Just recently she responded to the criticism and the suspension on November 17th in a New York Times article by Jere Longman saying,
"I still deeply regret it and will always regret it. I think the way the video came out, it did make me look like a monster. I definitely feel because I am a female it did bring about a lot more attention than if a male were to do it. It's more expected for men to go out there and be rough. The female, we're still looked at as, Oh, we kick the ball around and score a goal. But it's not. We train very hard to reach the highest level we can get to. The physical aspect has maybe increased over the years. I'm not saying it's for the bad or it's been too overly aggressive. It's a game. Sports are physical."
I think her response directly correlates with what we have been discussing in class. That is that women may be held to a higher standard in sports and that there are expectations for women athletes to behave in a certain way on and off the field of play. She brings up good points in her response about how women aren't as expected to be as rough on the field as men are. While this may be true and they are held to a different standard I think what she did went far beyond what is acceptable of any athlete. The way she acted on the field is inexcusable and would not be seen as justified even if she were a male athlete. What she did was almost barbaric. If a male soccer player was to do the same things she did it would garner just as much criticism as she received. He would have received just as harsh of a punishment and it would gain a lot of attention from the media. It is true that sports are physical, but sports are not intended to be violent. She should be glad that no assault charges have been brought against her.
I think that Lambert has a point that women may be held to a higher standard on and off the playing field. But no matter who you are at what level this kind of behavior is not necessary nor is it justifiable.
I do agree with the fact that some of her actions were out of line, but I also feel that women's sports maybe a bit more interesting to society if we did not hold them to the higher standard of being fragile, polite, non violent or aggressive. I have a different view because I played soccer and the only two problems I have with what she did was when she pulled the girl down by her hair and the follow through punch. Those two incidents wouldn't be acceptable even in the men's game but the rest are all typical hard tackles in soccer be it men's or women's. I have been elbowed in the back before or taken someone out with a hard slide tackle, it's part of the game. She let her emotions get the best of her which is a shame but should be given a second chance.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely agree that when female athletes act in an overaggressive way in sport, they typically are looked down upon a lot more than when male athletes perform the same behaviors. I wrote about this situation in my blog also, and I commented on the fact that Brandon Spikes of the University of Florida was caught on camera trying to gouge out the Georgia player's eye in a pile up during the game. It was mentioned a lot in the news with a few criticms occasionally mentioned, but soon died down. However, the Lambert case received a lot more negative criticism from the sport commentators that covered the story on shows such as SportsCenter, etc. I think she did take things way too far, even though her emotions kind of took over during the game. Athletics tend to be aggressive in nature at times, but her behavior was uncalled for regardless of the situation.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that Lambert's actions were violent and unnecessary. I also think it's very sad that the most attention women's soccer has received throughout the past decade has been Lambert's violent behavior in her game against Brigham this year and Brandi Chastain ripping off her jersey after scoring the game winning goal in the Women's World Cup in 1999. It's sad that women are held to this standard and criticized for their behavior if it is not perfect. Even though I see no problem with what Chastain did and a world of problems with the behavior Lambert showed, I still think that a male would have received much less criticism and definitely not have been in the spotlight for as long.
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