Brennan column: U.S. men — athletes and broadcasters — take gold for being ridiculous and demeaning
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea – If they gave out medals at these Winter Olympics for all the ridiculous and demeaning things men say about women, U.S. athletes and members of the news media already might have clinched the gold.
The Americans do seem to possess something of an unfair advantage in having snowboarder Shaun White on their side. After winning the third Olympic gold medal of his career Wednesday, White cavalierly dismissed as “gossip” the serious sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him by Lena Zawaideh, a former drummer in his band, which led to a settlement between the two.
White then shut down any further questions on the important #MeToo topic in a nightmare of a news conference in which only male reporters were called upon to ask questions.
He later apologized on NBC, but the damage was done.
“Hopefully, before our country declares someone ‘the best of the U.S.,’ there will be investigation and due diligence,” Zawaideh’s attorney said in a statement.
But White was far from alone among American men insulting women, in- cluding two female athletes competing at the 2018 Games.
Bode Miller, an Olympic gold medalist and NBC analyst, couldn’t help himself from talking about another Olympic gold medalist’s marriage — and wouldn’t you know, that Olympian was a woman.
Austrian skier Anna Veith won gold in Sochi four years ago and also won overall World Cup titles in 2014 and 2015. She tore her ACL before the 2016 World Cup season and has never re- turned to her old form.
As NBC’s Dan Hicks — who himself gave credit to an Olympic gold medalwinning swimmer’s husband in Rio in 2016 — pointed out the significance of trying to recover from knee injuries in skiing, Miller chimed in:
“The knee is certainly an issue,” he said. “I want to point out she also got married. And it’s historically very challenging to race on the World Cup with a family or after being married.”
He didn’t stop there.
“Not to blame the spouses, but I just want to toss it out there that it may be her husband’s fault.”
Oh my. Instead of talking about Vieth’s comeback, or her career, or just about any sports-related topic at all, Miller couldn’t stop himself from treating her not as an athlete who happens to be a woman, but rather as a woman who happens to be an athlete, and he beelined right to her marriage.
He’s lucky NBC didn’t tell him to beeline right to the Seoul airport.
You know what happened next. Miller of course apologized for his “ill-advised attempt at a joke.” That’s what these guys do. They demean a female athlete, then are told by someone in the truck that they demeaned a female athlete, then they apologize. It’s clockwork.
Sometimes an apology isn’t enough. Patrick Conner, a sports radio host at KNBR in San Francisco, lost his job this week after calling 17-year-old Olympic halfpipe gold medalist Chloe Kim a “little hot piece of (expletive)” on his Barstool Sports show on SiriusXM.
What possesses a sexist radio host to think he can get away with that? Could it possibly be decades of sexist radio hosts getting away with it?
But not this time. Conner lost a big gig. Miller apologized. White is now being scrutinized through the lens of the #MeToo movement.
That’s the list, at least for now. But it could grow. After all, the Games are young.