\/grammar<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    1st Place, Human Interest Feature2021-22, Division 2, News Writing By Isabelle BaumannOccidentalistTraverse City West Senior HS It\u2019s a Friday night and the gym is filled with hundreds of Bleacher Creatures decked out in costumes for the men\u2019s basketball game, they erupt in cheer after every basket, perform memorized chants, and rush the court to celebrate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61,4],"tags":[182,21],"class_list":["post-5895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-humaninterestfeature","category-nw","tag-2021-22","tag-division2","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Morgan Womack","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=12"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-1x5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}