Sexism in Steeler Nation? August 18 2007
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette thinks so:
Not for her eyes? Female police should be treated as grown-ups
When it came time to pick officers for an off-duty assignment guarding the Steelers at the Hilton Pittsburgh hotel the night before the first preseason home game, female officers were not considered eligible to be on the players’ floor, because — as the officer choosing the detail said — the players “walk down the hallway with no clothes on.”
My response to this whole situation is… soooo? Of course it’s inappropriate to put women in a place where men are walking around without clothes on. That’s just obvious. It would be the same if it were naked women and a male police officer.
The P-G, however, thinks it’s all very sinister:
The Steelers were not involved and the security detail now will be handled in a different way. So the major remaining public interest is probably in the apparent resilience of the “old boy network” way of thinking.
Oooo, yes, the only reason why anybody would be against having female police officers around naked male football players is if he’s some kind of evil conservative member of the “old boy network”. The P-G attempts to emphasize the point:
As with female doctors and nurses, women police officers are likely to encounter men and women on occasion wearing little more than a smile — and so what? A blush is unlikely to come to their maiden cheeks. They are there to do a job, not to ogle. If football players in a hotel have a problem with it, they can put on a robe. If male officers have a problem with it, they can look at what the calendar says: 2007.
Sorry, P-G: female doctors and nurses are trained in anatomy. Being around naked men and women is literally part of their job, as they need to examine the body for illness. They are specifically trained to be able to look at the human body as a machine and search for any flaws in it. Plus a sterile, serious doctor’s office is a bit of a different environment than a rowdy locker room or hotel.
Here’s what I think the P-G’s real objection is: I think they’re upset that in Steeler Nation, the obvious and unquestionable differences between men and women were just acknowledged. Clearly if you admit that men are different from women, well, then you might actually get into questioning the idea that love is just any strong feelings between two people regardless of their sex. In short, if you say that there are differences between the two sexes, then you are challenging the radical feminist and homosexual orthodoxies that men and women are the same.
Would there ever be any question that a male police officer has no place in a locker room or hotel full of naked women? It’s simply inappropriate; just like homosexual boy scout masters.
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