ENOUGH OF THE VIOLENCE
The Mixon case is another example on a long list of unacceptable behaviors in college sports that must end
Isat in the stands at NRG Stadium earlier this year when UH hosted my alma mater Oklahoma in the season opener.
The first touchdown came on a 32-yard run from Joe Mixon, one of the team’s star players.
Some OU fans near me stood up and cheered, excited that the Sooners were on the board.
I didn’t. I sat still. I was torn.
I am an OU alum and want to cheer for my school as much as anyone wants to. But with Mixon on the roster, I have been unable to feel any positive way about the football team.
Before he ever played a down of football in Norman, he assaulted a woman at a restaurant. There were witnesses, there’s a damning video that has finally surfaced.
The athletic department acted quickly and he was suspended for a season. I don’t think it was enough.
This season, he was on the field a lot with a stadium full of fans sup- porting him and cheering him on. I can’t be one of them. I love football. I grew up in South Texas. I spent my Friday nights at East Central Stadium in San Antonio and my Saturdays on the couch with my dad watching Southwest Conference games. I love this sport. I am also a female — one who works in a maledominated profession, one who is constantly criticized and trolled for simply showing up to do my job.
I can take it. I can take the terrible tweets, the hate mail in my inbox every morning. I undoubtedly will be on the receiving end of a lot of it for writing this.
What I cannot take much more of is the violence against women, the rape culture, the misogyny in sports — especially at the college level — on a daily basis.
Every day, there is a report that makes me angry.
The Princeton swim team, the Harvard cross country team, the Minne- sota football team.
Baylor lawsuits, the Joe Mixon tape. Every. Single. Day. It’s disgusting, disheartening, discouraging.
When I take to Twitter, the responses are frightening.
The response to Mixon being wrong for breaking a woman’s jaw was overwhelmingly that she deserved it. She said the wrong thing (you can’t hear any audio in the video). She shoved him. She was at fault. It doesn’t matter what she said or did. Violence on top of violence isn’t the answer. Two wrongs never make a right.
I had dozens of men explain to me that if women want equality, we should be able to take a punch.
I should shut my mouth. If I say something or do something to offend a man, he should be able to retaliate and I deserve it.
When I wrote that Art Briles was wrong to know his players gang-raped a woman and turned his head the other way, I was told on social media by a few men that I deserve to be raped.
When I’ve written that victims shouldn’t be blamed or shamed, that they should speak up and have voices, the response is that they are all lying.
Women shouldn’t be out drinking, shouldn’t wear so much makeup or dress a certain way. We bring it upon ourselves.
I don’t accept any of this.
It’s not OK that women are shamed and threatened, beaten and raped.
It’s even worse that justice for them is hard to come by because winning games and keeping up appearances are more important than the safety and well-being of women on campuses.
Something has to change across the board.
There needs to be uniformity in punishment, consistent consequence for not upholding Title IX regulations, accountability among athletic departments.
Winning is important, but not if it means athletes are getting away with terrible acts and crimes.
I’m going to be given dozens of excuses as to why Mixon is innocent, why Briles is a “great man,” why I — just some female — have no idea what I am talking about.
I accept that. I will take it.
But we all need to stop accepting this in college athletics. We need to expect more. We need to expect change.
Females shouldn’t have to fear athletes. They shouldn’t have to worry about being raped, being assaulted, being objectified.
We need to stop telling females that they are to blame for this. We have to start teaching young men that treating anyone this way is wrong. It’s that simple. We need to demand that things change.
We need to demand better.