Go-go boots critique sets women in sports reporting back 40 years

I’m not a banner-waving, bra-burning feminist, even if I do go to a women’s college where it’s socially acceptable. I’m not above flipping my hair and adopting a “who, me?” attitude to get myself out of an awkward situation or through airport security faster than the person next to me.

At the same time, I get pretty pissed off when someone tells me I can’t do something well because I’m a woman, or tries to belittle something that I have done for the same reason.

It took me two and a half years before I felt comfortable wearing a skirt to a football game press conference. I usually wore dress pants and a button-down shirt because I wanted to be taken seriously. I got extremely upset when copy editors spelled Terrell Owens’ name wrong after changing my abbreviation of T.O. because it undermined my credibility as a sportswriter—something that’s more easily lost, in my opinion, if you’re a woman.

I recently read Ruth Rosen’s “World Split Open,” a narrative of the Women’s Liberation Movement, for a history class of mine. And I constantly had to prevent myself from saying, “Really? That used to happen? Wow. Thank God I live in the here and now.”

But then things like Tony Kornheiser’s comments on his radio show about ESPN SportsCenter anchor Hannah Storm’s wardrobe happen, and I think maybe we haven’t come quite as far as we think. He said this and more about Storm’s outfit:

“She’s got on red go-go boots and a Catholic-school plaid skirt. Way too short for somebody in her 40s—or maybe early 50s by now. She’s got on her typically very, very tight shirt. She looks like she has sausage casing wrapping around her upper body.”

Now, criticizing her wardrobe? Completely acceptable. In fact I’d go so far as to say that if we didn’t criticize women’s and men’s wardrobes then several high-profile magazines would be out of business. But on a sports talk show, wardrobes should not be a topic of discussion. And alluding to the fact that a female anchor typically wears a “very, very tight shirt” is not okay.

It’s not okay to make a reference to her high-heeled boots as “go-go boots” when he's trying to say they look like heels of an exotic dancer or those featured in a sexy Halloween costume. Go-go boots actually have little or no heel. So not only were his comments inappropriate, they were also incorrect.

It’s difficult enough as a female in sports to get people to take you seriously. It seems that you have to prove yourself at every opportunity. At my first super bowl party with Spec, the sports editor asked me, “What’s the difference between an end around and a reverse?” I answered correctly. They were impressed. But no one asked any of the freshman boys to prove their football knowledge.

It comes with the territory. It’s accepted. You deal with it and then you do what you came to do: report.

ESPN suspended Kornheiser —who is known for his sarcastic and snarky comments — for two weeks because, as he admitted on his radio show he “broke the rules.”

He broke more than the rules though. He took someone who has worked her way into a world in which women had to fight tooth and nail for everything and reduced her to a wardrobe.

After graduating from Notre Dame, Hannah Storm wanted to be a sportscaster but was unable to because, as she said in an interview with Craig Ferguson in 2007, “no one really wanted to hire women.” Now she’s an anchor on SportsCenter—what some believe to be the Mecca of sports broadcasting—and people are talking about… her sense—or lack thereof—of style?

To be fair to Kornheiser, if he saw a man wearing something ridiculous he’d say something as well. But he probably wouldn’t say the man looked like an exotic dancer. And that’s the difference. If women can’t expect to feel comfortable when at work then perhaps we haven’t made the strides we think we have.

To all but a handful of the games I attended as a reporter for Spectator, I wore high heels. Rain, snow, a mountain of steps to get to the press box—it didn’t matter. Heels mean business, no matter what profession. They walk the fine line of making me feel attractive and professional at the same time. But one word like Kornheiser’s and I might’ve reconsidered.

The New York Daily News reported that Kornheiser had reached out to Storm and apologized. She accepted, according to the report, and even said she might need to retire the red boots.

Here at Spec, we now regularly have more girls at sports meetings than guys. What was once five females on staff has doubled in the four years I’ve been here. Not one person has made me feel uncomfortable with whatever I chose to wear—be it sweatpants, jeans, “catholic-school skirts,” or a dress.

But in a field where until the 1970s women reporters were not allowed in locker rooms after games, comments like Kornheiser’s prove there is still a long way to go before men look beyond a woman’s clothes.

Holly MacDonald is a Barnard College senior majoring in history and English.