The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports

by Mariah Burton Nelson

Explores the connection between sports and sex, the reflection of women's freedom in physical movement and athletics, and how men respond to those expressions of freedom

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Sports, Womens, Sociology, Womens Studies

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

A former Stanford University and professional basketball player, Mariah Burton Nelson has written seven books for four major publishers -- Harcourt Brace, William Morrow, Random House, and Harper San Francisco -- and hundreds of articles for the Washington Post, the New York Times, Glamour, Newsweek, etc.

She has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, PrimeTime Live, Dateline, Nightline, Donahue, Larry King Live, and myriad other television and radio shows.

REVIEWS, ARE WE WINNING YET? (Random House, 1991)

Publishers Weekly
"…Provocative and informative…

Kirkus Reviews
"A superb book for athletes, for women who function in what still seems to be a man's world, and for the men who work with them."

Booklist
"A stimulating series of essays that touch on virtually all areas of female sports participation. A serious book that raises important issues to which there are no simple answers."

Philadelphia Inquirer
"Writing in a breezy style, without the weight of polemics or preachiness, Nelson has sketched a compelling study of the woman in sports – one that is as important to men as it is to women."

Washington Post
"An enormously empowering book that mothers should pass on to their daughters."

New York Times
"Are We Winning Yet?" finds that while women athletes may still be on the fringe of public consciousness and acceptance, they're drawing nearer."

REVIEWS, THE STRONGER WOMEN GET, THE MORE MEN LOVE FOOTBALL

Robert Lipsyte, New York Times
"Nelson writes with knees and elbows flying. Powerful, provocative, smart, important, touching, fascinating."

Library Journal
"Nelson has hit a home run. When it comes to popular sociology of women’s sports, nobody does it better."

San Francisco Examiner
"Had Backlash author Susan Faludi been an athlete, she might have written this book."

The Women’s Review of Books
"Readable, lively, and witty. Revolutionary. Not only about men’s violence but also about female love, growth, and empowerment through sports."

REVIEWS, THE UNBURDENED HEART

Publishers Weekly
"Thoughtful, persuasive, accomplished, engaging, considered, and eloquent."

New York Times
"Valuable, moving, and practical self-help."

Philadelphia Inquirer
"A brave and wrenching book. …A self-help tome, but reads like a suspense tale."

Washingtonian
Nelson has moved far afield from her identity as a sportswriter with this well-researched, honest, and inspiring book… The victim of sexual abuse by a coach when she was a teenager, she explains that the first key to forgiving is awareness that an offense occurred and had consequences. Each of the other keys—validation, compassion, humility, and self-forgiveness—is likewise grounded in the knowledge that there was reason to be hurt; otherwise, there’d be no reason to forgive. Nelson, a former college and pro athlete, knows something about defeat and victory. Her book gives self-help a good name.

Beliefnet
Nelson, today an accomplished sportswriter, had a highly ambiguous, clearly exploitative relationship with her married 25-year-old athletic coach when she was 14. She was angry at him for two decades, but after a long series of telephone conversations, letter exchanges and in-person meetings with him, she felt herself able to forgive. Are there limits to forgiveness? No, not really, writes Nelson in "The Unburdened Heart." Though she draws on Christian and Buddhist teachings, Nelson's own narrative is the most interesting part of the book; she reports on both sides, so the reader can to some extent decide independently whether "Bruce," the older man, is honest or disingenuous.

Reviews

[Anyu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting read. I'm not a sports person and have never devoted much thought to the history (& significance) of men's collective struggle to keep women out of sports, so this book was really enlightening in that aspect. Some excerpts:

• "At Cambridge in 1896, male undergraduates celebrated their school's refusal to grant women degrees by publicly hanging in effigy a female cyclist"

• "Men attending baseball games at Boston's Fenway Park in 1991 developed the habit of passing around and fondling plastic, life-sized, anatomically correct female blow-up dolls. As those dolls were tossed from spectator to spectator, individual men would stand, hold the dolls close, and simulate sexual intercourse. Or were they simulating rape? [...] Other men would cheer. [A woman attending] a Boston Red Sox game [recalls]: "They were touching her breasts [...], they threw her around to each other. These are grown men we're talking about. It was disgusting. It was like an advertisement for rape."

• "In a white-dominated, male-dominated culture, it makes no more sense to celebrate male bonding than it does to celebrate white bonding. [...] Whenever dominant groups segregate themselves from the mainstream, their gatherings solidify their sense of superiority, and their denigration of the underclasses. Such is the case in all-male military institutions, which have never been known for their enlightened views of women. It's also the case in manly sports. [...] A 1991 study of more than 10,000 students [...] at Maryland's State University found that 55% of all admitted acquaintance rape were committed by athletes, though athletes comprised only 16% of the male student body."

• "Rifle shooting used to be coed. But [...] Margaret Murdoch tied teammate Lanny Bassham for first place in the 1976 Olympics. [...] Immediately afterward, the international shooting federation segregated most events in the sport. There are now four events for women and seven for men—apparently a more 'natural' order of things."

• "In the case of bowling, this means separating tournaments (and offering men more money) on the pretext that men require different lane conditions. (All pro bowlers use the same size and weight balls, but men's lanes are conditioned with what's known as 'longer' oil.)"

• "The coverage [newspapers; radio; television; magazines] granted to female athletes [represents] less than 5 percent of total sports coverage, [giving] the erroneous impression that very few women compete in sports"

Somewhat tangential but I'm intrigued by the reviews that called this book "very much of its time" and "dated", a product of a bygone era, making me believe at first that it was at least from the 1960s. It was published in 1994! I can't help but feel that for a man's book to be critically deemed “very much of its time” it has to be, say, a century old and crammed with blatant racism (and even then), while we so naturally consider outdated a feminist book that was published within the lifetime of a 20-something woman. All books without exception are artefacts of a specific time period (for better or for worse), yet women sound uniquely apologetic about consulting (let alone appreciating, quoting, relying on) other women’s thoughts even from the generation directly preceding us, not entirely up to today’s feminist standards. How self-sabotaging.

One last quote:

Women have always been strong. We have carried water, harvested crops, birthed and raised children. Women do two-thirds of the world's work, according to New Zealand economist Marilyn Waring. But as women in the late 20th century gain increasing economic, political, and athletic strength, many men cling to manly sports as a symbol of "natural" male dominance. The stronger women get, the more enthusiastically male fans, players, coaches, and owners seem to be embracing a particular form of masculinity: toughness, aggression, denial of emotion, and a persistent denigration of all that's considered female. Attitudes learned on the playing fields, or by watching sports on television, leach into the soil of everyday life, where many men view women and treat women with disdain.

They call baseball the national pastime—which, in a diverse society, "unites us all." But baseball, football, and other manly sports do not unite Americans. They unite American men in a celebration of male victory. By pointing to men's greater size and strength and by imbuing those qualities with meaning (dominance, conquest), many men justify to themselves a two-tiered gender system with men on top. By defining certain sports as male, and by linking maleness to muscular might, men attempt to erect a seemingly biologically determined supremacy. As sports sociologist Susan Birrell has noted: "It's a short leap from seeing men as physically superior to seeing men as superior, period."

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really killer feminist analysis of misogyny and sports by an experienced, knowledgeable , and super insightful lesbian!! This was so badass

[Veleda · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book, though very much of its time. Some of the premises that Nelson takes on are hard to prove, such as what's really going through the mind of a man as he watches football. But her chapters on sexual harassment, underfunding for women athletes, lack of coverage for the same, are built in fact. The book feels very much a product of the second wave, which is neither good or bad, just a feeling I had. What is bad is the brief but very noticeable transphobia Nelson displays when discussing tennis player Renée Richards. She refuses the use the correct pronouns for Richards, using either "him" or "him/her," and can't move beyond the old "man in a dress" stereotype.

The book is now twenty years old, and I'd be interested to know what, if anything, has changed since then.

[Peter Bond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting writing about elements of sports culture, don’t agree with everything and full on TERF moment but easy read.

[Poppy Jacobs · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting analysis of the overlap between male sports and male violence. a thought-provoking read.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Argument Synopsis: Nelson argued that men are threatened by the gains of women up to the 1990s and doubled down on sports, particularly masculine violent ones. While women dominate the running boom, none speak of women doing it for pride, pleasure, power, and passion, only about looks. Nelson argued that women feel alientated from male talk of sports, and that football is the ultimate symbol of male power, with violence and muscle advantage. Furthermore, the violence in masculine sports encourages sexual assault and domestic violence. While there has always been fears of the “feminization” of society, which pushed more violent sports, Nelson argues that the 1970s-90s fueled the boom of the NFL as a reaction to women’s gains. She notes that it is largely symbolic, as there is no sport where all men are better than all women, and individual women routinely do better than men. While it reads somewhat dated, as a product of second wave feminism and at times essentializes the female vs male experience (at the time, she did not have much of a concept of trans issues), much of it still rings true, especially as campus sexual assault crisis continues to very much be in the public view.

Key Themes and Concepts
-High contact rate sports gain popularity as women advance in society, as the “last bastion” of all male spheres.
-Women gain power and change views by participating in sports. Women athletics are political acts.
-Sports are dominance bonding for men, a sort of sexual prowess.

[Kshab102 · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a common misconception that feminists and "man-haters" are one and the same, and books like this I believe reinforce the delusion. I felt like the author twisted and spin-doctored a lot of the issues to suit her agenda. Read with several grains of salt, if you choose to read it at all.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

A feminist critique of football. There was a lot that I didn't agree with, but if you believe that football is somehow anti-woman, than this is the book for you.

[Andrés · Rating 3 out of 5]

The feminism was a bit too shrill, but there were some good points and arguments made. A worthwhile read, but not great.