Tuesday, January 31, 2006

okay okay you win!

I can't turn down my adoring fans. :) Thank you for commenting. I know mostly when I get down about what I write here it's because I'm not sure if anyone cares, which is silly I know. Still.

Here's an amusing anecdote for you:

Although I bemoan the high school/college sports team practice of naming your women's team after the "dimunitive", I guess if you're going to do it, you'd ought to be accurate about it. Now, my esteemed high school (home of hazing, harassment, and locker bombs) was sensibly just "The Broncos" and if you were on a girl's team it was "Bronco Girls' Swimming and Diving", although perhaps once or twice I remember a "Lady Broncos Swimming" bit on the announcements. At any rate, if you mentioned a boys' sport it was given the qualifier "boys" unless of course it was football or baseball. Because we're just not there yet.

But gee, if you knew some of those girls I swam with, wow, you sure wouldn't say they were ladies...

Anyway, it was always "Badgers women's hockey" or whatnot at UW, because "Badgerettes", on top of being plain offensive, sounds ridiculous.

Now let's say your sports team mascot is a lion. Pretty standard, not bad (at least it's not racially or culturally offensive) for a mascot. Couldn't really do much better, I guess. You're at a school in Texas, and naturally they think that it's proper to distiguish between boys and girls teams (but only qualifying the girls teams, of course- we're only observing Title IX because it's law). What would you name your girls' athletic teams?

Raise your hand if you said "Lionesses".

Thanks.

I thought I was justified.

But no, the good folks at (unnamed Texas high school) have seen fit to bundle sexism and biological inaccuracy all in one uniquely stupid package!

Yeah, that's right. The (unnamed Texas high school) Lionettes.

I'm not sure what that is. Maybe instead of hunting for food and bring it back to the pride, a lionette whips up a nice satisfying home-cooked meal for the mister. And gets his slippers! All while twirling a spirit stick!

On top of that, their logo is a copy of the Michigan "M". A pox of armored badgers descend upon them in outrageous fury!