Basta! Enough of sexism and sexual harassment in sports

#seacabó

August 26, 2023

One has to really screw up to win the maximum global competition in your arena – in this case Spain’s women’s football ⚽️ team winning the World Cup – and within days have more headlines around the world talking about how flawed and problematic your leadership is.

It started – and it didn’t – with Luis Rubiales, President of the RFEF (Real Federación Española de Fútbol) kissing football (soccer to Americans) player Jenni Hermoso on the mouth during the awards ceremony after España’s win. A kiss is not just a kiss when it’s a person in a position of power planting it on someone subordinate to him (or her). That person is not fully free to say no, and as stated by Jenni Hermoso, she didn’t want it, she didn’t like it, and she was pressured after the fact to downplay the incident and support Rubiales. It also didn’t start there. Rubiales has been problematic for years, with leaked audios on deals for Spain to play in Saudi Arabia, not a bastion of human rights and particularly not womens’ and LGBTQ rights; clashes with many in football, particularly relevant is that with “Las 15” from the womens’ football team that resulted in 12 players refusing to play on the National Team in the World Cup;

It doesn’t need to be a crime to be sufficient to show he shouldn’t be in his job leading the Federation. Society has plenty of machismo; the sports sector is particularly full of it.

I’ve spent more than 12 years of my career working in sports: as a reporter, as an intern in strategic planning at Real Madrid, and working in partnerships and operations at ESPN. Most of that work was done in the U.S., but also in Spain, Latin America, Canada and South Africa. There are differences in the ways that misogyny, sexism and machismo play out around the world, of course. There are countries in which women have far more opportunities than others, and Spain and the U.S. are two of those countries. That doesn’t mean the system isn’t rife with sexism.

I wrote about my experiences dealing with sexual assault and sexual harassment as a sports reporter for the New York Times two years ago.

Almost everybody focused on the fact that I was raped by a baseball player. It’s natural to focus on a violent extreme, as that is something that is much rarer, it’s exceptional, it isn’t the experience of most women working in sports. Yet I believed then and I believed now that it is every bit as important to address and root out the casual sexism and sexual harassment that every woman working in sports faces to some degree. No one such incident is as damaging, but I believe that persistently having to deal with sexist comments and behavior is as harmful over time. Examples include the way women working in sports are attacked or trolled on social media, told to go back to stereotypically female-dominated professions or to focus on motherhood, are challenged about their knowledge of a sport, are accused of sleeping with players, or have to deal with a top boss not just allowing but engaging in sexual harassment and lewd videos of employees. All these things and more lead to fewer women deciding to work in sports, fewer deciding to stay in sports, fewer getting promotions and – amidst it all – dealing with challenges that men don’t or rarely face.

All things Spain and global football are among my favorite things, so it pains me to see something that should be a celebration of success, perseverance, talent and joy turning into a debacle. Make no mistake, this is a debacle. And less so the kiss than the mangled “apologies” that weren’t and the RFEF’s embarrassing defense of Rubiales rather than Hermoso and the players. This should be a time when the Spanish National Team has loads of sponsorship opportunities pouring in, and this controversy is making the federation toxic. Make no mistake, the sponsors to date have been weak in public in their support of the women if any, and the same is shamefully true of almost all top male futbolistas. The international outcry has been even louder, from the New York Times to CNN to the BBC. This crisis could impact Spain’s chances of hosting the 2030 World Cup, in fact.

Sports is part of society, of course, not the only place in which sexism exists. In fact, it’s only since leaving sports that I am aware of having a boss who had an affair with an employee and misused company funds for it. But the problems are particularly acute in sports. It is time for change. Past time.

Reads of the week
Books
Podcast

  • Dr. Julie Gurner of on the Infinite Loops podcast with Jim O’Shaughnessy. A few of the nuggets I enjoyed: Look for founders who are relentlessly resourceful (Paul Graham). Strength precedes the weakness, often the opposite is a blind spot. …“You do have to have an openness. If you can detach emotionally from feedback that you get, it will push you every single time.” … “Don’t be nice. Big difference between being nice and kind – nice is about pleasing other people.” … Learn about people, how do they respond when things are not hitting their strengths …Charismatic people – pay attention to what are they not saying? … look for people who are highly adaptable …If able to instill two qualities in everyone: “try to put yourself in the place of other people” and