The Snowflake Mafia discovered the popular web site Barstool Sports this week.
This soy-free zone of sports talk and open talk – the truly unforgivable part – was the object of a hit piece by NBC writer Shannon Ho – who portrayed it as a misogyny zone.
She bemoaned the “persistence of traditional masculinity in sports culture” at Barstool and quoted someone by the name of Soyaya Chemaly, the author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger, who says that guys who like to watch and talk about football aren’t just sports fans – they’re really crypto-
Ho lets this sail by like a Hail Mary pass on fourth and long – probably because it suits the tedious narrative of identity politics – and identity grievances.
But in the first – and obvious – place – women aren’t prominent in “traditional” sports like football and basketball for reasons that are biological – not patriarchal. There aren’t any female defensive ends in the NFL for the entirely sound reason that they’d be killed if they were placed opposite a male NFL defensive end.
And so would nine out of ten men.
Who are not “prominent” in such “roles” precisely because they’re not equal, either.
Almost no one is – that’s the point.
“Gender” may indeed be fungible – Bruce Jenner can dress like a woman and Rachel Maddow can dress like a man – but certain “roles”that are a function of biology aren’t.
This includes being an NFL defensive end – or an NBA forward.
The only way to “equalize” the proverbial playing field would be to alter it. By eliminating physical contact for instance. Then a 140 pound woman could stand across the scrimmage line from a 330 lb. male defensive end. But not many men – or women – would be interested in what happens when the quarterperson calls the snap.
Which seems to be the goal here.
To Jazz Hands everything.
To pathologize anything that men might like – or be more inclined to do by their nature – as an attack on women.
Will this also include cutting the grass? Buying a 4×4 truck?
And why doesn’t it ever work in reverse?
Men’s clubs have been forced to admit women; the Boy Scouts have been obliged to get rid of the “Boy” part. Men just hanging out together and being men is taken by the identity politickers as a conspiracy against women. But men have never objected to the Girl Scouts, nor to women getting together among themselves.
Most men want women to be women.
And most women don’t object to men being men, either.
Many admire them for it.
One of the pertinent facts Ho overlooked in her drive-by piece is the popularity of men’s sports such as the NFL and NBA – as well as collegiate sports played by men – with women.
In fact, male-dominated sports such as pro and collegiate football and basketball have never been more popular with women, who watch the game with their brothers, boyfriends, husbands and male friends.
Are they oppressed dupes of the patriarchy?
Could it be that normal people of both sexes (as opposed to “genders”) simply like watching elite athletes doing things that border on the superhuman?
Ho sees something else.
She says “Conservative ideology appears to be a core part of Barstool Sports – especially its portrayal of gender roles, with hypermasculine, sports-loving men and hypersexualized submissive women.”
Ho might have asked Barstool’s CEO Erika Nardini about that.
She has overseen the development of one of the most successful subscriber-based online business models extant.
Nardini recently told DIGIDAY she expects Barstool’s annual revenue to hit $100 million “within the next year and a half.”
Very submissive, that.
Never mind; there’s an agenda to pursue.
Ho also failed to interview any of the millions of women who are regular visitors to Barstool. Not one quote from an actual female reader. Just a lecture from a Woke reporter confecting a theory about what women ought to be offended by…
But inexplicably aren’t.
The site’s founder, David Portnoy, ridiculed Ho’s assertion that Barstool is political in any way. That it is “conservative” . . . or any other ideological thing.
He describes it as free speech zone where people can go to vent – about anything – even if someone like Ho is “triggered” by it.
Or, sicced on it.
The Woking Dead seemed to be unaware of Barstool’s existence until a Twitter feud erupted about a month ago between the site’s founder, David Portnoy and head of The Squad, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
AOC’s triggering may have lead to Ho’s scribbling.
“We will not bow down to the winds of PC culture, whichever way they may blow,” Portnoy says.
If that hurts the feelings of the Woking Dead, so be it.
Success is the best revenge. Barstool’s Alexa ranking is soaring – and because the site isn’t advertising dependent, it can’t be de-monetized.
Credit for that goes to a woman, too.
But nevermind.
It doesn’t fit the narrative.
A.J. Rice is CEO of Publius PR, a premiere millennial-owned
